[saturncoleus]

Alternatively they could make their own API, independent from OpenCL. I have written a small amount in each languages (a rainbow table generator), and found the CUDA version much more pleasant to use. CUDA made it really easy to get a good idea of the underlying hardware, and make architectural changes in order to make the code faster.

OpenCL (using an ATI card) was much harder to program, since the abstraction level was much higher. Writing two separate kernels and have them each be faster than a generic version that ends up compromising for compatibility.

The OpenCL one ended up being faster, but I suspect that's due to ATI hardware being superior at the time.