GPU

Fred's Fractal Factory can use the GPU to calculate Mandelbrot Escape Count values.

The GPU selection allows you to select the Graphics Processing Unit used by Fred's Fractal Factory. Fred accesses the GPU via the OpenCL library, so the OpenCL drivers must be installed on your system. Which OpenCL drivers are installed on your system generally depends on which vendor made you video graphics hardware. The GPU and OpenCL library that you select must support double precision arithmetic. If your selected GPU does not support double precision arithmetic, then Fred will tell you so, and then revert to calculating with the CPU. Fred works fine if no GPU is available, but it runs slower.

If Fred cannot find a GPU via the OpenCL library, then the only selection available will be 'GPU NOT USED'. Fred's Fractal Factory will default to using a GPU if it can find one.

Note that if you load an .efractal file into the Factory, or start calculating a new .efractal file, then you can no longer change the GPU selection. This remains true even if you Pause the calculations or if they run to completion. This inability to change the GPU selection is basically a bug which will be fixed in a later release. A workaround for this bug is to click on the File->New menu item, and then change the GPU selection.