parallelbrot

GPU-accelerated Mandelbrot set renderer with OpenCL (cross-platform), CUDA (NVIDIA), and CPU backends.

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Quick Start

1 — Install dependencies

Linux — Ubuntu / Debian

make install-deps-ubuntu      # OpenCL + OpenGL + GLFW + GLEW
make install-cuda-ubuntu      # CUDA toolkit (NVIDIA only)

For other distros, replace ubuntu with fedora or arch.

2 — Build & Run

make opencl && build/mandelbrot_opencl   # Any GPU — recommended
make cuda   && build/mandelbrot_cuda     # NVIDIA only (fastest)
make cpu    && build/mandelbrot_cpu      # CPU fallback
make all                                 # Build opencl + cpu
make clean                              # Remove build artifacts

Windows: executables are built as build/mandelbrot_*.exe automatically.

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Controls

Key / Input	Action
Mouse drag	Pan
Mouse wheel	Zoom (centred on cursor)
Arrow keys	Pan
+ / -	Increase / decrease iterations
C	Cycle colour schemes
R	Reset view
ESC	Quit

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Requirements

Component	Linux	macOS	Windows (MSYS2)
Compiler	g++ (GCC ≥ 9)	Apple Clang / GCC	MinGW-w64 g++
Build tool	make, pkg-config	make, pkg-config	GNU make, pkg-config
OpenGL	libgl1-mesa-dev, libglew-dev	Built-in framework	mingw-w64-x86_64-glew
GLFW 3	libglfw3-dev	brew install glfw	mingw-w64-x86_64-glfw
OpenCL	ocl-icd-opencl-dev + GPU driver	Built-in framework	mingw-w64-x86_64-opencl-icd + GPU driver
CUDA (optional)	nvidia-cuda-toolkit + driver 470+	(not supported)	NVIDIA CUDA Toolkit

GPU driver notes

• NVIDIA (Linux): install the proprietary driver or nvidia-opencl-dev.
  OpenCL will automatically use NVIDIA CUDA via the ICD loader.
• AMD (Linux): install the ROCm stack (rocm-opencl-runtime) or Mesa OpenCL (mesa-opencl-icd).
• Intel (Linux): install intel-opencl-icd.
• macOS: OpenCL is provided by the OS; no extra driver needed.

Check your GPU

make check-opencl    # list OpenCL devices
make check-cuda      # check CUDA / nvcc version

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Makefile Reference

make help            # full target list

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License

MIT — see LICENSE.