OpenCL : Using vload Vs vector pointer - opencl

Is there any advantage of using vload Vs directly assigning vector pointer? Which would be faster in mobile GPU's with less computational power & bandwidth?
Ex:
vload sample
__kernel vec_add(__global const float* a, __global const float* b, __global float* c){
float4 a_sub;
float4 b_sub;
float4 c_sub;
a_sub = vload4(0, &a[get_global_id(0)]);
b_sub = vload4(0, &b[get_global_id(0)]);
c_sub = a_sub + b_sub;
vstore(c_sub, 0, &c[get_global_id(0)]);
}
vector pointer sample
__kernel vec_add(__global const float* a, __global const float* b, __global float* c){
float4 a_sub;
float4 b_sub;
float4 c_sub;
a_sub = ((global const float4*)a)[get_global_id(0)];
b_sub = ((global const float4*)b)[get_global_id(0)];;
c_sub = a_sub + b_sub;
vstore(c_sub, 0, &c[get_global_id(0)]);
}

As stated in the comments it depends on the target hardware which is the fastest way to load the data. In other words, you should benchmark which is the best or are there any difference. However, I can't remember achieving any speed up by changing the syntax.
If you need to work with float* buffers then the third option to try is to write the same load like this:
a_sub = (float4){
a[get_global_id(0) * 4 + 0],
a[get_global_id(0) * 4 + 1],
a[get_global_id(0) * 4 + 2],
a[get_global_id(0) * 4 + 3]
};
However, many times there is no reason to work with float* buffers and you could use float4* buffers. In that case the compiler can definitely know that the load is going to be aligned. Moreover, I have seen significant speed ups on mobile platforms when I changed the buffer type. So in your case the kernel signature would look like:
__kernel vec_add(__global const float4* a, __global const float4* b, __global float4* c){
and the load would be:
a_sub = a[get_global_id(0)];

The vloadn and vstoren require alignment while "traditional C syntax" does not. So there is certainly opportunity for significant optimization in the former. Of course it will be up to your specific implementation so profiling is needed.

Related

OpenCL how to change the memory address of cl_mem?

I want to do a sub-matrix multiplication. Say I have a function:
void MatMul(cl_mem A, cl_mem B, cl_mem C, int M, int K, int N)
where A is M*K, B is K*N, C is M*N, and A, B, C are all row major 1 dimension array passed by host memory float *h_A, *h_B, *hC with the following function:
void ocl_push_array(cl_mem d_x, float *h_x, int n){
size_t data_size = sizeof(float)*n;
err = clEnqueueWriteBuffer(queue, d_x, CL_TRUE, 0, data_size, h_x, 0, NULL, NULL);
}
I want to ask:
if I want to do sub-matrix multiplication, say slicing A by row:
// cl_mem A, B, C;
for(int x=0; x<M; x+=16)
{
cl_mem A_sub = (cl_mem)((float *)A+x*K);
cl_mem C_sub = (cl_mem)((float *)C+x*N);
if((M-x+1)>=16)
MatMul(A_sub, B, C_sub, 16, K, N);
else
MatMul(A_sub, B, C_sub, M-x+1, K, N);
}
Is it the right code to do this operation? I got a run time error says: "CL_INVALID_MEM_OBJECT" (-38) when it assigns arguments to OpenCL kernel (clSetKernelArg).
The reason I want to do this operation is that I found the matrix multiplication got wrong answers when my input matrix A and B become big.
My OpenCL kernel is:
#define BLOCK_SIZE 16
#define AS(i, j) As[j + i * BLOCK_SIZE]
#define BS(i, j) Bs[j + i * BLOCK_SIZE]
__kernel void
matrixMul(__global float* A, __global float* B, __global float* C,
__local float* As, __local float* Bs, int uiWA, int uiWB)
{
int bx = get_group_id(0);
int by = get_group_id(1);
int tx = get_local_id(0);
int ty = get_local_id(1);
int aBegin = uiWA * BLOCK_SIZE * by;
int aEnd = aBegin + uiWA - 1;
int aStep = BLOCK_SIZE;
int bBegin = BLOCK_SIZE * bx;
int bStep = BLOCK_SIZE * uiWB;
float Csub = 0.0f;
for (int a = aBegin, b = bBegin; a <= aEnd; a += aStep, b += bStep) {
AS(ty, tx) = A[a + uiWA * ty + tx];
BS(ty, tx) = B[b + uiWB * ty + tx];
barrier(CLK_LOCAL_MEM_FENCE);
#pragma unroll
for (int k = 0; k < BLOCK_SIZE; ++k)
Csub += AS(ty, k) * BS(k, tx);
barrier(CLK_LOCAL_MEM_FENCE);
}
C[get_global_id(1) * get_global_size(0) + get_global_id(0)] = Csub;
}
and the size is:
#define BLOCK_SIZE 16
size_t localWorkSize[] = {BLOCK_SIZE, BLOCK_SIZE};
size_t globalWorkSize[] = {shrRoundUp(BLOCK_SIZE, N), shrRoundUp(BLOCK_SIZE, M)};
size_t shrRoundUp(int group_size, int global_size)
{
int r = global_size % group_size;
if(r == 0)
{
return global_size;
} else
{
return global_size + group_size - r;
}
}
the code is adopted from Nvidia OpenCL matrix multiplication sample. My GPU is: Intel(R) HD Graphics 4600.
Thanks!
I don't think you can do this:
cl_mem A_sub = (cl_mem)((float *)A+x*K);
Because cl_mem is an object in OpenCL, which is actually a complex data structure instead of just a data pointer. It maintains information such as data pointer to the actually memory, reference to the object, memory properties and so on. Different run-times may even have different implementations of cl_mem object. That's why you got the CL_INVALID_MEM_OBJECT error message.
What you can do to get wanted data for the sub matrix is one of the followings:
define two new cl_mem objects, and use a separate kernel to do
the copy work.
use clEnqueueCopyBuffer function to copy the data at the host
code domain.
use CL_MEM_ALLOC_HOST_PTR to memory buffer, and then use
clEnqueueMapBuffer map the GPU memory to host memory pointer, and
then modify the memory content by using the mapped host memory
pointer, when you finish, unmap the pointer to return the GPU memory
to the device memory domain.

How to handle case for buffers which are out of range in OpenCl?

OpenCl kernel Code:
__kernel void calc(__global double* arr1, __global double* arr2, __global double* arr3)
{
int g = get_global_id(0);
if (g > 6400) {
return;
}
arr1[g] = arr3[g] * 10.0;
arr2[g] = arr3[g] * 20.0
}
Workgroup size: 6400
This kernel will solve, arr1 and arr2 using arr3. But issue is arr2 is only size of 3200. Hence, this will not work. How to handle case for buffers which are out of range in OpenCl?
I can think using condition statement. But i do not want any if-else statement, like:
__kernel void calc(__global double* arr1, __global double* arr2, __global double* arr3)
{
int g = get_global_id(0);
if (g > 6400) {
return;
}
arr1[g] = arr3[g] * 10.0;
if (g < 3200) {
arr2[g] = arr3[g] * 20.0
}
}
I also do not want to add any dummy buffer or extra buffer in arr2, which will increase my buffer size.
How, can i handle such scenarios in OpenCl? Any help/suggestions/links will be appreciated.

OpenCL: Optimize matrix multiplication for uchar

I adapted the attached kernel from one of the NVIDIA OpenCL examples and compared performance to clblasSgemm, and found that they perform equally fast (at least on my setup). I am launching it with a {16, 16} local work size.
Now, assume matrices A and B are both uchar, and C accordingly uint. Is there any way to optimize the multiplication? Simply replacing the types degraded performance. I tried hand-vectorizing with uchar4 and uchar16, but that made it slower.
Any suggestions welcome! (I am new to GPU programming and OpenCL)
/*
* This software contains source code provided by NVIDIA Corporation.
*/
#define BLOCK_SIZE 16
__kernel void mat_mul(const __global float* A, const __global float* B,
__global float* C,
const int A_cols, const int B_cols) {
// Block index
const int bx = get_group_id(0);
const int by = get_group_id(1);
// Thread index
const int tx = get_local_id(0);
const int ty = get_local_id(1);
// Index of the first sub-matrix of A processed by the block
const int a0 = A_cols * BLOCK_SIZE * by;
// Index of the last sub-matrix of A processed by the block
const int a1 = a0 + A_cols - 1;
const int a_step = BLOCK_SIZE;
// Index of the first sub-matrix of B processed by the block
const int b0 = BLOCK_SIZE * bx;
// Step size used to iterate through the sub-matrices of B
const int b_step = BLOCK_SIZE * B_cols;
// Csub is used to store the element of the block sub-matrix
// that is computed by the thread
float Csub = 0;
__local float As[BLOCK_SIZE][BLOCK_SIZE];
__local float Bs[BLOCK_SIZE][BLOCK_SIZE];
// Loop over all the sub-matrices of A and B required to compute the
// block sub-matrix
for (int a=a0, b=b0; a<=a1; a+=a_step, b+=b_step) {
// Load the matrices from device memory to shared memory;
// each thread loads one element of each matrix
As[ty][tx] = A[a + A_cols * ty + tx];
Bs[ty][tx] = B[b + B_cols * ty + tx];
// Synchronize to make sure the matrices are loaded
barrier(CLK_LOCAL_MEM_FENCE);
// Multiply the two matrices together;
// each thread computes one element of the block sub-matrix
#pragma unroll
for (int k=0; k<BLOCK_SIZE; ++k) {
Csub += As[ty][k] * Bs[k][tx];
}
// Synchronize to make sure that the preceding computation is done
// before loading two new sub-matrices of A and B in the next
// iteration
barrier(CLK_LOCAL_MEM_FENCE);
}
// Write the block sub-matrix to device memory;
// each thread writes one element
C[get_global_id(1) * get_global_size(0) + get_global_id(0)] = Csub;
}
There is very simple way to measure if your kernel is good. Calculate it's OPS & bandwidth (how many data in form of matrix are you processing per second). Then compare it to theoretical limits. You will get factor, limiting performance. Usually, it's load-store operations.

substitutions for cl_khr_int64_base_atomics

I have an ATI Firepro V4800 graphics card which does not support cl_khr_int64_base_atomics. I am trying to adapt the RadixSort algo for long integers. The algo uses atomic_inc, the 64-bit of which is atom_inc, which I cannot use in the kernel. So, my question is, is there a piece of code which performs the same function as atomic_inc which can be used? The piece of kernel code is given below:
__kernel void histogram(__global uint* unsortedData,
__global uint* buckets,
uint shiftCount,
__local uint* sharedArray)
{
size_t localId = get_local_id(0);
size_t globalId = get_global_id(0);
size_t groupId = get_group_id(0);
size_t groupSize = get_local_size(0);
uint numGroups = get_global_size(0) / get_local_size(0);
// Initialize shared array to zero //
sharedArray[localId] = 0;
barrier(CLK_LOCAL_MEM_FENCE);
// Calculate thread-histograms //
uint value = unsortedData[globalId];
value = value >> shiftCount & 0xFFU;
atomic_inc(sharedArray+value);
barrier(CLK_LOCAL_MEM_FENCE);
// Copy calculated histogram bin to global memory //
uint bucketPos = groupId * groupSize + localId ;
//uint bucketPos = localId * numGroups + groupId ;
buckets[bucketPos] = sharedArray[localId];
}
Any suggestions? Thank you.
Edit:
Another way for the same is given in this blogsite: http://suhorukov.blogspot.in/2011/12/opencl-11-atomic-operations-on-floating.html. This gives a very generic implementation of the Atomic Inc.
You could try something like this:
void atomInc64 (__local uint *counter)
{
uint old, carry;
old = atomic_inc (&counter [0]);
carry = old == 0xFFFFFFFF;
atomic_add (&counter [1], carry);
}
Where counter is an array of two 32-bit integers. While the two halves don't increment at exactly the same time, the total should be correct when the program completes.

Can this OpenCL code be optimized?

I am working on a piece of OpencL code for a specialized matrix function: for a Dx1 vector v, two DxD matrices A and B and a constant c, return 1xD vector r where r[i] = c * sum_over_j (v[j] * A[i][j] * B[i][j])
Below is what I have so far, but it runs freakishly slow. A version without summing that returns a DxD matrix is about ten times faster. It's called from PyOpenCL if that makes any difference.
Is anything done wrong? Could it be optimized?
#define D 1000
...
__kernel void element_mult(
__global float *result,
__global const float *vector,
__global const float *matrix,
__global const float *matrix2,
const float factor)
{
int y = get_global_id(1);
float sum = 0;
for(int k = 0; k < D; k++)
{
sum += vector[k] * matrix[(y*D) + k]
* matrix2[(y*D) + k ];
}
result[y] = sum * factor;
}
Cheers!
Optimization #1: make vector __local.
My first pass at this got a decent improvement in performance. I noticed that each vector[k] is read a total of D times, so I copied it to a __local. This is only possible because D is small enough to allow this. The kernel as you have it above suffers from a terrible ALU:fetch ratio of 0.08 on both the 5870 and the 6970 gpus. Even the slower gpus are still waiting on the memory access.
#define D 1000
__kernel void element_mult(
__global float *result,
__global const float *vector,
__global const float *matrix,
__global const float *matrix2,
const float factor)
{
int y = get_global_id(0);
float sum = 0;
__local float vectCopy[D];
int ls = get_local_size(0);
int lid = get_local_id(0);
for(int i=0;i<D;i+=ls){
vectCopy[i+lid] = vector[i+lid];
}
mem_fence(CLK_LOCAL_MEM_FENCE);
for(int k = 0; k < D; k++)
{
sum += vectCopy[k] * matrix[(y*D) + k] * matrix2[(y*D) + k ];
}
result[y] = sum * factor;
}
With this change, APP profiler is showing a new ALU:fetch ratio of 0.20 for the 5870 and 6970 gpus. Average times changed from 1513-->1034, and 1261-->861 on the same cards. The low end gpus are now bound by ALU instead of fetch. (greater than 4:1 ratio)
Opimization #2: calculate each result[y] using an entire work group.
You would have to do this id D were much larger (100k+). The idea is to get the best memory access pattern by using the work group to compute a single element of the result at a time. I defined ls (local size) to be 64 here, because it works on my hardware, as well as most vendors'. The workgroup size you use from the host-side will have to be 64 unless you change that definition. It needs to be defined to create the sum[ls] storage as __local, and I don't like passing variable sized __local vars into my kernels.
results: 5870 ALU:fetch=0.59:1, avg=708. 6970 ALU:fetch=0.72, avg=590. According to APP profiler, this is about twice as fast as your original listing.
#define D 1000
#define ls 64
__kernel void element_mult(
__global float *result,
__global const float *vector,
__global const float *matrix,
__global const float *matrix2,
const float factor)
{
__local float vectCopy[D];
int lid = get_local_id(0);
for(int i=0;i<D;i+=ls){
vectCopy[i+lid] = vector[i+lid];
}
mem_fence(CLK_LOCAL_MEM_FENCE);
int ng = get_num_groups(0);
int gid = get_group_id(0);
int y, k;
__local float sum[ls];
for(y = gid; y < D; y+=ng){
for(k = lid; k < D; k+=ls)
{
sum[lid] += vectCopy[k] * matrix[(y*D) + k] * matrix2[(y*D) + k ];
}
if(lid==0){
result[y] = sum[0];
for(k=1;k<ls;k++){
result[y] += sum[k];
}
result[y] *= factor;
}
mem_fence(CLK_LOCAL_MEM_FENCE);
}
}
EDIT: APP profiler = AMD APP KernelAnalyzer

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