[gmx-users] CVS support for threads [was: qm_mopac.c problems in building of 3.3.1]

[Anton Feenstra]

Jake Michaelson wrote:
> Another problem I've run into (this is OT) is the '--enable-threads' 
> option.  I know (from other mailing list posts) that this doesn't work 
> in any of the releases, but how about CVS?  If it doesn't work, why 
> include the option in the configure script? It seems like with the trend 
> of cramming more cores into a single box, threads would become more and 
> more important.  MPI just seems kind of ridiculous for work on a single 
> machine, when you could use threads.

It isn't as thick-brained as it may seem. If your local MPI 
implementation is SMP and/or multi-core aware, it will use shared 
memory, local bus or cache for the communication calls. This has alway 
worked well enough on, e.g., SGI multi-cpu machines (e.g., PowerChallenge).

Nevertheless, on newer architectures, threads would ultimately be the 
better choice. They're working on it and according to David van der 
Spoel it will be in 4.0 (that was on the Developer's list in May '04... 
Brrrrr, as David would put it ;-).


-- 
Groetjes,

Anton

  _____________ _______________________________________________________
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|  _   _  ___,| K. Anton Feenstra                                     |
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