high performance computing on graphics processing units: hgpu.org

CONTEXT. Interactive GPGPU applications requires low response time feedback from events such as user input in order to provide a positive user experience. Communication of these events must be performed asynchronously as to not cause significant performance penalties. OBJECTIVES. In this study the usage of CPU/GPU shared virtual memory to perform asynchronous communication is explored. Previous studies have shown that shared virtual memory can increase computational performance compared to other types of memory. METHODS. A communication technique that aimed to utilize the performance increasing properties of shared virtual memory was developed and implemented. The implemented technique was then compared to an implementation using explicitly transferred memory in an experiment measuring the performance of the various stages involved in the technique. RESULTS. The results from the experiment revealed that utilizing shared virtual memory for performing asynchronous communication was in general slightly slower than- or comparable to using explicitly transferred memory. In some cases, where the memory access pattern was right, utilization of shared virtual memory lead to a 50% reduction in execution time compared to explicitly transferred memory. CONCLUSIONS. A conclusion that shared virtual memory can be utilized for performing asynchronous communication was reached. It was also concluded that by utilizing shared virtual memory a performance increase can be achieved over explicitly transferred memory. In addition it was concluded that careful consideration of data size and access pattern is required to utilize the performance increasing properties of shared virtual memory.