parallel computing on macpro

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parallel computing on macpro

Hello, can anyone help with these related questions about using my Macpros for computer simulation, or steer me to the right place?:

can i submit jobs to specific cores? can i address the cores using MPI for parallel computing? is apple still maintaining xgrid (the web pages are pretty old)? can i use xgrid to distribute jobs among the cores?

TIA for any info about parallel computing on Macpro

Tom

G5/dual2GHz, PBG4

Posted on Sep 1, 2010 10:02 AM

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Answer 1

Sep 1, 2010 1:59 PM in response to Tom Keyes

I don't see any obvious way to send a particular task to a specific core, but Grand Central Dispatch (GCD) makes that kind of unnecessary. The basic idea behind GCD is that it is constantly monitoring load levels on CPUs/cores, and tries to spread out the load as evenly as possible across the CPUs/cores.

There might be some additional tools that come with XCode that let you tinker with things. I know there's a processor system preferences pane that lets you shut off specific cores for testing purposes.

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Answer 2

Sep 1, 2010 3:41 PM in response to Scott Billings

For XGrid, start with this quick Help document:

Mac OS X 10.6 Help: Setting up your computer as an Xgrid agent

NB: To use your computer as an Xgrid controller, you need to install Mac OS X Server. To submit jobs to a grid, use the Xgrid command-line tool.

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