( ESNUG 432 Item 4 ) -------------------------------------------- [08/25/04]
From: John Busco <jbusco=user domain=nvidia spot calm>
Subject: Huh?! 64-bit Formality Runs SLOWER on Linux vs. Solaris Boxes??!
Hi John,
I've been running lots of 64-bit Formality jobs over the past few months,
and I've discovered some anomalies that I'd like to share.
(1) The linuxipf (Itanium) build of 64-bit Formality actually runs
*slower* than sparc64 (Solaris) versions. This is amazing! Most
other applications, including PrimeTime, scream on linuxipf compared
to sparc64. I heard from Synopsys that this is a problem with the
"malloc library" used by Formality linuxipf, but I don't know why
other Synopsys apps don't seem to have this problem.
(2) In general, the 64-bit Linux builds are less stable that the sparc64
build. I'm reading and writing containers and sessions, and applying
constraints to many thousands of points, and sometimes linuxipf or
Opteron builds just crash with a useless "SISSEGV" error message.
The same script may run fine on sparc64.
So, the moral to the story is, don't abandon your big-iron Solaris boxes
yet if you're running 64-bit Formality jobs. The Formality porting to
Itanium and Opteron is not quite ready for prime time.
- John Busco
Nvidia Corp. Santa Clara, CA
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