So you want to know how to make PVM run faster

This page under construction

PVM has a number of options built in that allows PVM to use faster communication methods. There are restrictions on these options (That is why they are not the PVM defaults) On this page we present a number of performance options that can be exercised, the typical communication improvements seen, and the restrictions that apply to each.

• Workstations
  • RouteDirect - 2-3X
  • DataRaw - depends on packing but up to 75%
  • InPlace - biggest savings is in memory requirements
  • XPVM is pretty, but tracing hurts performance

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• IBM SP2 or FDDI or ATM networks
  • pvm -nhost

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• Intel Paragon
  • psend/precv
  • minimal use of group ops

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• General performance considerations Good ideas for any parallel program
  • spawning is expensive - reuse tasks don't respawn
  • minimize comm
  • large comp/comm ratio
  • dynamic load balance
  • overlapping comp and comm

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