The biggist issue I see with GPU is lack of a standard, i.e. CUDA v OpenCL and just who will be supporting this app, links to the FAQ's are posted in at least 3000 places and 98% of the CPU problems posted can be solved via the FAQ's, now add 2 GPUs, 20 or so driver versions, untold number of cpu/gpu/os variations and all I see is a support nightmare and user problems. Now if Nvidia and ATI were to supply a free of charge support tech to both the devolopers and the users, then this may happen, as it stands now, they are too busy fighting for the "Standard" and market share. maybe one or both manufactures can join IBM in this.

Have seen this same fight to many times, Beta V VHS, USB V Firewire, Mac V MS, The better system does not always win

I've found my GTS 450 adequate for both GPUGRID and Milkyway@Home. Chosen partly because it requires only perhaps 1 watt more power than the 9800 GT I used previously.

Nvidia doesn't make it clear whether their GeForce GT 420 - OEM and GeForce 405 - OEM are new low ends to the Fermi family or not. The OEM implies that they are not sold separately, though.

Thanks for the sentiment, Robert. Sympathise with your situation - the quacks reckon the only thing that's saving me from the same fate is the little green pills. Or maybe the brown ones...

I'm situated in Perth, Western Australia, so commuting may be a small obstacle. I'm intrigued about why any variety of programming would need to be performed on-site on a oil rig.

When I say that the federal government offers no help, what I mean is that they ACTIVELY attempt to get you off of their system - delete you with no notification and find creative ways of keeping you off of the unemployment list.

The extent to which the local job-finding office may help is that they will allow you to read the newspaper and use their computers to access the internet any time you like and for free. That's it - nothing more. The fact that it costs more in fuel to get to their office than the cost of a newspaper (and does anyone in IT advertise in newspapers any more?) and that my machines are better than theirs appears irrelevant.

I'd considered getting more qualifications, but having dealt with some recent "graduates" I really see modern degrees as being little more than fancy fees-receipts, distributed according to the demographics of the squeaky wheels. Employers seem to be intimidated by an extensive work history and prefer a "new grad" - green, but cheap (on an hourly basis...) Sadly, more qualifications, if I could afford to obtain them, would seem to be fated to make the situation worse.

I'll claim no exclusivity in this dilemma. I don't believe it's confined to IT either, or Australia for that matter. What's important to the Blues and the Buffs is votes and the power - not the welfare of the community and the waste of talent, experience and education that their policies cause.

Mysteron347,

Looks like Australia is rather different in what they offer for finding jobs than here in the US.

Apparantly, some oil-drilling companies use rather high-end parallel computing for processing some of the echo-sounding data to decide where to aim their drilling, and also to keep track of where their drilling is aimed when they have used direction-changing more than once. Why they often want it done on-site is less clear, but I suspect that many of those sites do not have adequate internet connections to do it off-site. I'd expect on-land drilling sites to set up buildings near the oil rig, to keep their computers away from the oil.

Looks like continuing education (possibly online) may be more appropriate for you than getting another degree. I've found little on US employers still interested in whether applicants can program in C; they tend to be more interested in whether they can program in the more recent computer languages, such as C++. I'd expect the oil-drilling companies to be especially interested in whether you can program in CUDA or OpenCL.

If you've learned any more recent computer languages at work, you may want to look for online universities that offer testing of your knowledge of various subjects, with a certificate to be awarded if you pass the test, probably much cheaper than a course on that subject.

A few items that look likely to be of interest to you:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/cuda_books.html

http://research.nvidia.com/content/cuda-courses-map

http://developer.amd.com/SDKS/Pages/default.aspx

http://developer.nvidia.com//

http://www.nvidia.com/object/cuda_consultants.html

http://www.fixstars.com/en/company/books/opencl/


A site mentioned as showing what programming you can do; it also has a jobs listing section, although one with rather few jobs in Australia yet.

https://github.com/

One more BOINC project planning GPU applications soon:

Poem@Home

Already has a CPU application written in OpenCL, but appears to be waiting for the 6.14.* series of BOINC versions that will supply more support for GPU applications written in OpenCL.