Does C++Amp require GPU hardware before it will build / execute? - concurrency

Question

After learning from a previous question that my VS 2017 C++ AMP project was basically sound, that the error messages while correct were masking the real problem, and that the issue was certain lines of code, I rewrote the code as below. By commenting out various lines at a time, I learned that
extent<2> e(M,N);
index<2> idx(0,0);
will build and execute, that code like
array_view<int, 2> c(e, vC);
for (idx[0] = 0; idx[0] < e[0]; idx[0]++)
will build but will throw an exception if run, and that code like
c[idx] = a[idx] + b[idx];
will not even build. Note that I have not as yet invoked any parallel functions.
This leads me to ask: does Concurrency Runtime or C++ AMP require that GPU hardware be installed to build and/or execute properly?
My machine has two multi-core CPU processors, but the GPU hardware hasn't been installed yet. Still, I thought I would be able to use the the parallelism constructs to take advantage of the processors I do have.
#include "pch.h"
#include <iostream>
#include "amp.h"
#include <vector>
using namespace Concurrency;
int main() {
const int M = 1024; const int N = 1024; //row, col for vector
std::vector<int> vA(M*N); std::vector<int> vB(M*N); //vectors to add
std::vector<int> vC(M*N); //vector for result
for (int i = 0; i < M; i++) { vA[i] = i; } //populate vectors
for (int j = N - 1; j >= 0; j--) { vB[j] = j; }
extent<2> e(M, N); //uses AMP constructs but
index<2> idx(0, 0); //no parallel functions invoked
array_view<int, 2> a(e, vA), b(e, vB);
array_view<int, 2> c(e, vC);
for (idx[0] = 0; idx[0] < e[0]; idx[0]++) {
for (idx[1] = 0; idx[1] < e[1]; idx[1]++) {
c[idx] = a[idx] + b[idx];
c(idx[0], idx[1]) = a(idx[0], idx[1]) + b(idx[0], idx[1]);
}
}
}

Answer 1

No, GPU hardware is not required. After starting a successfully compiled program, without GPU hardware, the system created a "software" GPU as shown in the output when debugging.
'Amp2.exe' (Win32): Loaded 'C:\Windows\SysWOW64\d3d11ref.dll'. [...]
GPU Device Created.
I used the available GPU diagnostics tool to look at performance.