【发布时间】：2026-01-31 12:35:01
【问题描述】：
我有一个模拟，可以计算在电场和磁场中移动的带电粒子的 3D 矢量。 我试图在 CUDA 中使用 __align__ 说明符来加快速度，认为限制因素可能是全局内存读写，但使用 __align__ 最终会减慢速度（可能是因为它增加了总内存需求）。我也尝试过使用float3 和float4，但它们的性能相似
我创建了此代码的简化版本并将其粘贴在下面以显示我的问题。 下面的代码应该是可编译的，通过将第四行的CASE的定义更改为0、1或2，可以尝试我上面描述的不同选项。定义了两个函数 ParticleMoverCPU 和 ParticleMoverGPU 来比较 CPU 与 GPU 的性能。
- 是否有原因导致我的内存合并尝试减慢而不是加快我的代码？
- 对于像这样的“令人尴尬的并行”代码，还有什么我可以做的比 60 倍加速更好的事情吗？
谢谢！
CPU - Intel Xeon E5620 @2.40GHz
GPU - NVIDIA Tesla C2070
// CASE 0: Regular struct with 3 floats
// CASE 1: Aligned struct using __align__(16) with 3 floats
// CASE 2: float3
#define CASE 0 // define to either 0, 1 or 2 as described above
#include "cuda_runtime.h"
#include "device_launch_parameters.h"
#include <Windows.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <math.h>
#include <time.h>
#include <malloc.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
#define CEX 10 // x-value of electric field (dimensionless and arbitrary)
#define CEY 0.1 // y-value of electric field (dimensionless and arbitrary)
#define CEZ 0.1 // z-value of electric field (dimensionless and arbitrary)
#define CBX 0.1 // x-value of magnetic field (dimensionless and arbitrary)
#define CBY 0.1 // x-value of magnetic field (dimensionless and arbitrary)
#define CBZ 10 // x-value of magnetic field (dimensionless and arbitrary)
#define FACTOR 15 // I played around with these numbers until I got the best speedup
#define THREADS 256 // I played around with these numbers until I got the best speedup
typedef struct{
float x;
float y;
float z;
} VecCPU; //Struct for vectors for CPU calculation
// Fastest method seems to be a regular unaligned struct with 3 floats
#if CASE==0
typedef struct {
float x;
float y;
float z;
} VecGPU;
#endif
#if CASE==1
// This method seems to be less fast. It is an attempt to align for memory coalescence
typedef struct __align__(16){
float x;
float y;
float z;
} VecGPU;
#endif
// Using float3 seems to be about the same as defining our own vector3 structure
#if CASE==2
typedef float3 VecGPU;
#endif
VecCPU *pos_c, *vel_c; // global position and velocity vectors for CPU calculation
__constant__ VecGPU *pos_d, *vel_d; // pointers in constant memory which we will point to data in global memory
void ParticleMoverCPU(int np, int ts, float dt){
int n = 0;
while (n < np){
VecCPU vminus, tvec, vprime, vplus;
float tvec_fact;
int it = 0;
while (it < ts){
// ----- Update velocities by the Boris method ------ //
vminus.x = vel_c[n].x + CEX*0.5*dt;
vminus.y = vel_c[n].y + CEY*0.5*dt;
vminus.z = vel_c[n].z + CEZ*0.5*dt;
tvec.x = CBX*0.5*dt;
tvec.y = CBY*0.5*dt;
tvec.z = CBZ*0.5*dt;
tvec_fact = 2 / (1 + tvec.x*tvec.x + tvec.y*tvec.y + tvec.z*tvec.z);
vprime.x = vminus.x + vminus.y*tvec.z - vminus.z*tvec.y;
vprime.y = vminus.y + vminus.z*tvec.x - vminus.x*tvec.z;
vprime.z = vminus.z + vminus.x*tvec.y - vminus.y*tvec.x;
vplus.x = vminus.x + (vprime.y*tvec.z - vprime.z*tvec.y)*tvec_fact;
vplus.y = vminus.y + (vprime.z*tvec.x - vprime.x*tvec.z)*tvec_fact;
vplus.z = vminus.z + (vprime.x*tvec.y - vprime.y*tvec.x)*tvec_fact;
vel_c[n].x = vplus.x + CEX*0.5*dt;
vel_c[n].y = vplus.y + CEY*0.5*dt;
vel_c[n].z = vplus.z + CEZ*0.5*dt;
// ------ Update Particle positions -------------- //
pos_c[n].x += vel_c[n].x*dt;
pos_c[n].y += vel_c[n].y*dt;
pos_c[n].z += vel_c[n].z*dt;
it++;
}
n++;
}
}
__global__ void ParticleMoverGPU(register int np,register int ts, register float dt){
register int n = threadIdx.x + blockDim.x * blockIdx.x;
while (n < np){
register VecGPU vminus, tvec, vprime, vplus;// , vtemp;
register float tvec_fact;
register int it = 0;
while (it < ts){
// ----- Update velocities by the Boris method ------ //
vminus.x = vel_d[n].x + CEX*0.5*dt;
vminus.y = vel_d[n].y + CEY*0.5*dt;
vminus.z = vel_d[n].z + CEZ*0.5*dt;
tvec.x = CBX*0.5*dt;
tvec.y = CBY*0.5*dt;
tvec.z = CBZ*0.5*dt;
tvec_fact = 2 / (1 + tvec.x*tvec.x + tvec.y*tvec.y + tvec.z*tvec.z);
vprime.x = vminus.x + vminus.y*tvec.z - vminus.z*tvec.y;
vprime.y = vminus.y + vminus.z*tvec.x - vminus.x*tvec.z;
vprime.z = vminus.z + vminus.x*tvec.y - vminus.y*tvec.x;
vplus.x = vminus.x + (vprime.y*tvec.z - vprime.z*tvec.y)*tvec_fact;
vplus.y = vminus.y + (vprime.z*tvec.x - vprime.x*tvec.z)*tvec_fact;
vplus.z = vminus.z + (vprime.x*tvec.y - vprime.y*tvec.x)*tvec_fact;
vel_d[n].x = vplus.x + CEX*0.5*dt;
vel_d[n].y = vplus.y + CEY*0.5*dt;
vel_d[n].z = vplus.z + CEZ*0.5*dt;
// ------ Update Particle positions -------------- //
pos_d[n].x += vel_d[n].x*dt;
pos_d[n].y += vel_d[n].y*dt;
pos_d[n].z += vel_d[n].z*dt;
it++;
}
n += blockDim.x*gridDim.x;
}
}
int main(void){
int np = 50000; // Number of Particles
const int ts = 1000; // Number of Time-steps
const float dt = 1E-3; // Time-step value
// ----------- CPU ----------- //
pos_c = (VecCPU*)malloc(sizeof(VecCPU)*np); // allocate memory for position
vel_c = (VecCPU*)malloc(sizeof(VecCPU)*np); // allocate memory for velocity
for (int n = 0; n < np; n++){
pos_c[n].x = 0; pos_c[n].y = 0; pos_c[n].z = 0; // zero out position for CPU variables
vel_c[n].x = 0; vel_c[n].y = 0; vel_c[n].z = 0; // zero out velocity for CPU variables
}
printf("Starting CPU kernel\n");
clock_t startCPU;
float CPUtime;
startCPU = clock();
ParticleMoverCPU(np, ts, dt); // Launch CPU kernel
CPUtime = ((float)(clock() - startCPU)) / CLOCKS_PER_SEC;
printf("CPU kernel finished\n");
// Ouput final CPU computation time
printf("CPUtime = %6.1f ms\n", ((float)CPUtime)*1E3);
// ------------ GPU ----------- //
cudaFuncSetCacheConfig(ParticleMoverGPU, cudaFuncCachePreferL1); //Set memory preference to L1 (doesn't have much effect)
cudaDeviceProp deviceProp;
cudaGetDeviceProperties(&deviceProp, 0);
int blocks = deviceProp.multiProcessorCount;
VecGPU *pos_g, *vel_g, *pos_l, *vel_l;
pos_g = (VecGPU*)malloc(sizeof(VecGPU)*np); // allocate memory for positions on the CPU
vel_g = (VecGPU*)malloc(sizeof(VecGPU)*np); // allocate memory for velocities on the CPU
cudaMalloc((void**)&pos_l, sizeof(VecGPU)*np); // allocate memory for positions on the GPU
cudaMalloc((void**)&vel_l, sizeof(VecGPU)*np); // allocate memory for velocities on the GPU
cudaMemcpyToSymbol(pos_d, &pos_l, sizeof(void*)); // copy memory address of position to the constant memory pointer pos_d
cudaMemcpyToSymbol(vel_d, &vel_l, sizeof(void*)); // copy memory address of velocity to the constant memory pointer vel_d
for (int n = 0; n < np; n++){
pos_g[n].x = 0; pos_g[n].y = 0; pos_g[n].z = 0; // zero out position for GPU variables (before copying to GPU)
vel_g[n].x = 0; vel_g[n].y = 0; vel_g[n].z = 0; // zero out velocity for GPU variables (before copying to GPU)
}
cudaMemcpy(pos_l, pos_g, sizeof(VecGPU)*np, cudaMemcpyHostToDevice); // Copy positions to GPU global memory
cudaMemcpy(vel_l, vel_g, sizeof(VecGPU)*np, cudaMemcpyHostToDevice); // Copy velocities to GPU global memory
printf("Starting GPU kernel\n");
// start cuda timer
cudaEvent_t start, stop;
cudaEventCreate(&start);
cudaEventCreate(&stop);
cudaEventRecord(start, 0);
ParticleMoverGPU <<<blocks*FACTOR, THREADS >>>(np, ts, dt); // Launch GPU kernel
//stop cuda timer
cudaEventRecord(stop, 0);
cudaEventSynchronize(stop);
float elapsedTime;
cudaEventElapsedTime(&elapsedTime, start, stop);
cudaEventDestroy(start);
cudaEventDestroy(stop);
printf("GPU kernel finished\n");
cudaMemcpy(pos_g, pos_l, sizeof(VecGPU)*np, cudaMemcpyDeviceToHost); // Copy positions from GPU memory back to CPU
cudaMemcpy(vel_g, vel_l, sizeof(VecGPU)*np, cudaMemcpyDeviceToHost); // Copy velocities from GPU memory back to CPU
// Ouput GPU computation time
printf("GPUtime = %6.1f ms\n", elapsedTime);
// Output speedup factor
printf("CASE=%i, Speedup = %4.2f\n",CASE, CPUtime*1E3 / elapsedTime);
// free allocated memory
cudaFree(pos_l);
cudaFree(vel_l);
free(pos_g);
free(vel_g);
free(pos_c);
free(vel_c);
}
对于CASE 0（正则向量结构），我得到：
CPUtime = 1302.0 ms
GPUtime = 21.8 ms
Speedup = 59.79
对于CASE 1（__align__(16) 向量结构）我得到：
CPUtime = 1298.0 ms
GPUtime = 24.5 ms
Speedup = 53.08
对于CASE 2（使用float3）我得到：
CPUtime = 1305.0 ms
GPUtime = 21.8 ms
Speedup = 59.80
如果我使用float4 而不是float3，我会得到类似于__align__(16) 方法的东西。
谢谢！！
【问题讨论】：
-
您确定执行时间的差异（21.8ms 与 24.5ms）具有统计学意义吗？
-
当我多次运行它们时，误差为 +/- 0.2，所以我相信它具有统计学意义。我对内存合并的理解是它减少了需要对全局内存进行的调用次数，所以我希望弄清楚为什么这段代码使用 align 会变慢，这样我才能变得更好在 CUDA 中处理内存时，如果我不正确地合并内存，也许有人可以指出我做错了什么。
标签： cuda memory-alignment