CUDA Compilers

CUDA_Compilers.md

In general, check the crt/host_config.h file to find out which versions are supported. Sometimes it is possible to hack the requirements there to get some newer versions working, too :)

Thrust version can be found in $CUDA_ROOT/include/thrust/version.h.

Download Archives: https://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-toolkit-archive

Release notes for CUDA Toolkit (CTK):

• latest: https://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/cuda-toolkit-release-notes/index.html
• archive: https://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/archive/
• 11.8.0: https://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/archive/11.8.0/
• 11.7.2: https://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/archive/11.7.1
• ...
• 11.5.1: https://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/archive/11.5.1/
• 11.4.2: https://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/archive/11.4.2/
• 11.4.1: https://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/archive/11.4.1/
• 11.4.0: https://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/archive/11.4.0/
• 11.3: https://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/archive/11.3.0/index.html
• 11.2: https://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/archive/11.2.2/index.html
• 11.1: https://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/archive/11.1.1/index.html
• 11.0: https://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/archive/11.0/cuda-toolkit-release-notes/index.html
• 10.2: https://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/10.2/Prod/docs/sidebar/CUDA_Toolkit_Release_Notes.pdf
• 10.1: https://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/10.1/Prod/docs/sidebar/CUDA_Toolkit_Release_Notes.pdf
• 10.0: https://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/10.0/Prod/docs/sidebar/CUDA_Toolkit_Release_Notes.pdf
• 9.2: https://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/9.2/Prod/docs/sidebar/CUDA_Toolkit_Release_Notes.pdf
• 9.1: https://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/9.1/Prod/docs/sidebar/CUDA_Toolkit_Release_Notes.pdf
• 9.0: https://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/9.0/Prod/docs/sidebar/CUDA_Toolkit_Release_Notes.pdf
• 8.0: https://developer.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/8.0/Prod2/docs/sidebar/CUDA_Toolkit_Release_Notes-pdf
• 7.5: http://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/7.5/Prod/docs/sidebar/CUDA_Toolkit_Release_Notes.pdf
• 7.0: http://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/7_0/Prod/doc/CUDA_Toolkit_Release_Notes.pdf
• 6.5: http://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/6_5/rel/docs/CUDA_Toolkit_Release_Notes.pdf
• 6.0: http://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/6_0/rel/docs/CUDA_Toolkit_Release_Notes.pdf
• 5.5: http://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/5_5/rel/docs/CUDA_Toolkit_Release_Notes.pdf

Version notes Nvidia HPC SDK:

• https://docs.nvidia.com/hpc-sdk/hpc-sdk-release-notes/index.html

Compatibility Guarantees

Quote:

• CUDA 10.0: First introduced in CUDA 10, the CUDA Forward Compatible Upgrade is designed to allow users to get access to new CUDA features and run applications built with new CUDA releases on systems with older installations of the NVIDIA datacenter GPU driver.
• CUDA 11.1: First introduced in CUDA 11.1, CUDA Enhanced Compatibility provides two benefits:
  • By leveraging semantic versioning across components in the CUDA Toolkit, an application can be built for one CUDA minor release (such as 11.1) and work across all future minor releases within the major family (such as 11.x).
  • CUDA has relaxed the minimum driver version check and thus no longer requires a driver upgrade with minor releases of the CUDA Toolkit.
• CUDA 12.4: Starting in CUDA 12.4, the NVIDIA driver installation on Linux will be opt-in. The goal is to improve user experience for a wide range of use cases such as installing the open module flavor driver. The cuda-runtime dependency and therefore the cuda-drivers (NVIDIA driver) dependency will be removed from the top-level cuda meta-package. Effectively, the cuda and cuda-toolkit meta-packages will be equivalent in CUDA 12.4.

nvcc

Latest, officical Compiler requirements: http://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/cuda-installation-guide-linux/index.html

CUDA version	SM Arch	g++	icpc	pgc++	xlC	MSVC	clang++	Linux driver	thrust	note
1.0	1.0-1.1	?	?	?
1.1	1.0-1.1	?	?	?
2.0	1.0-1.1	?	?	?
2.1	1.0-1.3	?	?	?
2.3.1	1.0-1.3	?	?	?
3.0	1.0-2.0	?	?	?
3.1	1.0-2.0	?	?	?
3.2	1.0-2.1	?	11.1	?
4.0	1.0-2.1	<=4.4	11.1	?
4.1	1.0-2.1	<=4.5	11.1	?
4.2	1.0-2.1	<=4.6	11.1	?
5.0	1.0-3.?	<=4.6	11.1	?				?	1.5.3
5.5	1.0-3.?	<=4.8	12.1	?				?	1.7.0	C++11 on host side supported; ICC fixed to build 20110811
6.0	1.0-5.0	<=4.8	13.1	?				331.62	1.7.1
6.5	1.1-5.X	<=4.8	14.0	?		?		?	1.7.2	experimenal device side C++11 support; including this version, <thrust/sort.h> skrews up __CUDA_ARCH__ (must be undefined on host); deprecation of SM 11-13 (10 removed)
7.0.17 (RC)	s. below	<=4.9	15.0	>=14.9	13.1.1	?		346.29	1.8.0	first official PGI support, first xlc string found; powerpc64 w. little endian supported
7.0.27	2.0-5.X	<=4.9	15.0	>=14.9	13.1.1	2010-13		346.46	1.8.1	official C++11 support on device side
7.5		<=4.9	15.0	15.4	13.1	2010-13	3.5-3.6	352.41?	1.8.2	clang (host) on linux supported, __CUDACC_VER__ macros added
7.5.18	2.0-5.X	<=4.9	15.0	15.4	13.1	2010-13		352.39	1.8.2
8.0.44	2.0-6.X	<=5.3	15.0(.4)-16.0	16(.3)+	13.1(.2)	2012-15	3.8-3.9	367.48	1.8.3-patch2	sm_60 (pascal) support added
8.0.61	2.0-6.X	<=5.3	15.0(.4)-17.0	16(.3)+	13.1(.2)	2012-15	3.8-3.9	375.26	1.8.3-patch2	nvcc 8 is incompatible with std::tuple in gcc 5.4+
9.0.69 (RC)	3.0-7.0	<=5.5 (<=6)	15.0(.4)-17.0	17	13.1(.2)	2012-17	3.8-3.9	???.??	1.9.0-patch4	device-side C++14; __CUDACC_VER__ deprecated for __CUDACC_VER_MAJOR/MINOR/BUILD__
9.0.103 (RC)	3.0-7.0	<=5.5 (<=6)	15.0(.4)-17.0	17	13.1(.2)	2012-17	3.8-3.9	384.59	1.9.0-patch4	same as above, __CUDACC_VER__ defined as #error rendering it fully broken
9.0.176	3.0-7.0	<=5.5 (<=6)	(15.0-)17.0	17.1	13.1(.5)	2012-17	(3.8-)3.9	384.81	1.9.0-patch5	same as above
9.1.85	3.0-7.2	<=5.5 (<=6)	(15.0-)17.0	17.X	13.1(.6)	2012-17	(3.8-)4.0	390.46	1.9.1-patch2	math_functions.hpp moved to crt/
9.1.85.1										cuBLAS 9.1.128: Volta GEMM kernels optimized
9.1.85.2										ptxas: fix address calculations using large immediate operands
9.1.85.3										cuBLAS: fixes to GEMM optimizations for convolutional sequence to sequence (seq2seq) models.
9.0-9.1										nvcc 9.0-9.1 is incompatible with std::tuple in gcc 6+
9.2.88	3.0-7.2	<=7.3.0 (<=7)	(15.0-)17.0	17-18.X	13.1(.6),16.1	2012-17	(3.8-)5.0	396.26	1.9.2	CUTLASS 1.0 added; std::tuple fixed (prior GCC 6 issues)
9.2.148								396.37	1.9.2
10.0.130	3.0-7.5	<=7	(15.0-)18.0	17-18.X	13.1, 16.1	2013-17	(3.8-)6.0	410.48	1.9.3	CUDA Forward Compatible Upgrade
10.1.105	3.0-7.5	<=8	(15.0-)19.0	17-19.X		2013-19	(3.8-)7.0	418.39	1.9.4
10.1.168							(3.8-)8.0	418.67		10.1 "Update 1"
10.1.243								418.87		10.1 "Update 2"
10.2.89	3.0-7.5	<=8	(15.0-)19.0	18-19.X	13.1, 16.1	2015-19	(3.3-)8.X	440.33.01	1.9.7	sm_30,35,37,50 deprecated; nvcc: -allow-unsupported-compiler
11.0.1 (RC) NVCC:11.0.167	3.5-8.0	(5-)6-9.*	(15.0-)19.1	18-20.1	13.1, 16.1	2015-19	3.2-9.0.0	450.36.06	1.9.9	macOS dropped; libs drop pre-C++11, deprecate pre-C++14 (GCC < 5, Clang < 6, and MSVC < 2017); Arm C/C++ 19.2 support
11.0.2-1 NVCC:11.0.194							(3.3/)6-9.0.0	450.51.05		nvcc: --Wext-lambda-captures-this
11.0.3 NVCC:11.0.221	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	450.51.06	?	11.0 "Update 1"; nvcc: --forward-unknown-to-host-compiler, --forward-unknown-to-host-linker flags
11.1.0 NVCC:11.1.74	3.5-8.6	(5-)6-10.0	(15.0-)19.1	18-20.1	13.1, 16.1	2017-19	(3.3/)6-10.X	455.23.05	1.9.10-1	Ubuntu@ppc64le deprecated; CUDA Enhanced Compatibility
11.1.1 NVCC:11.1.?								?	?	?
11.2.0 NVCC:11.2.67							<12	460.27.04	1.10.0
11.2.1 NVCC:11.2.142								460.32.03	?	"Update 1"
11.2.2 NVCC:11.2.152								460.32.03	?	"Update 2"
11.3.0 NVCC:11.3.58		6.0-10.X						465.19.01	?	cu++flt added, Python Driver/RT bindings, alloca()
11.4.0 NVCC:11.4.48		6.0-11.X					<13	470.42.01	?	sm30,32 and Ubuntu 16.04 dropped, C++11 stdlib for math
11.4.1 NVCC:11.4.100		6.0-11.X						470.57.02	?	11.4 "Update 1", fix g++ 10 issues with chrono headers of libstdc++; Ubuntu 16.04 dropped (x86)
11.4.2 NVCC:11.4.120							3.2-12.X	470.57.02	?	...
11.5.0 NVCC:11.5.50		6.0-11.X					3.2-12.X	495.29.05	?	...
11.5.1 NVCC:11.5.119
11.6.0 NVCC:11.6.55		6.0-11.X				adds VS2022	3.2-13.X	510.39.01	?	adds -arch=native and PTX generation in nvlink (for LTO workflows with PTX)
11.6.1 NVCC:11.6.112								510.47.03	?
11.6.2 NVCC:11.6.124								510.47.03	?
11.7.0 NVCC:11.7.64		?	?	?	?			515.43.04	?
11.7.1 NVCC:11.7.99								515.65.01	?
11.8.0 NVCC:11.8.89		6.0-11.2.1						520.61.05	?
12.0.0 NVCC:12.0.76	4.0-9.0	6.0-12.1 (12.2.1)	2021.6	22.7	16.1.x	-VS2022 17.4	-14.X	525.60.13	2.0.1	C++20 support, Hopper and Lovelance, JIT LTO (nvJitLink lib), NVVM IR 2.0, CUDA-MEMCHECK -> Compute Sanitizer , sm_35/37 dropped in all libs, 32-bit compilation support dropped
12.3.0 NVCC:12.0.76								545.23.06	2.2.0
CUDA version	SM	g++	icpc	pgc++	xlC	MSVC	clang++	Linux driver	thrust	note

SM: means SM architecture support.

pgc++: now NVHPC products, e.g., nvc/nvfortran/nvc++.

Note: empty cells generally mean "same as above" for readability.

macOS: As of 7.0, clang seems to be the only supported compiler on OSX (but no version check found). CUDA 10.1.243 adds support for Xcode 10.2 . CUDA 11.0 dropped macOS support.

Compilers such as pgC, icc, xlC are only supported on x86 linux and little endian.

Dynamic parallelism was added with sm_35 and CUDA 5.0.

Newer CUDA releases have a per-release support matrix for compilers, which also lists supported kernel and glibc versions: https://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/cuda-installation-guide-linux/index.html#system-requirements

clang++ -x cuda

clang++ can compile CUDA C++ to ptx as well. Give it a whirl!

clang++	supported CUDA release	supported SMs
3.9-5.0	7.0-8.0	2.0-(5.0)6.0
6.0	7.0-9.0	(2.0)3.0-7.0
7.0	7.0-9.2	(2.0)3.0-7.2
8.0	7.0-10.0	(2.0)3.0-7.5
9.0	7.0-10.1	(2.0)3.0-7.5
10.0	7.0-10.1	(2.0)3.0-7.5
11.0	7.0-11.0	(2.0)3.0-8.0
12.0	7.0-11.0	(2.0)3.0-8.0
13.0	7.0-11.2	(2.0)3.0-8.6
14.0	7.0-11.5	(2.0)3.0-8.6
15.0	7.0-11.5	(2.0)3.0-8.6
16.0	7.0-11.8	(2.0)3.0-9.0
main	7.0-12.1	(2.0)3.5-9.0

https://llvm.org/docs/CompileCudaWithLLVM.html

Device-Side C++ Standard Support

C++ core language features:

	supported C++ standard	notes
nvcc -6.0	c++03
nvcc 6.5	c++03, exp. c++11	undocumented
nvcc 7.0-8.0	c++03,11	only c++11 switch
nvcc 9.0-10.2	c++03,11,14	10.2 adds libcu++ (atomics); open repository: https://github.com/NVIDIA/libcudacxx/releases
nvcc 11.0.167+	c++03,11,14,17	C++11 host compiler needed for math libs; ships C++11-compatible backport of the C++20 synchronization library; device LTO added; starting with CUDA Toolkit 11.0.1, nvcc and CUDA Toolkit versions are not equivalent anymore
nvcc 12.0+	c++03,11,14,17,20
clang 5+	c++03,11,14,17
clang 6+	c++03,11,14,17,2a
clang 10+	c++03,11,14,17,20
clang 13+	c++03,11,14,17,20,2b
clang trunk	c++03,11,14,17,20,2b	status

CUDA-enabled C++ standard library libcu++, based on LLVM's libc++ (docs):

	introduced components	notes
CUDA 10.2	<atomic> (SM6.0+), <type_traits>	introduction of libcu++
CUDA 11.0	atomic<T>::wait/notify, <barrier>, <latch>, <counting_semaphore>(SM7.0+), <chrono>, <ratio>, <functional> w/o function	anticipated with GTC 2020 slides
CUDA 11.2	cuda::std::tuple,pair	notes
CUDA 12.0	cuda::std::barrier
CUDA next	cuda::std::complex, backports: chrono, type_traits	notes
newer	see the release notes and api docs	all open source now

Incremental libcu++ release goals (GTC 2020):

• Version 1 (CUDA 10.2): <atomic>(SM6.0+), <type_traits>.
• Version 2 (CUDA next): atomic<T>::wait/notify, <barrier>, <latch>, <counting_semaphore>(SM7.0+), <chrono>, <ratio>, <functional>minus function.
• Future priorities: atomic_ref<T>, <complex>, <tuple>, <array>, <utility>, <cmath>, string processing, ...

NVC++

NVC++ is a unified C++ compiler and GPU-accelerated STL for the CUDA platform. It also seems to support OpenACC. NVC++ does currently not support the CUDA C++ language.

	supported C++ standard	notes
nvc++ 11.0	...,c++17	initial release, ships C++11-compatible backport of the C++20 synchronization library

All GPU compilers are cheese.

I found this page very useful - I am wondering if anyone is using github action for CI?

after github retires macos-10.5/xcode 10.0.3, I can non longer compile my cuda code using github's macos-11 and newer runners. see

actions/runner-images#7838

a strange thing is that even I copy cuda 10.2 or 8 on the macos-11 runner and use the nvcc in these older cuda versions, it still complain Apple Clang or GNU GCC are not supported. It also appears to me that such error was not thrown by crt/host_config.h.

is there ANY way to build CUDA on macos 11 or newer?

@fangq I'd just not bother with building CUDA on CI for macos anymore if CUDA support is dropped. What is the point of testing something if it cannot be run anymore? And it seems the latest working CUDA on macos is 10.2 and that only supports Clang <= 8.x
But if you really want you can try nvcc: -allow-unsupported-compiler as mentioned in the table above.

@Flamefire, I can't run any test from the runner anyways because it does not have GPU. I need it for building binaries for supported OSes. I statically link with cudart, so even cuda can not run on newer macos, a binary can still run as long as nvidia driver is installed.

I just tried the -allow-unsupported-compiler flag, unfortunately it has no effect, nvcc still complains that Apple Clang or GCC are not supported, nvcc 10.2 on macos 12; tried --allow-unsupported-compiler as well, same error.

$ nvcc --version
nvcc: NVIDIA (R) Cuda compiler driver
Copyright (c) 2005-2019 NVIDIA Corporation
Built on Wed_Oct_23_19:34:12_PDT_2019
Cuda compilation tools, release 10.2, V10.2.89

$ make CUDACC='nvcc -allow-unsupported-compiler'
nvcc -allow-unsupported-compiler -c -g -lineinfo -Xcompiler -Wall -DSAVE_DETECTORS -use_fast_math -arch=sm_35 -DMCX_TARGET_NAME='"Fermi MCX"' -DUSE_ATOMIC -use_fast_math -DSAVE_DETECTORS -o mcx_core.o  mcx_core.cu
nvcc fatal   : The version ('14.0') of the host compiler ('Apple clang') is not supported
make: *** [mcx_core.o] Error 1

$ make CUDACC='nvcc -allow-unsupported-compiler -ccbin /usr/local/bin/gcc-7'
/bin/sh: line 0: [: /Users/fangq/Downloads/cuda/bin/nvcc: binary operator expected
nvcc -allow-unsupported-compiler -ccbin /usr/local/bin/gcc-7 -c -g -lineinfo -Xcompiler -Wall -DSAVE_DETECTORS -use_fast_math -arch=sm_35 -DMCX_TARGET_NAME='"Fermi MCX"' -DUSE_ATOMIC -use_fast_math -DSAVE_DETECTORS -o mcx_core.o  mcx_core.cu
nvcc fatal   : GNU C/C++ compiler is no longer supported as a host compiler on Mac OS X.
make: *** [mcx_core.o] Error 1

@Flamefire, I can't run any test from the runner anyways because it does not have GPU. I need it for building binaries for supported OSes.

I meant: Is it worth building those binaries if they may not be run anymore (by users) as the OS stopped supporting CUDA (or the other way round)?

I just tried the -allow-unsupported-compiler flag, unfortunately it has no effect, nvcc still complains that Apple Clang or GCC are not supported, nvcc 10.2 on macos 12

https://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/cuda-compiler-driver-nvcc/index.html#allow-unsupported-compiler-allow-unsupported-compiler

This option has no effect on MacOS.

So there is no solution.

@ax3l I think the 11.4.0 for g++ is wrong. It only supports up to 10.X but the table shows compatibility with version 11. From my crt/host_config.h:

#if __GNUC__ > 10

#error -- unsupported GNU version! gcc versions later than 10 are not supported! The nvcc flag '-allow-unsupported-compiler' can be used to override this version check; however, using an unsupported host compiler may cause compilation failure or incorrect run time execution. Use at your own risk.

#endif /* __GNUC__ > 10 */

@Seralpa which CUDA version did you refer to? CUDA 11.4.0?

@ax3l yeah, CUDA version 11.4.0

In some cases, NVCC 11.4 may not work well with GCC-11, idk the specific reasons, but export NVCC_APPEND_FLAGS='-ccbin gcc-10' actually works for me.

❯ nvcc -V
nvcc: NVIDIA (R) Cuda compiler driver
Copyright (c) 2005-2021 NVIDIA Corporation
Built on Mon_Oct_11_21:27:02_PDT_2021
Cuda compilation tools, release 11.4, V11.4.152
Build cuda_11.4.r11.4/compiler.30521435_0

Error while compling:

/usr/include/stdio.h(195): error: attribute "malloc" does not take arguments

See also: https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/t/cuda-11-5-samples-throw-multiple-error-attribute-malloc-does-not-take-arguments/192750

In some cases, NVCC 11.4 may not work well with GCC-11, idk the specific reasons, but export NVCC_APPEND_FLAGS='-ccbin gcc-10' actually works for me.

❯ nvcc -V
nvcc: NVIDIA (R) Cuda compiler driver
Copyright (c) 2005-2021 NVIDIA Corporation
Built on Mon_Oct_11_21:27:02_PDT_2021
Cuda compilation tools, release 11.4, V11.4.152
Build cuda_11.4.r11.4/compiler.30521435_0

Error while compling:

/usr/include/stdio.h(195): error: attribute "malloc" does not take arguments

See also: https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/t/cuda-11-5-samples-throw-multiple-error-attribute-malloc-does-not-take-arguments/192750

I'm trying to get Cuda 12.1 working with libtorch and gcc-14, and that also works for me. Thanks.