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Lecture 10: GPU Scheduling Issues.

Lecture Summary

  • Wrap up GPU computing: generalities, execution configuration
  • GPU computing: scheduling execution

Using Multiple Blocks

Execution Scheduling Issues

Thread Index vs. Thread ID
Scheduling questions:
  • What is the order for the blocks to be executed?
  • How is this execution process managed?
  • When/How are the threads in a block executed?
Two levels of schedulers:
  1. 1.
    Device-level scheduler (NVIDIA GigaThread engine): Assigns (large numbers of) blocks to (small numbers of) SMs that signal that they have “excess capacity”
    1. 1.
      Once a block is picked up for execution by one SM, it does not leave the SM before all threads in that block finish executing the kernel. Only when a block is finished & retired can we place another block on that SM. Thus, more SMs means a more expensive card.
  2. 2.
    SM-level scheduler (more interesting): Schedules the execution of the threads in a block onto the SM functional units

SM-Level Scheduling

Note that tensor cores are not present in older architectures
  • Each block of threads are divided into 32-thread warps
    • 32: Selected by NVIDIA
    • Warp: A group of 32 thread of consecutive IDs, basic scheduling unit on the SM
  • SM hardware implements almost zero-overhead warp scheduling/switching
SM Architecture Specifications (for one SM)
  • Thread IDs within a warp are consecutive and increasing
  • But we cannot assume ordering among warps
  • There are three possible states for warps:
    • Active warps (deployed on an SM)
    • Eligible warps (a subset of active warps)
    • Issued warps (a subset of eligible warps)
  • Warp stalling: No new instruction issued at a clock cycle
    • Possible reasons
      • Instruction fetch
      • Memory dependency
      • Execution dependency
      • Synchronization barrier
  • In execution configurations, we should have thread block sizes that result in mostly full warps

Thread Divergence (pre-Volta)

Consider this:
__global__ void odd_even(int n, int* x)
{
int i = threadIdx.x + blockDim.x * blockIdx.x;
if( (i & 0x01) == 0 )
{
x[i] = x[i] + 1;
}
else
{
x[i] = x[i] + 2;
}
}
// half of the threads in the warp execute the if clause, and the other half the else clause
A visualization of what happens (execution moves forward for half of the threads each time in lockstep fashion)
  • The performance decreases with the degree of divergence in warps, say a 32-case switch statement
  • Solutions
    • Pre-Volta: a single program counter is shared amongst all 32 threads, combined with an active mask that specifies which threads of the warp are active at any given time
    • Post-Volta: enables equal concurrency between all threads, regardless of warp
      • Execution state (PC, program counter & S, call stack) are maintained per thread (as opposed to one per warp up until Pascal)