Title
GPU acceleration of particle advection workloads in a parallel, distributed memory setting
Abstract
Although there has been significant research in GPU acceleration, both of parallel simulation codes (i.e., GPGPU) and of single GPU visualization and analysis algorithms, there has been relatively little research devoted to visualization and analysis algorithms on GPU clusters. This oversight is significant: parallel visualization and analysis algorithms have markedly different characteristics -- computational load, memory access pattern, communication, idle time, etc. -- than the other two categories. In this paper, we explore the benefits of GPU acceleration for particle advection in a parallel, distributed-memory setting. As performance properties can differ dramatically between particle advection use cases, our study operates over a variety of workloads, designed to reveal insights about underlying trends. This work has a three-fold aim: (1) to map a challenging visualization and analysis algorithm -- particle advection -- to a complex system (a cluster of GPUs), (2) to inform its performance characteristics, and (3) to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of using the GPU. In our performance study, we identify which factors are and are not relevant for obtaining a speedup when using GPUs. In short, this study informs the following question: if faced with a parallel particle advection problem, should you implement the solution with CPUs, with GPUs, or does it not matter?
Year
DOI
Venue
2013
10.2312/EGPGV/EGPGV13/001-008
EGPGV
Keywords
Field
DocType
analysis algorithm,particle advection workloads,particle advection use case,memory setting,particle advection,gpu cluster,parallel visualization,parallel particle advection problem,gpu acceleration,parallel simulation code,challenging visualization,single gpu visualization,parallel programming,concurrent programming
GPU cluster,CUDA,Visualization,Computer science,Parallel computing,Distributed memory,Theoretical computer science,Computational science,Acceleration,General-purpose computing on graphics processing units,Concurrent computing,Speedup
Conference
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
7
0.55
17
Authors
8
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
David Camp1263.48
Hari Krishnan2624.50
Dave Pugmire315218.62
Christoph Garth475150.85
Ian Johnson570.55
E. Wes Bethel643839.76
Kenneth I. Joy71842141.81
Hank Childs826433.50