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Subject: Re: New crap statement ?

Author: Tony Werten

Date: 07:38:33 09/25/01

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On September 25, 2001 at 10:29:56, Robert Hyatt wrote:

>On September 25, 2001 at 03:55:23, Tony Werten wrote:
>
>>On September 24, 2001 at 22:49:02, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>
>>>On September 24, 2001 at 21:49:52, Vincent Diepeveen wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>So you say kind of here that it is NEVER possible in your viewpoint to
>>>>get a 2.0 speedup when only measuring search times?
>>>>
>>>>Please give a clear statement here.
>>>>
>>>>Yes or No.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>OK.  For an average case, which is made up of multiple positions, the answer is
>>>"no" unconditionally.
>>>
>>>For a single test case here and there, the answer is _obviously_ "yes".
>>>
>>>_everybody_ has reported a >2 speedup for 2 cpus on a random position or two
>>>out of a set.  This is expected since we are dealing with randomness in the
>>>move ordering and random can sometimes be good, sometimes bad.
>>>
>>>Look at my DTS numbers.  at least one > 2, several well below 2.
>>>
>>>Average is a scientific-looking 1.9...
>>>
>>>If you report >2.0 speedups consistently, you are simply going to get
>>>laughed at over and over.  It is just not possible unless your serial
>>>search is bad.  So either your results (parallel search) are bad, or
>>>your serial search is bad.  In either case, "bad is bad".
>>
>>I'll go for a 3rd one. The measurement are not related.
>>
>>Making an algorithm parallel changes the algorithm and can therefor not be
>>compared to the previous algorithm.
>
>
>I don't see this as a problem.  The issue still remains, "can you do something
>parallel that executes more than 2x faster than what you do serially?"  If the
>answer is "yes" then there is something basically wrong with your serial
>algorithm...
>
>
>
>
>>
>>FE The second thread can make use of entries in the hashtable, which ( if it was
>>singlethreaded ) could have been replaced by different entries.
>
>This is non-deterministic behavior that is well-known in parallel search.
>But it is a random element that won't happen most of the time.  It will
>pop up on occasion, just like programs solve fine 70 quicker than they
>should due to inferior move ordering.
>
>But over a wide test set, this random improvement becomes "noise".
>
>
>
>
>>
>>Of course, the different way around works as wel. The second thread cannot use
>>entries that haven't been placed in the hashtable yet, but this is called
>>overhead. (The first possibility should be called "underhead". :)
>>
>>The occurence of this makes the whole measurement quite random, altough on
>>average it seems normal. The only way to measure the exact speedup of a
>>multiprocessor is to compare it with the same number of threads on a single
>>processor, and this can never be more than the number of cpu's.
>>
>>If you find a way to increase the locality of the hashtable for different
>>threads you should be able to improve more than the no processors.
>>
>>Maybe Vincent is doing this with his elaborated move ordering, or maybe it's his
>>multiple probe stuff. It's easy to check. He should let the dual version run on
>>a single processor, if it is faster than the single version, he does have his
>>more than linear speedup.
>>
>>Note: Multiple threads on a single CPU is still a parallel search, so if the
>>speedup is there he did not improve his serial search but his parallel search.
>
>No... multiple threads on a single CPU is _not_ parallel.  Nothing is being
>executed in parallel since there is one instruction stream per cpu.  That isn't
>the same thing at all.

I understand, but the idea is that the search is parallel (although it is
executed serially in a multitasking environment ) wich should give very related
results to a real parallel search.

Tony

>
>
>
>>
>>Anyone, please jump in where I go wrong.
>>
>>cheers,
>>
>>Tony



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