Can Sixtrack use a GPU for processing?

Author	Message
ausjorg Send message Joined: 7 Aug 19 Posts: 2 Credit: 22,206 RAC: 0	Message 39526 - Posted: 8 Aug 2019, 15:57:47 UTC Hi All, I have a couple of computers with some good AMD GPUs in them. I noticed over a 24 hour period that my GPUs are not being used. Only CPU processing is happening. Can Sixtrack use a GPU for processing? Thank you, ausjorg ID: 39526 · Reply Quote

Toby Broom Volunteer moderator Send message Joined: 27 Sep 08 Posts: 801 Credit: 649,762,068 RAC: 241,535	Message 39527 - Posted: 8 Aug 2019, 15:59:42 UTC - in response to Message 39526. No it can not, they did build an AVX version for CPU. ID: 39527 · Reply Quote

ausjorg Send message Joined: 7 Aug 19 Posts: 2 Credit: 22,206 RAC: 0	Message 39529 - Posted: 8 Aug 2019, 16:06:43 UTC - in response to Message 39527. No it can not, they did build an AVX version for CPU. Thank you for the information. Can any of the other LHC applications utilize a GPU? ID: 39529 · Reply Quote

Toby Broom Volunteer moderator Send message Joined: 27 Sep 08 Posts: 801 Credit: 649,762,068 RAC: 241,535	Message 39530 - Posted: 8 Aug 2019, 16:59:10 UTC None of them, the others are mostly virtualized with VBox so GPU access isn't possible. I can imagine that sixtrack would be the one that would make a GPU application. The challenge for the project team is finding the time to port the application, it has been asked for quite a few times. In addition it may not actually give additional performance the code is already very very well optimized and the AVX version is not much faster than the non-AVX one. ID: 39530 · Reply Quote

Erich56 Send message Joined: 18 Dec 15 Posts: 1687 Credit: 102,889,339 RAC: 124,748	Message 39534 - Posted: 9 Aug 2019, 4:50:46 UTC - in response to Message 39530. ... and the AVX version is not much faster than the non-AVX one. that's one of the things I've always been wondering about. Wouldn't one assume that AVX is bound to be more effective? How come that this is not the case? ID: 39534 · Reply Quote

Toby Broom Volunteer moderator Send message Joined: 27 Sep 08 Posts: 801 Credit: 649,762,068 RAC: 241,535	Message 39542 - Posted: 9 Aug 2019, 16:05:02 UTC - in response to Message 39534. The code was super well optimized in to vector code when it was created, so the AVX doesn't add too much more to the code. There was some work published where AVX-512 did give some benefit but since most people don't have these CPU's I can imagine that there isn't much value to work on that, GPU would be a better idea. I think the main challenge for GPU is no double precision math, most GPUs are not good at this. ID: 39542 · Reply Quote

[VENETO] boboviz Send message Joined: 7 May 08 Posts: 193 Credit: 1,504,161 RAC: 250	Message 40236 - Posted: 22 Oct 2019, 8:25:52 UTC - in response to Message 39530. I can imagine that sixtrack would be the one that would make a GPU application. The challenge for the project team is finding the time to port the application, it has been asked for quite a few times. 3 years ago: sixtrack on gpu 1 year ago: sixtrack on gpu Seems that sixtrack developers are not far away from gpu world ID: 40236 · Reply Quote

Alessio Mereghetti Volunteer moderator Project administrator Project developer Project tester Project scientist Send message Joined: 29 Feb 16 Posts: 157 Credit: 2,659,975 RAC: 0	Message 40308 - Posted: 29 Oct 2019, 11:50:04 UTC - in response to Message 40236. Hello, please check the recent reply by Riccardo on the MB on the same subject but in a different thread: https://lhcathome.cern.ch/lhcathome/forum_thread.php?id=5173 Thanks a lot in advance, Cheers, A. ID: 40308 · Reply Quote

[VENETO] boboviz Send message Joined: 7 May 08 Posts: 193 Credit: 1,504,161 RAC: 250	Message 43759 - Posted: 1 Dec 2020, 8:53:34 UTC - in response to Message 40308. It's time for a gpu app!! :-P ID: 43759 · Reply Quote

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