"Start Locally" Preferences Selector

Timboxy: <p>One one computer that I viewed <code>https://pytorch.org/get-started/locally/</code> the “Compute Platform” options listed CUDA-ROCm-CPU.</p>
<p>On another machine the CPU option was replaced with “default” and the corresponding install commandf line created was different. Also the CUDA and ROCm options were struck through.</p>
<p>I am assuming the selector attempts to determine the best option for the computer viewing it since the preset options in both cases seemed sensible. However I am unclear as to the difference between “CPU” and “Default” options. The second computer had an AMD GPU but presumably not ROCm capable.</p>

ptrblck: <p>I guess you were on a Mac, as it disabled the CUDA and ROCm options and provides “Default” instead.<br>
I would guess that the selected package is called “default” instead of “CPU” as it should be able to use the MPS backend.</p>

Timboxy: <p>Yes, on  a Mac. I thought MPS was a CUDA based system devised by Nvidia so not sure how that would be the case.</p>

ptrblck: <p>No, MPS is not a CUDA-based system by NVIDIA.</p>

Timboxy: <p>Oh right. Unless we are not talking about <strong>M</strong>ulti <strong>P</strong>rocess <strong>S</strong>ervice which is what MPS means to me.</p>

ptrblck: <p>Right, MPS refers to “Metal Performance Shaders” and is used on Apple hardware. Multi-Process Service is not related to it.</p>

Timboxy: <p>Doh! The problem with TLA’s when contexts overlap. Given that a quick google search of “MPS GPU” returns CUDA &amp; Nvidia for the first 8 responses and only 1 reference to Apple in the first 20 I am clearly not the only one who doesn’t connect the acronym to “Metal Performance Shaders”.</p>
<p>Thanks so much for clarifying. Its a pity that this is not made more clear somewhere obvious in the docs as I spent ages trawling them and search terms like “MPS GPU” didn’t point me anywhere near the right direction.</p>

ptrblck: <p>Ha, yeah it can be quite confusing if similar (but still different) things use the same acronym.<br>
This reminds me when I tried to google the linux <code>size</code> command:</p>
<pre><code class="lang-auto">size --help
Usage: size [option(s)] [file(s)]
 Displays the sizes of sections inside binary files
 If no input file(s) are specified, a.out is assumed
 The options are:
  -A|-B|-G  --format={sysv|berkeley|gnu}  Select output style (default is berkeley)
  -o|-d|-x  --radix={8|10|16}         Display numbers in octal, decimal or hex
  -t        --totals                  Display the total sizes (Berkeley only)
            --common                  Display total size for *COM* syms
            --target=&lt;bfdname&gt;        Set the binary file format
            @&lt;file&gt;                   Read options from &lt;file&gt;
  -h        --help                    Display this information
  -v        --version                 Display the program's version

size: supported targets: elf64-x86-64 elf32-i386 elf32-iamcu elf32-x86-64 pei-i386 pei-x86-64 elf64-l1om elf64-k1om elf64-little elf64-big elf32-little elf32-big pe-x86-64 pe-bigobj-x86-64 pe-i386 srec symbolsrec verilog tekhex binary ihex plugin
Report bugs to &lt;http://www.sourceware.org/bugzilla/&gt;
</code></pre>
<p>which uses quite a tricky binary name if you want to search for it <img src="https://discuss.pytorch.org/images/emoji/apple/wink.png?v=12" title=":wink:" class="emoji" alt=":wink:" loading="lazy" width="20" height="20"></p>

Timboxy: <p>Well, Its all Gnu to me…</p>