Attention, Developers: We’re Turning Up the Power of NVIDIA SDKs for Turing

by Adam Kerin

Developers can get off to a running start with Turing, our new GPU architecture, using our latest software tools.

Unveiled last month, Turing is one of the biggest leaps in computer graphics in 20 years. As the first Turing-based GPUs hit the shelves, we’re delivering software innovations that help developers take advantage of this powerful architecture and boost computing performance.

Here’s a look at new software optimized for Turing and geared to advance the next generation of research, AI services and graphics.

Diving into Deep Learning SDK

CUDA

The CUDA parallel computing platform and programming model allows developers to harness the power of GPUs to accelerate compute-intensive applications. Each new generation of GPU architecture comes with a major CUDA update.

CUDA 10 includes support for Turing GPUs, performance optimized libraries, a new asynchronous task-graph programming model, enhanced CUDA & graphics API interoperability, and new developer tools.

Learn more and download CUDA 10.

cuDNN

A software library built on the CUDA platform, cuDNN accelerates deep learning training. Deep learning researchers and framework developers worldwide rely on cuDNN for high-performance GPU acceleration. It allows them to focus on training neural networks and developing software applications rather than spending time on low-level GPU performance tuning.

Deep learning frameworks using cuDNN 7.3 can leverage new features and performance of the Turing architecture to deliver faster training performance. cuDNN 7.3 highlights include improved grouped convolution and dilated convolution performance for popular deep learning applications in computer vision and speech.

Learn more and download cuDNN.

TensorRT

Turing GPUs are loaded with Tensor Cores that accelerate deep learning inference, which is when neural networks are deployed in the field. These cores accelerate applications such as natural language processing, recommender apps and neural machine translation.

With new optimizations and APIs, TensorRT 5 delivers up to 40x faster inference performance over CPUs, helping developers run AI services in real time. In addition to Linux, TensorRT 5 introduces support for new operating systems: Windows and CentOS.

Learn more and download TensorRT.

NCCL

NCCL enables fast communication between GPUs across various network interfaces, allowing deep learning frameworks to deliver efficient multi-node, multi-GPU training at scale. Using NCCL 2.3 and later, developers can leverage new features of Turing architecture and benefit from improved low latency algorithms.

Learn more and download NCCL.

Kicking Graphics into High Gear

NGX SDK

The NVIDIA NGX technology stack provides pre-trained networks and AI-based features that enhance graphics, accelerate video processing and improve image quality. These features rely on Tensor Cores found in RTX GPUs to maximize their efficiency and performance.

With the new RT Cores and advanced shaders on Turing GPUs, the NGX SDK can boost game performance and enhance digital content creation pipelines. The NGX SDK will be available in the next few weeks.

Learn more and register to be notified.

VRWorks Graphics SDK

Turing enables real-time ray tracing, AI and advanced shading techniques to bring virtual reality experiences to a level of realism far beyond the capabilities of traditional VR rendering.

The new VRWorks Graphics SDK improves performance and quality for VR applications by taking advantage of Turing’s variable rate shading abilities to concentrate rendering power where the eye is focused. It will also accelerate the next generation of ultra-wide field of view headsets with multi-view rendering.

Learn more and download NVIDIA VRWorks.

Giving Developers More Tools

Nsight Suite

The Nsight tool suite equips developers with powerful debugging and profiling tools to optimize performance, analyze bottlenecks and observe system activities.

Nsight Systems helps developers identify bottlenecks across their CPUs and GPUs, providing the insights needed to optimize their software. The new version includes CUDA 10 support and other enhancements.

Nsight Compute is an interactive CUDA API debugging and kernel profiling tool. The current version offers fast data collection of detailed performance metrics and API debugging via a user interface and command line tool.

Nsight Visual Studio Edition is an application development environment that allows developers to build, debug, profile and trace GPU applications. The new version includes graphics debugging with ray-tracing support and enhanced compute debugging and analysis with CUDA 10 support.

Nsight Graphics supports debugging, profiling and exporting frames built with popular graphics APIs. The new version makes GPU Trace publicly available and adds support for Vulkan ray tracing extensions.

Learn more and download NVIDIA Nsight.

Learn more information about the SDK updates on our Developer News Center.