Modeling the Effect of Data Redundancy on Speedup in MLFMA Near-Field Computation
Authors
Morteza Sadeghi
Categories
Abstract
The near-field (P2P) operator in the Multilevel Fast Multipole Algorithm (MLFMA) is a performance bottleneck on GPUs due to poor memory locality. This work introduces data redundancy to improve spatial locality by reducing memory access dispersion. For validation of results, we propose an analytical model based on a Locality metric that combines data volume and access dispersion to predict speedup trends without hardware-specific profiling. The approach is validated on two MLFMA-based applications: an electromagnetic solver (DBIM-MLFMA) with regular structure, and a stellar dynamics code (PhotoNs-2.0) with irregular particle distribution. Results show up to 7X kernel speedup due to improved cache behavior. However, increased data volume raises overheads in data restructuring, limiting end-to-end application speedup to 1.04X. While the model cannot precisely predict absolute speedups, it reliably captures performance trends across different problem sizes and densities. The technique is injectable into existing implementations with minimal code changes. This work demonstrates that data redundancy can enhance GPU performance for P2P operator, provided locality gains outweigh data movement costs.
Modeling the Effect of Data Redundancy on Speedup in MLFMA Near-Field Computation
Categories
Abstract
The near-field (P2P) operator in the Multilevel Fast Multipole Algorithm (MLFMA) is a performance bottleneck on GPUs due to poor memory locality. This work introduces data redundancy to improve spatial locality by reducing memory access dispersion. For validation of results, we propose an analytical model based on a Locality metric that combines data volume and access dispersion to predict speedup trends without hardware-specific profiling. The approach is validated on two MLFMA-based applications: an electromagnetic solver (DBIM-MLFMA) with regular structure, and a stellar dynamics code (PhotoNs-2.0) with irregular particle distribution. Results show up to 7X kernel speedup due to improved cache behavior. However, increased data volume raises overheads in data restructuring, limiting end-to-end application speedup to 1.04X. While the model cannot precisely predict absolute speedups, it reliably captures performance trends across different problem sizes and densities. The technique is injectable into existing implementations with minimal code changes. This work demonstrates that data redundancy can enhance GPU performance for P2P operator, provided locality gains outweigh data movement costs.
Authors
Morteza Sadeghi
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