Re: [Gems-users] Is GEMS deterministic or NOT?


Date: Fri, 23 May 2008 21:45:12 -0500
From: Dan Gibson <degibson@xxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [Gems-users] Is GEMS deterministic or NOT?
It is not clear what effect the loading of modules affects Simics' determinism... nor did you mention using a fixed RANDOM_SEED for Ruby. Try fixing RANDOM_SEED at some constant, say, 3, and see if you get determinism or not.

Regards,
Dan

Guoqiang Yang wrote:
Hi Dan,

Many thanks for the reply. I just want to verify my understanding. According to your email, basically ruby is deterministic but you are not sure about the simics part, is that right? To my understanding, simics should be deterministic since it is designed so. As for my simulation environment, I turned ruby, opal, and simics on, and I did get different result. Is that supposed to happen?

Best regards,

Guoqiang Yang

==============
Ruby is deterministic, provided it has *exactly* the same environment on the repeat run. That includes random seed (i.e., RANDOM_SEED), as well as less obvious things, like ENV string length, directory structure, Simics version, etc. Because Ruby is only controlling a small portion of what happens (Simics is in the driver's seat, if you will), Ruby cannot guarantee an identical execution if Simics' behavior is somehow different. We do not know if Simics itself uses internal randomness, and if so, how to seed that randomness. This is one of the many reasons why we often present multiple runs of each data point to attain 95% confidence intervals.

Regards,
Dan


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