Difference between revisions of "The Sniper Multi-Core Simulator"

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set of some of the recently added features:
 
set of some of the recently added features:
 
* [[Interval Simulation|Interval core model]]
 
* [[Interval Simulation|Interval core model]]
* [[CPI Stacks]] to gain insight into lost cycles
+
* [[CPI Stacks]] and advanced visualization features to gain insight into lost cycles
 
* Parallel, multi-threaded simulator
 
* Parallel, multi-threaded simulator
 
* [[Multi-programmed workloads|Multi-program]] and multi-threaded application support, x86 and x86-64, SSE2
 
* [[Multi-programmed workloads|Multi-program]] and multi-threaded application support, x86 and x86-64, SSE2
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* Supports parallel applications using pthreads, OpenMP, TBB, OpenCL
 
* Supports parallel applications using pthreads, OpenMP, TBB, OpenCL
 
* Runs SPLASH-2, Rodinia, SPEC OMP and most of PARSEC (See our [[Download Benchmarks|integrated benchmarks quick-start guide]])
 
* Runs SPLASH-2, Rodinia, SPEC OMP and most of PARSEC (See our [[Download Benchmarks|integrated benchmarks quick-start guide]])
 +
* McPAT integration
 
* SimAPI and Python interfaces for monitoring and controlling the simulator's behavior at runtime
 
* SimAPI and Python interfaces for monitoring and controlling the simulator's behavior at runtime
 
* Single-option debugging of simulator or the application itself
 
* Single-option debugging of simulator or the application itself

Revision as of 00:25, 12 December 2012

Upcoming tutorials at HiPEAC (January 22, Berlin) and HPCA (February 23, Shenzhen)

December 11th: Sniper 4.1 released

June 9th: First edition of the Sniper manual released

June 9th: Sniper tutorial at ISCA'12 - Slides now available

Sniper is a next generation parallel, high-speed and accurate x86 simulator. This multi-core simulator is based on the interval core model and the Graphite simulation infrastructure, allowing for fast and accurate simulation and for trading off simulation speed for accuracy to allow a range of flexible simulation options when exploring different homogeneous and heterogeneous multi-core architectures.

The Sniper simulator allows one to perform timing simulations for both multi-program workloads and multi-threaded, shared-memory applications with 10s to 100+ cores, at a high speed when compared to existing simulators. The main feature of the simulator is its core model which is based on interval simulation, a fast mechanistic core model. Interval simulation raises the level of abstraction in architectural simulation which allows for faster simulator development and evaluation times; it does so by 'jumping' between miss events, called intervals. Sniper has been validated against multi-socket Intel Core2 and Nehalem systems and provides average performance prediction errors within 25% at a simulation speed of up to several MIPS.

This simulator, and the interval core model, is useful for uncore and system-level studies that require more detail than the typical one-IPC models, but for which cycle-accurate simulators are too slow to allow workloads of meaningful sizes to be simulated. As an added benefit, the interval core model allows the generation of CPI stacks, which show the number of cycles lost due to different characteristics of the system, like the cache hierarchy or branch predictor, and lead to a better understanding of each component's effect on total system performance. This extends the use for Sniper to application characterization and hardware/software co-design.

Features

cpi-splash2-fft-lg.png
IPC Visualization in Sniper 4.1

In addition to the main features mentioned above, we have updated the base simulation infrastructure to allow for simulating a larger set of workloads on more recent simulated hardware. Here is the full set of some of the recently added features:

You can find additional information on the simulator and its components in our SC'11 paper.

Getting started

Discussion list

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Please send any questions or comments to: snipersim [at] googlegroups [dot] com . You can also visit our Google Groups page to subscribe to the list and search through the archive of previous messages.

Team Members

More information

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