Materials%20Computation%20Center%20%20R.M.%20Martin%20and%20J.P.%20Leburton,%20University%20of%20Illinois,%20DMR%2099-76550%20%20Spintronics%20in%20Quantum%20Dots

1
Materials Computation Center, University of
Illinois Duane Johnson and Richard Martin, NSF
DMR-03-25939 Hijacking Game Consoles for
Molecular Modeling Todd J. Martinez (Chemistry)
and S. Patel (ECE)
Research Objectives Using game consoles as a
platform for molecular modeling. We have
concentrated on demonstrating the viability of
the idea using the Sony PlayStation2. Approach
We have ported GAMESS, a well-known open source
quantum chemistry code to the PS2. We have
explored the use of hand-coded assembler for
linear algebra routines to make an efficient BLAS
package. Obstacles to overcome include the
limited options for fast data transfer due to the
intended use for gaming where the data direction
is expected to be exclusively from CPU to vector
units (VU) to rendering unit and VU to CPU
transfer is not required. Significant Results
We showed that performance of up to 1GFLOP can be
obtained for matrix-matrix multiplication. We
have shown that realistic calculations can be
carried out on the PS2. Parallel performance with
MPI was investigated and found to be comparable
to Linux PCs with similar network connectivity.
Broader Impact Low-cost, high-performance
platform for molecular modeling. One can expect
that this approach will lead to higher
performance on even a single processor because of
the economics of game consoles.
Cluster of PS2s running Linux and MPI
PS2 PIII-600 P4-3200
Processor Clock (MHz) 300 600 3200
Floating Point Ops/Clock 20 2 2
MFLOPS 6000 1200 6400
System Bus Clock (MHz) 150 100 800
Bus Width (bits) 128 64 64
Data Transfer (MB/s) 2400 800 6400
Memory (MB) 32 256 1024
Price (when first released) 500 2,000 2,000
2
Materials Computation Center, University of
Illinois Duane Johnson and Richard Martin, NSF
DMR-03-25939 Hijacking Game Consoles for
Molecular Modeling Todd J. Martinez (Chemistry)
and S. Patel (ECE)
PS2-GCC (17MFLOPS)

• We have begun a collaboration with IBM to
  investigate the performance of the new Cell
  architecture, which is planned for use in the
  next-generation game consoles (PlayStation3).
  Benjamin Levine (UIUC) interned at IBM Yorktown
  Heights with Jeff Burns and Ashwini Nanda.
• Using a simulator, matrix-matrix multiplication
  performance of more than 80 theoretical peak was
  obtained using a single vector unit on the Cell
  processor. Ongoing work at Yorktown Heights will
  extend this code to cover all of the BLAS
  operations.
• Future Directions The new vector-parallel
  architecture calls for reworking of some of the
  algorithms used, such as the construction of
  electron-electron repulsion integrals. By
  continued collaboration with IBM, we plan to be
  in a position to use the PS3 for scientific
  computing as soon as PS3s are available for
  purchase. This is needed to exploit the processor
  in a timely manner, before traditional PCs can
  match its performance.

PIII-600-BLAS (36MFLOPS)
PS2-VU0 (45-60 MFLOPS)
Dot Product Performance on PS2
GAMESS Running on a PS2 After Porting