Adobe CS4支援通用圖形處理器 (GPGPU)

最近，Google與宏達電合作生產的Gphone終於上市。

通常，軟硬體異業結盟的案例，都說雙贏，但，我們都很清楚，隨著策略佈局，時間階段演進，誰主宰大勢所趨將愈來愈顯明朗。

Gphone之外，另一個鮮明的案例是Adobe才剛發表的Creative Suite 4（猶記去年我們才在哀嚎阿土伯CS不斷之錢不夠花……）。

有篇報導提到：Adobe的CS4將採用GPGPU（通用圖形處理器）。

GPGPU computing has just taken a major step into the world of mainstream software development, as Adobe has now released a GPU-accelerated version of its Creative Suite 4, comprising Photoshop, After Effects and Premiere Pro.

Both Premiere Pro and After Effects only support GPU features on Nvidia’s Quadro GPUs, but Photoshop CS4 allows GPU acceleration on any mainstream Shader Model 3.0 GPU. Built on OpenGL, Photoshop CS4's GPU features allow real-time rotation of images and accelerated zooming and panning. As well as this, Photoshop CS4 also uses the GPU for anti-aliasing on text and objects, and it can tap the GPU for brushstroke previews, HDR tone mapping and colour conversion.

報導提及的GPU（Graphic Processing Unit，圖形處理器），最早是由顯示卡大廠NVIDIA所提出，之後實作在GPGPU上。事實上，NVIDIA的主要對手ATI後來也提出VPU（Video Processing Unit）來相抗衡。

「Adobe的CS4將採用GPGPU」，看起來，好像單純只是一家軟體商採用了某種硬體技術。然而，當這家軟體商是Adobe時，這被採行的硬體技術，也順理成章被提昇為業界標準了。

Tags: Adobe, CS4, GPGPU, GPU, NVIDIA, ATI, VPU, 業界標準