Please Benchmark the Multi-threaded version of Freecell Solver

[Shlomi Fish]

On Friday 15 May 2009 19:08:25 Shlomi Fish wrote:
> Hi all!
>
> I recently created a thread-enabled version of Freecell Solver, that uses
> several solver instances in separate threads. I'd like to get some
> indication of the performance of the solver with different number of
> threads on different machines. The instructions can be found below.
>

Hi all!

I should note that the link below now only contains an archive of version 
2.27.3 which is more up-to-date and fixes some problems. I should also note 
that if you're using most versions of Ubuntu, then the CMake that ships with 
them (2.6.2) won't be adequate for building the solver, and you'll need to 
compile a latest CMake from source.

In any case, I already got one result from a volunteer that ran it on an Intel 
Core 2 @ 2.4 GHz with 3GB of RAM and 8.8GB of swap:

{{{
DUMPS/dump001:86.4667541980743
DUMPS/dump002:47.5844478607178
DUMPS/dump003:48.3457579612732
DUMPS/dump004:51.4420628547668
DUMPS/dump005:48.824597120285
DUMPS/dump006:48.0212950706482
}}}

So it seems that there the optimal number of threads is 2, and that the code 
runs 2.4 times faster than on my machine. Thanks to that volunteer!

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

> On my Pentium 2.4 GHz with 2.5 GB of RAM and 1 GB of swap, I'm getting the
> following results: (in seconds - lower is better)
>
> {{{{{{{{{{{{
> DUMPS/dump001:139.560144901276
> DUMPS/dump002:115.644785881042
> DUMPS/dump003:114.645025968552
> DUMPS/dump004:118.50590801239
> DUMPS/dump005:117.550628900528
> DUMPS/dump006:119.174820899963
> }}}}}}}}}}}}
>
> So the optimum is 3 threads.
>
> Anyway here are the instructions:
>
> {{{{{{{{{{{
> Requirements: perl-5.8.x or above, CMake 2.6.3, gcc, and a working
> pthreads- devel library.
>
> 1. Download freecell-solver-2.27.2 from:
>
> http://www.shlomifish.org/Files/files/code/fcs/
>
> 2. Unpack and cd to the freecell-solver-* directory.
>
> 3. Run "./configure -l tt".
>
> 4. Type "make" to build everything.
>
> 5. Run "bash scripts/time-threads-num.bash $MAX_NUM_THREADS" . The default
> for $MAX_NUM_THREADS is "6", where 7 completely hogs my system. If you have
> many CPUs and/or cores and are confident that raising it will not overload
> your
> system, you can raise it.
>
> This stage better be done when the computer is not loaded.
>
> 6. Wait.
>
> 7. Type "perl scripts/time-fcs.pl DUMPS/*" and copy-and-paste the results
> to me with specifications of your comptuer that are as detailed as
> possible. }}}}}}}}}}}}}
>
> Any help would be appreciated.
>
> Regards,
>
> 	Shlomi Fish

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Shlomi Fish       http://www.shlomifish.org/
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