NX Nastran multi cores and hyper threading
NX Nastran multi cores and hyper threading
(OP)
Hi,
Is there a limit to the number of cores NX Nastran can address using SMP?
I currently use 8 OK, has anybody used more or know of a limit?
also can NXNastran use hyper threading? Again, anybody used hyper threading and level of success? Is there a limit?
Any info gratefully received.
Thanks
Is there a limit to the number of cores NX Nastran can address using SMP?
I currently use 8 OK, has anybody used more or know of a limit?
also can NXNastran use hyper threading? Again, anybody used hyper threading and level of success? Is there a limit?
Any info gratefully received.
Thanks





RE: NX Nastran multi cores and hyper threading
thread825-350487: Will Nastran NX use more than 4 processors?
www.nxjournaling.com
RE: NX Nastran multi cores and hyper threading
Thanks for the swift reply. Do you know why hyper threading is not recommend?
I did read that post, as mentioned I currently run 8 cores! The post also gave the impression that the limit was 8. Hence my post.
So my questions still stands whats the maximum no of cores and does NXNastran use hyper threading?
RE: NX Nastran multi cores and hyper threading
For more information about NX Nastran and for a discussion about how the SMP versus DMP versions operate, please see the attached document. Also, if you wish to learn more about the NX CAE capabilities in general, please go to:
http://www.plm.automation.siemens.com/en_us/produc...
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: NX Nastran multi cores and hyper threading
Thanks for that I look forward to your confirmation, I hope I have ILP-64 and I hope it runs more than 8 cores!
Meanwhile any body else with experience on this one please chip in
Thanks again.
RE: NX Nastran multi cores and hyper threading
Take a look to this post, it will answer most of the questions regarding NX NASTRAN Hardware Requirements:
http://iberisa.wordpress.com/2014/01/03/requisitos...
Also, according "NX Nastran Installation and Operations Guide":
• When Hyper-Threading is enabled, it can lead to a conflict with threading within NX Nastran for both SMP and DMP executables. Hyper-Threading should be disabled, which can be done permanently through BIOS operations.
Also, according "NX NASTRAN V9.0 PARALLEL PROCESSING GUIDE":
• The maximum number of CPUs selected for SMP processing: 1-1023 processors are available in a SMP job.
Best regards,
Blas.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Blas Molero Hidalgo
Ingeniero Industrial
Director
IBERISA
48011 BILBAO (SPAIN)
WEB: http://www.iberisa.com
Blog de FEMAP & NX Nastran: http://iberisa.wordpress.com/
RE: NX Nastran multi cores and hyper threading
I forgot to comment "LP-64 vs. ILP-64" NX Nastran *.exe files, but in the above wordpress POST is well explained.
Nothing to see with multiprocessors, this is not the difference, simply NX NASTRAN LP-64 address RAM memory till 8 GB (well, exactly 7.99 GB), whereas NX NASTRAN ILP-64 has no limitation in practical real life, it address till 1 TB RAM memory.
In the following picture you have a listing of NX Nastran executables shipped with bundle "FEMAP with NX Nastran (E600)" product, you can locate the same solvers in your instalation of NX ADVANCED SIMULATION (NX13500) product under "<%UGII_BASE_DIR%\NXNASTRAN\BIN" directory. Here both "nastran.exe" and "nastran64.exe" are the "regular" NX NASTRAN LP-64 solvers, and "nastran64L.exe" is the ILP-64 solver. All the solvers are shipped not matter the "type" of NX NASTRAN licensed: NX NASTRAN DESKTOP (NXN110) or NX NASTRAN ENTERPRISE (NXN001).
Then, in case you need to solve a VERY BIG model that requires a lot of RAM memory (above 8 GB), simply select the nastran64L.exe file and provided you have enought RAM memory and hard disc space sure you will be successful!!. Usually I run "regular" NX Nastran LP-64 solver because my FE models are predominant 2-D Shell CQUAD4 4-node elements, then 8 GB RAM gives a lot!!.
Best regards,
Blas.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Blas Molero Hidalgo
Ingeniero Industrial
Director
IBERISA
48011 BILBAO (SPAIN)
WEB: http://www.iberisa.com
Blog de FEMAP & NX Nastran: http://iberisa.wordpress.com/
RE: NX Nastran multi cores and hyper threading
NX Nastran comes in four versions:
1) NX Nastran Desktop, which is included as part of the NX CAE modules and is therefore installed with NX and can use ONLY the NX FEM tools for it's pre- and post-processing needs. And since this can only run on a single desktop (hence its name) where NX is installed, while it's technically possible to access more than 8 cores, for all practical purposes, 8 cores is the limit.
2) NX Nastran Basic, which is sold as a standalone product that can be used with either NX CAE, or most other CAD/FEM products, for pre- and post-processing and is designed to be installed on it's own dedicated server if desired. However, again while it technically can access more than 8 cores, anything past that provides very little added benefit, the same limitation as was the case with NX Nastran Desktop.
3) NX Nastran Advanced, which is an add-on to NX Nastran Basic but since it includes support for the DMP (Distributed Memory Parallel Processing) you can run the solver on a cluster of networked CPU's where you can potentially have access to an unlimited number of cores or processors, but again, for all practical purposes, the limit is generally assumed to be 512.
4) And last but not least, is the NX Nastran Advanced Nonlinear Solver Bundle which includes both the NX Nastran Basic and NX Nastran Advanced products along with a suite of highly specialized non-linear tools used for simulations involving contact, large deformation, large strain and nonlinear materials.
As previously stated, while all the versions of NX Nastran are SMP (Shared Memory Parallel Processing) which supports up to 8 cores on a single desktop/server, only the last two versions, NX Nastran Advanced and NX Nastran Advanced Nonlinear Solver Bundle supports DMP which will allow for the practical support or more than 8 cores simultaneously.
As for the NX Nastran LP-64 versus NX Nastarn ILP-64 issue, this appears to be simply an evolution of the software over time where it was rearchitected to better leverage modern memory managers which now allows for the utilization of vast amounts of physical memory on a single server. It's not so much tied to multiple processors as it is to getting the most out of the actual memory installed on each desktop/server. However, I have asked for further clarification as to when exactly did this transition from an LP-64 to the ILP-64 architecture take place.
Anyway, I hope this helps.
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: NX Nastran multi cores and hyper threading
Regards Jeff.
RE: NX Nastran multi cores and hyper threading
While it may help in an office setting or at home, it does not help when you get multi-threaded high CPU demanding applications.
"Wildfires are dangerous, hard to control, and economically catastrophic."
Ben Loosli
RE: NX Nastran multi cores and hyper threading
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: NX Nastran multi cores and hyper threading
On a reasonably well equipped workstation - HP Z820 twin E5-2687W Xeons (16 physical cores) 128 GB RAM - is there and disadvantage in using ILP-64 by default ?
RE: NX Nastran multi cores and hyper threading
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: NX Nastran multi cores and hyper threading
Hello!,
The default in any NX AdvSim installation is "nastran.exe", that is the "regular" LP-64 nastran solver (choosing nastran64.exe is the same). For any study under EDIT SOLVER PARAMETERS you can choose the solver you like. Or also configure by default under CUSTOMER DEFAULT > SIMULATION > NASTRAN > SOLVER PARAMETERS.
When the LP-64 executable is used, the bytes_per_word is 4. When the ILP-64 executable is used, the bytes_per_word is 8. This difference is important when you are specifying memory with the “memory” keyword. See the “memory” keyword in the NX Nastran Quick Reference Guide for more information.
The LP-64 executable writes binary output files as 32-bit. However, the ILP-64 produces a different binary file format since all integers and floating point data are written out with a 64-bit precision. Depending on the use of the binary output files from a 64-bit machine, you may need to convert a 64-bit files’s format back to 32-bit. For example, post-processors currently only support 32-bit integers, thus the need to convert .op2 files to 32-bit. This is done automatically by the solver, system cells are available to convert binary output files from 64- bit machines to 32-bit.
Unless you need more than 8GB to solve in-core any FE model, better use always the "regular" NX NASTRAN LP-64 executable and a memory request of say mem=5GB. This leaves the rest of the RAM avialble in your system unallocated, and the OS can use it as cache to help I/O. This will results in less scratch I/O and more unallocated memory available (for the OS to use as I/O cache), both will improve I/O performance, that is preciselly what I want: faster solutions with less hard disc space (here using SSD is impressing faster!!). In any case, NX Nastran will tell you in the F06 file to use the ILP-64 solver if required.
This is the way that modern Operating Systems like Windows Vista/7/8 & Linux runs nowadays: using unallocated RAM as I/O cache.
Best regards,
Blas.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Blas Molero Hidalgo
Ingeniero Industrial
Director
IBERISA
48011 BILBAO (SPAIN)
WEB: http://www.iberisa.com
Blog de FEMAP & NX Nastran: http://iberisa.wordpress.com/
RE: NX Nastran multi cores and hyper threading
As for the standalone versions of NX Nastran, again both versions are automatically installed, but since solutions are generally launched from some user-written script or from a command-line, this is controlled by what path was used for the solver.
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: NX Nastran multi cores and hyper threading
An update for my original posted query.
I now have a dell 7600 with two six core CPUs,128Gb RAM, with 2256Gb SSD in RAID 0.
The operating system and scratch files are on the SSD. While it did run with hyper threading the CPU usage in task manager looked a tad messy! So I have disabled the HT as recommended and the CPUs are working much harder. So first off thanks for that advice.
Regards Jeff
RE: NX Nastran multi cores and hyper threading
Hi, Did you really try to compare an execution time with and without Hyperthreading on "high CPU demanding applications"?
As I observed, Task Manader performance monitor just indicates half of real percentage of CPU occupation. Do not beleave this numbers.
The job is running as fast as without Hyperthreading or even better in spite of CPU percentage, particularly on new generation multi-core CPU.
I observed it both in real NX jobs and with different benchmarks.
As to RENDERING, Hyperthreading is about 50% more effitient.
--Gennady