CUDA kernel error when increasing thread number - c++

I am developing a CUDA ray-plane intersection kernel.
Let's suppose, my plane (face) struct is:
typedef struct _Face {
int ID;
int matID;
int V1ID;
int V2ID;
int V3ID;
float V1[3];
float V2[3];
float V3[3];
float reflect[3];
float emmision[3];
float in[3];
float out[3];
int intersects[RAYS];
} Face;
I pasted the whole struct so you can get an idea of it's size. RAYS equals 625 in current configuration. In the following code assume that the size of faces array is i.e. 1270 (generally - thousands).
Now until today I have launched my kernel in a very naive way:
const int tpb = 64; //threads per block
dim3 grid = (n +tpb-1)/tpb; // n - face count in array
dim3 block = tpb;
//.. some memory allocation etc.
theKernel<<<grid,block>>>(dev_ptr, n);
and inside the kernel I had a loop:
__global__ void theKernel(Face* faces, int faceCount) {
int offset = threadIdx.x + blockIdx.x*blockDim.x;
if(offset >= faceCount)
return;
Face f = faces[offset];
//..some initialization
int RAY = -1;
for(float alpha=0.0f; alpha<=PI; alpha+= alpha_step ){
for(float beta=0.0f; beta<=PI; beta+= beta_step ){
RAY++;
//..calculation per ray in (alpha,beta) direction ...
faces[offset].intersects[RAY] = ...; //some assignment
This is about it. I looped through all the directions and updated the faces array. I worked correctly, but was hardly any faster than CPU code.
So today I tried to optimize the code, and launch the kernel with a much bigger number of threads. Instead of having 1 thread per face I want 1 thread per face's ray (meaning 625 threads work for 1 face). The modifications were simple:
dim3 grid = (n*RAYS +tpb-1)/tpb; //before launching . RAYS = 625, n = face count
and the kernel itself:
__global__ void theKernel(Face *faces, int faceCount){
int threadNum = threadIdx.x + blockIdx.x*blockDim.x;
int offset = threadNum/RAYS; //RAYS is a global #define
int rayNum = threadNum - offset*RAYS;
if(offset >= faceCount || rayNum != 0)
return;
Face f = faces[offset];
//initialization and the rest.. again ..
And this code does not work at all. Why? Theoretically, only the 1st thread (of the 625 per Face) should work, so why does this result in bad (hardly any) computation?
Kind regards,
e.

The maximum size of a grid in any dimension is 65535 (CUDA programming guide, Appendix F). If your grid size was 1000 before the change, you have increased it to 625000. That's bigger than the limit, so the kernel won't run correctly.
If you define the grid size as
dim3 grid((n + tpb - 1) / tpb, RAYS);
then all grid dimensions will be smaller than the limit. You'll also have to change the way blockIdx is used in the kernel.

As Heatsink pointed out you are probably exceeding available resources. Good idea is to check after kernel execution whether there was no error.
Here is C++ code I use:
#include <cutil_inline.h>
void
check_error(const char* str, cudaError_t err_code) {
if (err_code != ::cudaSuccess)
std::cerr << str << " -- " << cudaGetErrorString(err_code) << "\n";
}
Then when I invole kernel:
my_kernel <<<block_grid, thread_grid >>>(args);
check_error("my_kernel", cudaGetLastError());

Related

Flattening a 3D array to 1D in cuda

I have the following code that I'm trying to implement in cuda but I'm having a problem of flattening a 3D array to 1D in cuda
C++ code
for(int i=0; i<w; i++)
for(int j=0; j<h; j++)
for(int k=0; k<d; k++)
arr[h*w*i+ w*j+ k] = (h*w*i+ w*j+ k)*2;
This is what I have so far in Cuda
int w = h = d;
int N = 64;
__global__ void getIndex(float* A)
{
int i = blockIdx.x;
int j = blockIdx.y;
int k = blockIdx.z;
A[h*w*i+ w*j+ k] = h*w*i+ w*j+ k;
}
int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
float *d_A;
cudaMalloc((void **)&d_A, w * h * d * sizeof(float) );
getIndex <<<N,1>>> (d_A);
}
But I'm not getting the result I'm expecting, I do not know how to get the right i,j and k indices
Consider a 3D problem of size w x h x d. (This could be a simple array which has to be set like in your question or any other 3D problem that is easy to parallelize.) I will use your simple set-task for demonstration purpose.
The easiest way to handle this with a CUDA kernel is to launch one thread per array entry, that is w*h*d threads. This answer discusses why one thread per element may not always be the best solution.
Now let us have a look at the following lines of code
dim3 numThreads(w,h,d);
getIndex <<<1, numThreads>>> (d_A, w, h, d);
Here we are launching a kernel with a total of w*h*d threads.
The kernel can than be implemented as
__global__ void getIndex(float* A, int w, int h, int d) // we actually do not need w
{
int i = threadIdx.x;
int j = threadIdx.y;
int k = threadIdx.z;
A[h*d*i+ d*j+ k] = h*d*i+ d*j+ k;
}
But there is a problem with this kernel and the kernel call: The number of threads per thread block is limited (also the number of "threads in a specific direction" is bounded = the z direction is generally most bounded). As we are only calling one thread block our problem size cannot be exceed these certain limits (e.g. w*h*d <= 1024).
This is what threadblocks are for. You can practically launch a kernel with as many threads as you want. (This is not true but the limits for the maximal amount of threadblocks are not likely to be exhausted.)
Calling the kernel this way:
dim3 numBlocks(w/8,h/8,d/8);
dim3 numThreads(8,8,8);
getIndex <<<numBlocks, numThreads>>> (d_A, w, h, d);
will launch the kernel for w/8 * h/8 * d/8 thread blocks while every block contains 8*8*8 threads. So in total w*h*d threads will be called.
Now we have to adjust our kernel accordingly:
__global__ void getIndex(float* A, int w, int h, int d) // we actually do not need w
{
int bx = blockIdx.x;
int by = blockIdx.y;
int bz = blockIdx.z;
int tx = threadIdx.x;
int ty = threadIdx.y;
int tz = threadIdx.z;
A[h*d*(8*bx + tx)+ d*(8*by + ty)+ (8*bz + tz)] = h*d*(8*bx + tx)+ d*(8*by + ty)+ (8*bz + tz);
}
Note:
You can write a more general kernel using blockDim.x instead of the fixed size 8 and gridDim.x to calculate w via gridDim.x*blockDim.x. The other two dimensions are handled likewise.
In the proposed example all three dimensions w, h and d have to be multiples of 8. You can also generalize the kernel to allow every dimensions. (Then you have to parse all three dimensions to the kernel to check if the calculated position is still in range of the problem.)
As already mentioned, it may be more efficient to edit more than one entry of the array per thread. This again have to be considered when calling the kernel. A wrapper function which takes the problem size and the data and calls the kernel with the right block and thread configuration may be useful.

C++: Simple CUDA volume reconstruction code crashing

I am currently working on a more comprehensive project involving CUDA. During the recent days I have been encountering errors that I have been desperately trying to bugfix. However, I couldn't figure it out, so I made up a minimal example now that shows the same behaviour. I have to say I am kind of new to CUDA. I am using Visual Studio 2015 and the CUDA Toolkit 7.5.
The program involves creating a 3D-volume on the GPU memory and then calculating values and writing them to the volume. I have tried to make the code as simple as possible:
First ist the main.cpp file:
#include "cuda_test.h"
int main() {
size_t const xDimension = 500;
size_t const yDimension = 500;
size_t const zDimension = 1000;
//allocate volume part memory on gpu
cudaPitchedPtr volume = ct::cuda::create3dVolumeOnGPU(xDimension, yDimension, zDimension);
//start reconstruction
ct::cuda::startReconstruction(volume,
xDimension,
yDimension,
zDimension);
return 0;
}
Then the cuda_test.h that is the header file for the actual .cu file:
#ifndef CT_CUDA
#define CT_CUDA
#include <cstdlib>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <cmath>
//CUDA
#include <cuda_runtime.h>
namespace ct {
namespace cuda {
cudaPitchedPtr create3dVolumeOnGPU(size_t xSize, size_t ySize, size_t zSize);
void startReconstruction(cudaPitchedPtr volume,
size_t xSize,
size_t ySize,
size_t zSize);
}
}
#endif
And then the cuda_test.cu file that contains the actual function implementations:
#include "cuda_test.h"
namespace ct {
namespace cuda {
cudaPitchedPtr create3dVolumeOnGPU(size_t xSize, size_t ySize, size_t zSize) {
cudaExtent extent = make_cudaExtent(xSize * sizeof(float), ySize, zSize);
cudaPitchedPtr ptr;
cudaMalloc3D(&ptr, extent);
printf("malloc3D: %s\n", cudaGetErrorString(cudaGetLastError()));
cudaMemset3D(ptr, 0, extent);
printf("memset: %s\n", cudaGetErrorString(cudaGetLastError()));
return ptr;
}
__device__ void addToVolumeElement(cudaPitchedPtr volumePtr, size_t ySize, size_t xCoord, size_t yCoord, size_t zCoord, float value) {
char* devicePtr = (char*)(volumePtr.ptr);
//z * xSize * ySize + y * xSize + x
size_t pitch = volumePtr.pitch;
size_t slicePitch = pitch * ySize;
char* slice = devicePtr + zCoord*slicePitch;
float* row = (float*)(slice + yCoord * pitch);
row[xCoord] += value;
}
__global__ void reconstructionKernel(cudaPitchedPtr volumePtr, size_t xSize, size_t ySize, size_t zSize) {
size_t xIndex = blockIdx.x;
size_t yIndex = blockIdx.y;
size_t zIndex = blockIdx.z;
if (xIndex == 0 && yIndex == 0 && zIndex == 0) {
printf("kernel start\n");
}
//just make sure we're inside the volume bounds
if (xIndex < xSize && yIndex < ySize && zIndex < zSize) {
//float value = z;
float value = sqrt(sqrt(sqrt(5.3))) * sqrt(sqrt(sqrt(1.2))) * sqrt(sqrt(sqrt(10.8))) + 501 * 0.125 * 0.786 / 5.3;
addToVolumeElement(volumePtr, ySize, xIndex, yIndex, zIndex, value);
}
if (xIndex == 0 && yIndex == 0 && zIndex == 0) {
printf("kernel end\n");
}
}
void startReconstruction(cudaPitchedPtr volumePtr, size_t xSize, size_t ySize, size_t zSize) {
dim3 blocks(xSize, ySize, zSize);
reconstructionKernel <<< blocks, 1 >>>(volumePtr,
xSize,
ySize,
zSize);
printf("Kernel launch: %s\n", cudaGetErrorString(cudaGetLastError()));
cudaDeviceSynchronize();
printf("Device synchronise: %s\n", cudaGetErrorString(cudaGetLastError()));
}
}
}
The function create3dVolumeOnGPU allocates a 3-dimensional "volume" in the gpu memory and returns a pointer to it. This is a host function. The second host function is startReconstruction. The only thing it does is launching the actual kernel with as many blocks as there are voxels in the volume. The kernel function is reconstructionKernel. It just calculates an arbitrary value out of some constants and then calls addToVolumeElement (device function) to write the result in the corresponding voxel (adding it).
Now, the problem is that it crashes. If I launch with debugger (NSight), NSight interrupts giving the error message:
CUDA grid launch failed: CUcontext: 2358451327088 CUmodule: 2358541519888 Function: _ZN2ct4cuda20reconstructionKernelE14cudaPitchedPtryyy
The console outputs:
malloc3D: no error
memset: no error
kernel started
kernel end
If I launch in release mode the whole machine resets.
However, if I change the volume dimensions to be smaller it works, for example:
size_t const xDimension = 100;
size_t const yDimension = 100;
size_t const zDimension = 100;
However, the amount of free GPU memory should not be the problem (card has 4GB VRAM).
It would be nice if someone could have a look at it and maybe give me a tip what could cause the problem.
Now, the problem is that it crashes
It would be nice if someone could have a look at it and maybe give me a tip what could cause the problem.
I think it's likely you are running into a WDDM TDR issue. On windows, any time a kernel running on a WDDM GPU takes more than about 2 seconds to execute, you may run into the WDDM TDR watchdog (assuming you haven't made any changes to the watchdog).
Furthermore, launching kernels like this:
reconstructionKernel <<< blocks, 1 >>>(...);
where the threads-per-block number is 1, means that only one thread in each warp (and in each block) is active. But the GPU likes to have 32 active threads per warp. So the net effect is inefficient utilization of the GPU resources; perhaps as much as 97% of the GPU horsepower sits idle when you run kernels this way.
So if your code is flexible enough to allow this:
reconstructionKernel <<< blocks, 1 >>>(...);
or equivalently this:
reconstructionKernel <<< blocks/256, 256 >>>(...);
(this is just a representative example; I realize you have a multidimensional grid, and the above probably isn't exactly relevant for your case)
then the second invocation method will almost certainly be more efficient, leading to a shorter execution time for the same work.
So I believe when you tested your code with multiple threads per block, you did something like the above, and it reduced the execution time below the TDR limit.
That's a perfectly fine solution, but if you end up adding more work to your kernel (more total threads, or more work per thread) then you may run into the limit again. In that case, the linked article explains a possible work-around.
As an aside, kernel launch configurations like this:
kernel<<<1, ?>>>(...);
or this:
kernel<<<?, 1>>>(...);
are never recommended for high performance code on the GPU.

CUDA Optimization

I developed Pincushion Distortion using CUDA to support real time - more than 40 fps for 3680*2456 Image Sequences.
But it takes 130ms if I use CUDA - nVIDIA GeForce GT 610, 2GB DDR3.
But it takes only 60ms if I use CPU and OpenMP - Core i7 3.4GHz, QuadCore.
Please tell me what to do to speed up.
Thanks.
Full source can be downloaded here.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9SEJgsu0G6QX2FpMnRja0o5STA/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9SEJgsu0G6QOGNPMmVQLWpSb2c/view?usp=sharing
The codes are as follows.
__global__
void undistort(int N, float k, int width, int height, int depth, int pitch, float R, float L, unsigned char* in_bits, unsigned char* out_bits)
{
// Get the Index of the Array from GPU Grid/Block/Thread Index and Dimension.
int i, j;
i = blockIdx.y * blockDim.y + threadIdx.y;
j = blockIdx.x * blockDim.x + threadIdx.x;
// If Out of Array
if (i >= height || j >= width)
{
return;
}
// Calculating Undistortion Equation.
// In CPU, We used Fast Approximation equations of atan and sqrt - It makes 2 times faster.
// But In GPU, No need to use Approximation Functions as it is faster.
int cx = width * 0.5;
int cy = height * 0.5;
int xt = j - cx;
int yt = i - cy;
float distance = sqrt((float)(xt*xt + yt*yt));
float r = distance*k / R;
float theta = 1;
if (r == 0)
theta = 1;
else
theta = atan(r)/r;
theta = theta*L;
float tx = theta*xt + cx;
float ty = theta*yt + cy;
// When we correct the frame, its size will be greater than Original.
// So We should Crop it.
if (tx < 0)
tx = 0;
if (tx >= width)
tx = width - 1;
if (ty < 0)
ty = 0;
if (ty >= height)
ty = height - 1;
// Output the Result.
int ux = (int)(tx);
int uy = (int)(ty);
tx = tx - ux;
ty = ty - uy;
unsigned char *p = (unsigned char*)out_bits + i*pitch + j*depth;
unsigned char *q00 = (unsigned char*)in_bits + uy*pitch + ux*depth;
unsigned char *q01 = q00 + depth;
unsigned char *q10 = q00 + pitch;
unsigned char *q11 = q10 + depth;
unsigned char newVal[4] = {0};
for (int k = 0; k < depth; k++)
{
newVal[k] = (q00[k]*(1-tx)*(1-ty) + q01[k]*tx*(1-ty) + q10[k]*(1-tx)*ty + q11[k]*tx*ty);
memcpy(p + k, &newVal[k], 1);
}
}
void wideframe_correction(char* bits, int width, int height, int depth)
{
// Find the device.
// Initialize the nVIDIA Device.
cudaSetDevice(0);
cudaDeviceProp deviceProp;
cudaGetDeviceProperties(&deviceProp, 0);
// This works for Calculating GPU Time.
cudaProfilerStart();
// This works for Measuring Total Time
long int dwTime = clock();
// Setting Distortion Parameters
// Note that Multiplying 0.5 works faster than divide into 2.
int cx = (int)(width * 0.5);
int cy = (int)(height * 0.5);
float k = -0.73f;
float R = sqrt((float)(cx*cx + cy*cy));
// Set the Radius of the Result.
float L = (float)(width<height ? width:height);
L = L/2.0f;
L = L/R;
L = L*L*L*0.3333f;
L = 1.0f/(1-L);
// Create the GPU Memory Pointers.
unsigned char* d_img_in = NULL;
unsigned char* d_img_out = NULL;
// Allocate the GPU Memory2D with pitch for fast performance.
size_t pitch;
cudaMallocPitch( (void**) &d_img_in, &pitch, width*depth, height );
cudaMallocPitch( (void**) &d_img_out, &pitch, width*depth, height );
_tprintf(_T("\nPitch : %d\n"), pitch);
// Copy RAM data to VRAM.
cudaMemcpy2D( d_img_in, pitch,
bits, width*depth, width*depth, height,
cudaMemcpyHostToDevice );
cudaMemcpy2D( d_img_out, pitch,
bits, width*depth, width*depth, height,
cudaMemcpyHostToDevice );
// Create Variables for Timing
cudaEvent_t startEvent, stopEvent;
cudaError_t err = cudaEventCreate(&startEvent, 0);
assert( err == cudaSuccess );
err = cudaEventCreate(&stopEvent, 0);
assert( err == cudaSuccess );
// Execution of the version using global memory
float elapsedTime;
cudaEventRecord(startEvent);
// Process image
dim3 dGrid(width / BLOCK_WIDTH + 1, height / BLOCK_HEIGHT + 1);
dim3 dBlock(BLOCK_WIDTH, BLOCK_HEIGHT);
undistort<<< dGrid, dBlock >>> (width*height, k, width, height, depth, pitch, R, L, d_img_in, d_img_out);
cudaThreadSynchronize();
cudaEventRecord(stopEvent);
cudaEventSynchronize( stopEvent );
// Estimate the GPU Time.
cudaEventElapsedTime( &elapsedTime, startEvent, stopEvent);
// Calculate the Total Time.
dwTime = clock() - dwTime;
// Save Image data from VRAM to RAM
cudaMemcpy2D( bits, width*depth,
d_img_out, pitch, width*depth, height,
cudaMemcpyDeviceToHost );
_tprintf(_T("GPU Processing Time(ms) : %d\n"), (int)elapsedTime);
_tprintf(_T("VRAM Memory Read/Write Time(ms) : %d\n"), dwTime - (int)elapsedTime);
_tprintf(_T("Total Time(ms) : %d\n"), dwTime );
// Free GPU Memory
cudaFree(d_img_in);
cudaFree(d_img_out);
cudaProfilerStop();
cudaDeviceReset();
}
i've not read the source code, but there is some things you can't pass through.
your GPU has nearly same performance as your CPU:
Adapt the follwing informations with your real GPU/CPU model.
Specification | GPU | CPU
----------------------------------------
Bandwith | 14,4 GB/sec | 25.6 GB/s
Flops | 155 (FMA) | 135
we can conclude that for memory bounded kernels your GPU will never be faster than your CPU.
GPU informations found here :
http://www.nvidia.fr/object/geforce-gt-610-fr.html#pdpContent=2
CPU informations found here : http://ark.intel.com/products/75123/Intel-Core-i7-4770K-Processor-8M-Cache-up-to-3_90-GHz?q=Intel%20Core%20i7%204770K
and here http://www.ocaholic.ch/modules/smartsection/item.php?page=6&itemid=1005
One does not simply optimize the code just by looking to the source. First of all, you should use Nvidia Profiler https://developer.nvidia.com/nvidia-visual-profiler and see, which part of your code on GPU is the one taking too much time. You might wish to write a UnitTest first however, just to be sure that only the investigated part of your project is tested.
Additionally, you can use CallGrind http://valgrind.org/docs/manual/cl-manual.html to test your CPU code performance.
In general, this is not very surprising that your GPU "optimized" code is slower then "not optimized" one. CUDA cores are usually several times slower than CPU and you have to actually introduce a lot of parallelism to notice a significant speed-up.
EDIT, response to your comment:
As a unit testing framework I strongly recommend GoogleTest. Here you can learn how to use it. Apart from its obvious functionalities (code testing) it allows you to run only specific methods from your class interfaces for performance analysis.
In general, Nvidia profiler is just a tool that runs your code and tells you how much time each of your kernel consume. Please look to their documentation.
By "lot of parallelism" I meant: on your processor you can run 8 x 3.4GHz threads, your GPU has one SM (streaming multiprocessor) with 810MHz clock, lets say 1024 threads per SM (I do not have exact data, but you can run deviceQuery Nvidia script to know the exact parameters), therefore if your GPU code can run (3.4*8)/0.81 = 33 computations in parallel, you will achieve exactly nothing. Execution time of your CPU and GPU code will be the same (neglecting L-cache GPU memory copying, which is expensive). Conclusion: your GPU code should be able to compute at least ~ 40 operations in parallel to introduce any speed-up. On the other hand, lets say that you are able to fully use your GPU potential and you can keep all 1024 on your SM busy all the time. In that case your code will run only (0.81*1024)/(8*3.4) = 30 times faster (approximately, remember that we neglect GPU L-cache operations), which is impossible in most cases, because usually you are not able to parallelize your serial code with such efficiency.
Wish you good luck with your research!
Yes, put nvprof to good use, it's a great tool.
What I could see from your code...
1. Consider using linear thread blocks instead of flat blocks, it could save up some integer operations.
2. Manual correction of image borders and/or thread indices leads to massive divergence and/or impacts coalescing. Consider using texture fetches and/or pre-padding data.
3. memcpy single value from inside the kernel is generally a bad idea.
4. Try to minimize type conversions.

How to efficiently repeat a vector to a matrix in cuda?

I want to repeat a vector to form a matrix in cuda, avoiding too many memcopy. Both vector and matrix are allocated on GPU.
For example:
I have a vector:
a = [1 2 3 4]
expand it to a matrix:
b = [1 2 3 4;
1 2 3 4;
.......
1 2 3 4]
What I have tried is to assign each element of b. But this involves a lot of GPU memory to GPU memory copy.
I know this is easy in matlab (using repmat), but how to do it in cuda efficiently? I didn't find any routine in cublas.
EDIT based on the comments, I've updated the code to a version that will handle either row-major or column-major underlying storage.
Something like this should be reasonably fast:
// for row_major, blocks*threads should be a multiple of vlen
// for column_major, blocks should be equal to vlen
template <typename T>
__global__ void expand_kernel(const T* vector, const unsigned vlen, T* matrix, const unsigned mdim, const unsigned col_major=0){
if (col_major){
int idx = threadIdx.x+blockIdx.x*mdim;
T myval = vector[blockIdx.x];
while (idx < ((blockIdx.x+1)*mdim)){
matrix[idx] = myval;
idx += blockDim.x;
}
}
else{
int idx = threadIdx.x + blockDim.x * blockIdx.x;
T myval = vector[idx%vlen];
while (idx < mdim*vlen){
matrix[idx] = myval;
idx += gridDim.x*blockDim.x;
}
}
}
This assumes your matrix is of dimensions mdim rows x vlen columns (seems to be what you have outlined in the question.)
You can tune the grid and block dimensions to find out what works fastest for your particular GPU. For the row-major case, start with 256 or 512 threads per block, and set the number of blocks equal to or greater than 4 times the number of SMs in your GPU. Choose the product of grid and block dimensions to be equal to an integer multiple of your vector length vlen. If this is difficult, choosing an arbitrary, but "large" threadblock size, such as 250 or 500, should not result in much lost efficiency.
For the column-major case, choose 256 or 512 threads per block, and choose the number of blocks equal to vlen, the vector length. If vlen > 65535, you will need to compile this for compute capability 3.0 or higher. If vlen is small, perhaps less than 32, the efficiency of this method may be significantly reduced. Some mitigation will be found if you increase the threads per block to the maximum for your GPU, either 512 or 1024. There may be other "expand" realizations that may be better suited to the column-major "narrow" matrix case. For example, a straightforward modification to the column-major code would allow two blocks per vector element, or four blocks per vector element, and the total launched blocks would then be 2*vlen or 4*vlen, for example.
Here's a fully worked example, along with a run of bandwidth test, to demonstrate that the above code achieves ~90% of the throughput indicated by bandwidthTest:
$ cat t546.cu
#include <stdio.h>
#define W 512
#define H (512*1024)
// for row_major, blocks*threads should be a multiple of vlen
// for column_major, blocks should be equal to vlen
template <typename T>
__global__ void expand_kernel(const T* vector, const unsigned vlen, T* matrix, const unsigned mdim, const unsigned col_major=0){
if (col_major){
int idx = threadIdx.x+blockIdx.x*mdim;
T myval = vector[blockIdx.x];
while (idx < ((blockIdx.x+1)*mdim)){
matrix[idx] = myval;
idx += blockDim.x;
}
}
else{
int idx = threadIdx.x + blockDim.x * blockIdx.x;
T myval = vector[idx%vlen];
while (idx < mdim*vlen){
matrix[idx] = myval;
idx += gridDim.x*blockDim.x;
}
}
}
template <typename T>
__global__ void check_kernel(const T* vector, const unsigned vlen, T* matrix, const unsigned mdim, const unsigned col_major=0){
unsigned i = 0;
while (i<(vlen*mdim)){
unsigned idx = (col_major)?(i/mdim):(i%vlen);
if (matrix[i] != vector[idx]) {printf("mismatch at offset %d\n",i); return;}
i++;}
}
int main(){
int *v, *m;
cudaMalloc(&v, W*sizeof(int));
cudaMalloc(&m, W*H*sizeof(int));
int *h_v = (int *)malloc(W*sizeof(int));
for (int i = 0; i < W; i++)
h_v[i] = i;
cudaMemcpy(v, h_v, W*sizeof(int), cudaMemcpyHostToDevice);
// test row-major
cudaEvent_t start, stop;
cudaEventCreate(&start);
cudaEventCreate(&stop);
cudaEventRecord(start);
expand_kernel<<<44, W>>>(v, W, m, H);
cudaEventRecord(stop);
float et;
cudaEventSynchronize(stop);
cudaEventElapsedTime(&et, start, stop);
printf("row-majortime: %fms, bandwidth: %.0fMB/s\n", et, W*H*sizeof(int)/(1024*et));
check_kernel<<<1,1>>>(v, W, m, H);
cudaDeviceSynchronize();
// test col-major
cudaEventRecord(start);
expand_kernel<<<W, 256>>>(v, W, m, H, 1);
cudaEventRecord(stop);
cudaEventSynchronize(stop);
cudaEventElapsedTime(&et, start, stop);
printf("col-majortime: %fms, bandwidth: %.0fMB/s\n", et, W*H*sizeof(int)/(1024*et));
check_kernel<<<1,1>>>(v, W, m, H, 1);
cudaDeviceSynchronize();
return 0;
}
$ nvcc -arch=sm_20 -o t546 t546.cu
$ ./t546
row-majortime: 13.066944ms, bandwidth: 80246MB/s
col-majortime: 12.806720ms, bandwidth: 81877MB/s
$ /usr/local/cuda/samples/bin/x86_64/linux/release/bandwidthTest
[CUDA Bandwidth Test] - Starting...
Running on...
Device 0: Quadro 5000
Quick Mode
Host to Device Bandwidth, 1 Device(s)
PINNED Memory Transfers
Transfer Size (Bytes) Bandwidth(MB/s)
33554432 5864.2
Device to Host Bandwidth, 1 Device(s)
PINNED Memory Transfers
Transfer Size (Bytes) Bandwidth(MB/s)
33554432 6333.1
Device to Device Bandwidth, 1 Device(s)
PINNED Memory Transfers
Transfer Size (Bytes) Bandwidth(MB/s)
33554432 88178.6
Result = PASS
$
CUDA 6.5, RHEL 5.5
This can also be implemented using a CUBLAS Rank-1 update function but it will be considerably slower than the above method.

How do you iterate through a pitched CUDA array?

Having parallelized with OpenMP before, I'm trying to wrap my head around CUDA, which doesn't seem too intuitive to me. At this point, I'm trying to understand exactly how to loop through an array in a parallelized fashion.
Cuda by Example is a great start.
The snippet on page 43 shows:
__global__ void add( int *a, int *b, int *c ) {
int tid = blockIdx.x; // handle the data at this index
if (tid < N)
c[tid] = a[tid] + b[tid];
}
Whereas in OpenMP the programmer chooses the number of times the loop will run and OpenMP splits that into threads for you, in CUDA you have to tell it (via the number of blocks and number of threads in <<<...>>>) to run it sufficient times to iterate through your array, using a thread ID number as an iterator. In other words you can have a CUDA kernel always run 10,000 times which means the above code will work for any array up to N = 10,000 (and of course for smaller arrays you're wasting cycles dropping out at if (tid < N)).
For pitched memory (2D and 3D arrays), the CUDA Programming Guide has the following example:
// Host code
int width = 64, height = 64;
float* devPtr; size_t pitch;
cudaMallocPitch(&devPtr, &pitch, width * sizeof(float), height);
MyKernel<<<100, 512>>>(devPtr, pitch, width, height);
// Device code
__global__ void MyKernel(float* devPtr, size_t pitch, int width, int height)
{
for (int r = 0; r < height; ++r) {
float* row = (float*)((char*)devPtr + r * pitch);
for (int c = 0; c > width; ++c) {
float element = row[c];
}
}
}
This example doesn't seem too useful to me. First they declare an array that is 64 x 64, then the kernel is set to execute 512 x 100 times. That's fine, because the kernel does nothing other than iterate through the array (so it runs 51,200 loops through a 64 x 64 array).
According to this answer the iterator for when there are blocks of threads going on will be
int tid = (blockIdx.x * blockDim.x) + threadIdx.x;
So if I wanted to run the first snippet in my question for a pitched array, I could just make sure I had enough blocks and threads to cover every element including the padding that I don't care about. But that seems wasteful.
So how do I iterate through a pitched array without going through the padding elements?
In my particular application I have a 2D FFT and I'm trying to calculate arrays of the magnitude and angle (on the GPU to save time).
After reviewing the valuable comments and answers from JackOLantern, and re-reading the documentation, I was able to get my head straight. Of course the answer is "trivial" now that I understand it.
In the code below, I define CFPtype (Complex Floating Point) and FPtype so that I can quickly change between single and double precision. For example, #define CFPtype cufftComplex.
I still can't wrap my head around the number of threads used to call the kernel. If it's too large, it simply won't go into the function at all. The documentation doesn't seem to say anything about what number should be used - but this is all for a separate question.
The key in getting my whole program to work (2D FFT on pitched memory and calculating magnitude and argument) was realizing that even though CUDA gives you plenty of "apparent" help in allocating 2D and 3D arrays, everything is still in units of bytes. It's obvious in a malloc call that the sizeof(type) must be included, but I totally missed it in calls of the type allocate(width, height). Noob mistake, I guess. Had I written the library I would have made the type size a separate parameter, but whatever.
So given an image of dimensions width x height in pixels, this is how it comes together:
Allocating memory
I'm using pinned memory on the host side because it's supposed to be faster. That's allocated with cudaHostAlloc which is straightforward. For pitched memory, you need to store the pitch for each different width and type, because it could change. In my case the dimensions are all the same (complex to complex transform) but I have arrays that are real numbers so I store a complexPitch and a realPitch. The pitched memory is done like this:
cudaMallocPitch(&inputGPU, &complexPitch, width * sizeof(CFPtype), height);
To copy memory to/from pitched arrays you cannot use cudaMemcpy.
cudaMemcpy2D(inputGPU, complexPitch, //destination and destination pitch
inputPinned, width * sizeof(CFPtype), //source and source pitch (= width because it's not padded).
width * sizeof(CFPtype), height, cudaMemcpyKind::cudaMemcpyHostToDevice);
FFT plan for pitched arrays
JackOLantern provided this answer, which I couldn't have done without. In my case the plan looks like this:
int n[] = {height, width};
int nembed[] = {height, complexPitch/sizeof(CFPtype)};
result = cufftPlanMany(
&plan,
2, n, //transform rank and dimensions
nembed, 1, //input array physical dimensions and stride
1, //input distance to next batch (irrelevant because we are only doing 1)
nembed, 1, //output array physical dimensions and stride
1, //output distance to next batch
cufftType::CUFFT_C2C, 1);
Executing the FFT is trivial:
cufftExecC2C(plan, inputGPU, outputGPU, CUFFT_FORWARD);
So far I have had little to optimize. Now I wanted to get magnitude and phase out of the transform, hence the question of how to traverse a pitched array in parallel. First I define a function to call the kernel with the "correct" threads per block and enough blocks to cover the entire image. As suggested by the documentation, creating 2D structures for these numbers is a great help.
void GPUCalcMagPhase(CFPtype *data, size_t dataPitch, int width, int height, FPtype *magnitude, FPtype *phase, size_t magPhasePitch, int cudaBlockSize)
{
dim3 threadsPerBlock(cudaBlockSize, cudaBlockSize);
dim3 numBlocks((unsigned int)ceil(width / (double)threadsPerBlock.x), (unsigned int)ceil(height / (double)threadsPerBlock.y));
CalcMagPhaseKernel<<<numBlocks, threadsPerBlock>>>(data, dataPitch, width, height, magnitude, phase, magPhasePitch);
}
Setting the blocks and threads per block is equivalent to writing the (up to 3) nested for-loops. So you have to have enough blocks * threads to cover the array, and then in the kernel you must make sure that you are not exceeding the array size. By using 2D elements for threadsPerBlock and numBlocks, you avoid having to go through the padding elements in the array.
Traversing a pitched array in parallel
The kernel uses the standard pointer arithmetic from the documentation:
__global__ void CalcMagPhaseKernel(CFPtype *data, size_t dataPitch, int width, int height,
FPtype *magnitude, FPtype *phase, size_t magPhasePitch)
{
int threadX = threadIdx.x + blockDim.x * blockIdx.x;
if (threadX >= width)
return;
int threadY = threadIdx.y + blockDim.y * blockIdx.y;
if (threadY >= height)
return;
CFPtype *threadRow = (CFPtype *)((char *)data + threadY * dataPitch);
CFPtype complex = threadRow[threadX];
FPtype *magRow = (FPtype *)((char *)magnitude + threadY * magPhasePitch);
FPtype *magElement = &(magRow[threadX]);
FPtype *phaseRow = (FPtype *)((char *)phase + threadY * magPhasePitch);
FPtype *phaseElement = &(phaseRow[threadX]);
*magElement = sqrt(complex.x*complex.x + complex.y*complex.y);
*phaseElement = atan2(complex.y, complex.x);
}
The only wasted threads here are for the cases where the width or height are not multiples of the number of threads per block.