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[kbrafford]

How well do algorithms that use look-up tables perform when you implement the table as an image for the parallel version?  For instance, how well would the "Two Plus Two" Poker evaluator be expected to perform on a GPU if the 133MB look-up table were encoded as an image and read using samplers?

http://www.codingthewheel.com/archives/poker-hand-evaluator-roundup#2p2

Do image reads need to be coalesced like buffer reads for there to be maximal performance?

--Keith Brafford

[notzed · Accepted solution]

See the section in the programming guide about memory tiling.

In short: for maximum performance image access should be 2d-coherent, and the cache is so small it has to be pretty closely coherent.

For random access pattern a simple array might be better, unless the 8-bit 'float' access is useful.