enable SMP

[moog2]

I've found out about this setting in ugii env.dat,
For multi-threading. I have a dual processor machine with Xeon 2Ghz E5504's,(NX6.0.5.3) i'm wondering will i see any benefits, in general modelling?

# MISCELLANEOUS
#
# This variable enables Symmetric Multi-processing (SMP) on systems
# with multiple CPU's or that support hyperthreading. Performance will
# be improved in certain Parasolid operations, such as Mass Properties,
# Booleans and silhouette generation. This option is only supported on
# HP, SUN and Windows NT.
#
# Set to 0 to disable SMP
# Set to 1 to enable SMP
# Unset will take the Parasolid default
#
#if ${NUMBER_OF_PROCESSORS} = 1
UGII_SMP_ENABLE=0
#else
UGII_SMP_ENABLE=1
#endif

Also, assuming i add the "UGII_SMP_ENABLE" as an enviroment variable should the value =2 , as the code implies?

Thanks....

 

[JohnRBaker]

NO, it's a binary switch, '0' means do not enable, '1' means enable. With this variable set to '1', NX will attempt to utilize the number of cores, up to a maximum of 4, which are available. Please note that only a very limited number of areas of NX are enhanced to take advantage of multi-core processing.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.com/museum/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[moog2]

Ok, thanks John, that's the way i thought it'd work, but that line was confusing..

 

[looslib]

As to benefits in general modeling, you won't see much as that portion of the NX code is not multi-threaded.


"Wildfires are dangerous, hard to control, and economically catastrophic."

Ben Loosli

 

[JohnRBaker]

Actually that's not quite accurate since when you're updating a large parametric model, the Boolean operations performed during an update DO leverage SMP.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.com/museum/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[pihmpdaddi]

This is a huge complaint of mine. SMP has been around now for a few years so why is NX not written to take advantage of multithreading?

I have a dual quad-core and NX6 crawls around on one core. And many operations I'm doing lately are on LARGE assemblies where one simple hide or unhide command can take minutes. At least I have 7 other cores available for wasting time while NX goes through it's seemingly numerous inefficient routines.

Justin Wade
Mechanical Engineer

 

[JohnRBaker]

NX IS written to take advantage of SMP, just not all of NX.

Except for very specialized applications, where independent processes can be decomposed into parallel tasks which can then be reassembled back into a valid result at end, most general purpose software applications, particularly those which have evolved from when there were no practical multiprocessing hardware, are not generally suited for conversion to taking extensive advantages of multitasking. It's just a fact of life.

And besides, the reality is that in those cases where specialized applications HAVE been developed which CAN leverage multitasking in a significant way, these generally requires that the hardware be dedicated to running ONLY that application. However, that's exactly opposite to what's happening since products like NX are being installed and run on general purpose desktop (and even laptops) systems used by designers and engineers for many different tasks, many of them in use at the same time, and it's this situation where todays multi-core architectures are able to deliver the best overall performance and payback. Only when you look at what you do over of the course of say a day or a week of operation, performing a multitude of tasks using several different, and in many cases, independent software products, only then will you see the benefits you gained by using multi-core configurations. In the end, the degree to which any one of these applications did or did not leverage the multiple-processors available to it, this will have very little measurable impact on your overall productivity, not when compared to how having access to multiple tools on a common office platform, all of which were performing well, delivered an overall return.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.com/museum/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.