Is it theoretically possible to run an OS on a gpu

[aren332]

For example a 4090, use its 24gb of ram part for  storage of the OS, part for actual memory, part for video memory. Use its processing unit as both a cpu and gpu.

[whispous]

The GPU lacks many of the basic logic building blocks to run what we would regard as a recognisable OS, and the card itself does require a "real" CPU to run itself.

 

But, in theory, yes.

It does run a "sort of" OS as it is - firmware.

[da na]

Yes.

Nvidia's CUDA cores are fully programmable. That could be your processor. CUDA has been programmed to do things that the graphics card cannot when it is simply used as a graphics card - eg voxel rendering, which GPU shaders are not capable of processing. 

Of course graphics cards lack storage to boot from. However, through the DirectStorage API, the graphics card could access the system hard drive to boot, in theory.

Intel went for this approach with the Larabee videocard and the Xeon Phi coprocessors that the project eventually evolved into. Those are just... an x86 CPU with a ton of cores and a decent amount of RAM all on a PCIe card, and it can act as its own little computer within your computer. 

[Skipple]

An "Operating System" is such a loosely defined term that you could reasonably say a GPU runs an OS today. 

[aren332]

4 minutes ago, Skipple said:

An "Operating System" is such a loosely defined term that you could reasonably say a GPU runs an OS today. 

Ok. Any windows version, moddified, can it run on a gpu?