8 ms·
Fortran is widely used for scientific computing and in high performance computing some knowledge of assembly language is useful in making use of vector instruct
by moconnor 11y ago
Fortran is widely used for scientific computing and in high performance computing some knowledge of assembly language is useful in making use of vector instructions - compiler auto-vectorisation still needs a lot of help.
Fortran and assembly language are key skills at every national supercomputing center in the world.
- spott 11y agoYea, but embedded Fortran, and assembly of whatever architecture that voyager runs on is a different beast.
- walshemj 11y agoIs it embedded Fortran or a Fortan cross complier for the target on the space craft.
- escherplex 11y agoPoint well taken. Couple that with the need for an intimate knowledge of idiosyncrasies endemic to salvaged 8086 chips operating in space.
- duaneb 11y agoHow much can understanding assembly be understood as a skill? Most of the skill that goes into optimization isn't very architecture dependent but CPU and algorithm dependent.
- naveen99 11y agoReally ? I thought people who need super computing performance have moved onto programming for the gpu with cuda c. Are people actually writing fortran or gpu assembly for the gpu outside nvidia ?
- walshemj 11y agoI think for pure balls to the wall performance your still using Fortran probably the Intel compiler with the extensions for HPC/CUDA etc.
- semi-extrinsic 11y agoAh, the GPU hype. Here's something the GPU vendors don't tell you: a huge part of scientific computing doesn't get any speedup at all from GPUs. A good example is fluid dynamics research, or essentially anything that boils down to solving PDEs or doing huge sparse linear algebra problems. Even for the fields where it makes sense, like molecular dynamics, it's not obvious that you get more performance per dollar than with CPUs. Shameless self-plug: http://asmunder.github.io/2015/04/Inaugural-post:-on-the-benefits-of-GPUs-for-molecular-dynamics/ http://asmunder.github.io/2015/04/Inaugural-post:-on-the-ben...
- noobermin 11y agoMainly because no one in hpc is trying... The few that are are blowing things out of the water[0]. [0] https://www.hzdr.de/db/Cms?pNid=3227 https://www.hzdr.de/db/Cms?pNid=3227
- semi-extrinsic 11y agoWell, no. There are fundamental algorithmic reasons why some problems can exploit GPU power and some cannot. Look at any of the ~15 most popular molecular dynamics codes today, they all have some sort of GPU support. Look up something that solves an elliptic PDE, like incompressible Navier-Stokes, and you'll see no-one using GPUs. As for the PIC code you link to: they don't mention any sort of fair benchmark anywhere, so if they are objectively "blowing things out of the water", they're rather silent about it.