CUDA, Objective-C and Xcode — Part 1

Xcode is the preferred integrated development enviroment (IDE) for most Cocoa developers. It offers good support for a variety of languages, esp. C, C++ and Objective-C. It is possible to extend Xcode to handle matters which Apple does not support out of the box. This post shows how to integrate CUDA with Xcode.

This howto guide was written for Xcode 3.1.3, Mac OS X 10.5.7 and CUDA 2.2. Keep in mind, that later versions may break the following procedure.

To use CUDA the basic files from NVIDIA are required.

• CUDA Toolkit 2.2 for Mac OS
• CUDA SDK 2.2.1 code samples for Mac OS
• (optional) CUDA Visual Profiler v1.2 for Mac OS

When installing these files, take care to choose custom install and mark the CUDA.kext to be installed. See the note on my earlier post about this.

In the next step two files are required: a plug-in to introduce .cu files to Xcode and a template to set up Xcode for CUDA programming. You can download both files from the NVIDA forum in the CUDA on Mac OS X section, specifically posting #29 in this thread. Some very talented guy called Paul T. Thompson created a plug-in and a template. Download the two files labeled “CUDA_Projects.zip” and “NVCuda.pbplugin.zip”.

As described by Paul, these files need to be copied to specific places in your $HOME directory. Here’s the summary:

“CUDA_Projects.zip”

1. Extract the file CUDA_Projects.zip
2. Copy the folder CUDA Projects to the folder
   $HOME/Library/Application Support/Developer/Shared/Xcode/Project Templates/
   If some of the folders do not exist in your $HOME folder, simply create them.

“NVCuda.pbplugin.zip”

1. Extract the file NVCuda.plugin.zip
2. Copy the file NVCuda.plugin to the folder
   $HOME/Library/Application Support/Developer/Shared/Xcode/Plug-ins/
   Again, if some folders do not exist in your $HOME folder, simply create them.

Basically, that is all, what needs to be done. Launch Xcode and verify the correct installation of CUDA and the plug-in as well as the template. When creating a New Project… , there should be a new choice if the template was copied to the correct location:

User Templates > CUDA Projects > CUDA C:C++ App

Select this and create a new CUDA C:C++ App. To verify the NVCuda.pbplugin, select

Project > Edit Project Settings > Build

Near the bottom of the list should be a section named NVIDIA CUDA – CodeGeneration. If you see this, the plug-in was installed correctly. By default, Device Emulation is active. In the screenshot below it is deactivated.

So far — so good. In a soon™ to be published follow up I will explain how to combine Cocoa and CUDA.