[Virtual-sim] Apache Engine and Multicore Processors

[IES Technical Support]

Simon,

 

I'll address your two posts here if you'll allow me.

 

Using Multiple-core processors

We have developed multi-threading for both MicroFlo and Radiance.  We
are also researching adding the functionality to Apache and SunCast and
further down the line Flucs.  It is far from a pipe-dream.   We're happy
to hear that the improvements we've made to MicroFlo have halved the
simulation times for users like Nathan and we very much want to keep
this trend going.

 

64-Bit Architecture

32-bit Windows systems are limited to 2 GB of RAM per process, a 64-bit
operating system installed on a machine with 4 GB or more of RAM will be
able to provide more than the 2 GB limit which a sufficiently complex
simulation would hit on an x86 Windows system reducing simulation time.
There's plenty of information available online that discusses how the
architecture of CPUs work so I won't waste everyone's time by
regurgitating it here.

 

4-5 Days for simulation

"In all it totalled 4500 thousand individual zones"... For a project of
the scale you described I would see this as a rather high number of
zones.  I would probably suggest a re-zoning strategy.  I assumed you
didn't mean 4,500,000 zones as the wording suggest and just mean 4,500
zones.

 

Running Simultaneous Simulations to reduce time

I'm not in sales so I'm not going to push this but if time is really of
the essence I would imagine running concurrent simulations would be
preferable to running them sequentially and perhaps this would outweigh
the cost of a license?  

 

As always feel free to contact the support team directly for any
questions of this sort.

 

IES Technical Support

 

From: virtual-sim-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org
[mailto:virtual-sim-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org] On Behalf Of Simon
Chilvers
Sent: 06 August 2010 12:39
To: Nathan Kegel; virtual-sim at lists.onebuilding.org
Subject: Re: [Virtual-sim] Apache Engine and Multicore Processors

 

I was aware that Microflo can use multicore processors, but not
radiance. I do not use it so would not have known.

 

It's been an aim of IES's programmers to make more of the software suite
take advantage of multiple cores, but I think it remains a pipedream of
theirs.

 

Looking at purchasing a MESH machine with an Core-i7 and will possibly
dabble with overclocking one of the cores. 

 

However... I recently ran the same model on two machines.  One had a
standard Intel P4 (3Ghz) processor and 2 Gb of RAM an the other had a
Xeon Quad Core E5320 (1.86Ghz) also with 2Gb of RAM and noticed very
little difference in time taken to run the simulation.

 

While running simulations I also do tend to pay attention to the amount
of RAM that is taken up by the Apache engine and it seems that it never
goes above 500Mb despite more being available to it.

 

Another query of mine would be... while running a highly complicated
model through ApacheSim, how resource intensive is it. The Crux of the
question is will an update to a 64 bit system and the ability to have
more than 2GB of RAM really make that much difference if it still only
uses 500Mb.

 

Simon

 

 

________________________________

From: Nathan Kegel [mailto:NKegel at hga.com] 
Sent: 05 August 2010 16:03
To: Simon Chilvers; virtual-sim at lists.onebuilding.org
Subject: RE: [Virtual-sim] Apache Engine and Multicore Processors

 

I am running the VE on multi-core and it is enabled in some applications
(Radiance for sure, and I believe MicroFlo as well).

 

I'm running the HP Z400 series with a quad-core and Windows 7 64-bit.
CFD calculations run in half the time as they did on my old (2 years
old) HP with Windows XP.  Radiance calcs are noticeable reduced as well.

 

Not sure if ApacheSIM benefits from multi-cores yet, but I know that
calculation time was reduced as well.  Plus it seems with the additional
RAM (8GB vs. 2GB) the VE is just more stable.

 

Nathan Kegel LEED AP


HGA   Architects and Engineers 
Direct 612.758.4335 


Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail.

 

 

________________________________

From: virtual-sim-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org
[mailto:virtual-sim-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org] On Behalf Of Simon
Chilvers
Sent: Thursday, August 05, 2010 9:58 AM
To: virtual-sim at lists.onebuilding.org
Subject: [Virtual-sim] Apache Engine and Multicore Processors

Looking at purchasing a standalone PC to sit separate from our work
network and run our Simulations on as quickly and efficiently as
possible.

 

Due to ApacheSim currently not taking advantage of multithreading or
multi-core processors, what would be the most effective hardware setup?

 

IES seem to think that 32bit and 64bit machines in regards to the VE
suite operate comparably, with the only advantage being the ability to
have more than 2 GB of RAM on a 64bit system, which I can only think is
an advantage when running Microflo simulations (something that we do not
do here as we do not have a license.

 

Therefore I assume I need to look at a processor with the biggest core
size.

 

Any pointers?

 

Simon

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.onebuilding.org/pipermail/virtual-sim-onebuilding.org/attachments/20100806/b70366dc/attachment-0002.htm>