PTS 1.6.0 pbzip2 massive memory usage plus suggestions

[lem79]

Hi all,

I have recently encountered an issue with PTS 1.6.0 in the parallel bzip2 benchmark. It uses all available RAM (2Gb + 3Gb swap). I caught it before anything bad happened and killall'd the pbzip2 process. My system was crawling by this stage. My swap partition is on a 74Gb Raptor. PTS is installed on a 250Gb Seagate.


Below is my system info as reported by PTS:

phoronix-test-suite system-info

====================================
Phoronix Test Suite v1.6.0 (TYDAL)
System Information
====================================

Hardware:
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 6000+ @ 3.00GHz (Total Cores: 2), Motherboard: MSI MS-7250, Chipset: nVidia MCP55, System Memory: 2008MB, Disk: 250GB ST3250624NS + 80GB WDC WD740ADFD-00NLR1 + 250GB ST3250823AS, Graphics: GeForce 7900 GT/GTO 256MB (450/660MHz), Screen Resolution: 1680x1050

Software:
OS: Ubuntu 8.10, Kernel: 2.6.27-12-generic (x86_64), Desktop: GNOME 2.24.1, Display Server: X.Org Server 1.5.2, OpenGL: 2.1.2 NVIDIA 177.82, Compiler: GCC 4.3.2, File-System: ext3




Now, suggestions. We've been talking about PTS and benchmark results over at the AMDZone forums, and some posters have made some suggestions.

Firstly, I made the suggestion of a standardised Phoronix Live CD. It was seconded by another poster at AMDZone. I know this has been mentioned in various ToDo lists here. I believe it's very important for PTS to be more robust in its reproducibility of results. Having a standardised live CD environment (obviously being able to specify where PTS should be installed on the host's filesystems) would be a huge step up for PTS.

Another poster at AMDZone suggested par2 to be part of the benchmark suite. A single threaded test, but still interesting none the less.

Lastly, on PTS Global, I would find it very useful to be able to search for individual CPU models plus benchmarks at the same time. For example, find all GnuPG benchmarks on Core 2 Quads and Phenoms (heh, gotta love the strength of AMD CPUs in encryption ). This would make it much easier to compare different CPUs. Sure it's fairly apples-to-oranges with peoples' systems, but it gives a good idea. Being able to search simultaneously for system property and benchmark type would make the process quicker.


That's all for now. Thanks Michael & team for the great work on PTS. It would be great to see mainstream review sites (other than Phoronix) using PTS regularly to test new hardware. I believe it will get there, or at least PTS will be perfectly suitable for such use (as a standardised Live CD).

[Michael]

Hi all,

I have recently encountered an issue with PTS 1.6.0 in the parallel bzip2 benchmark. It uses all available RAM (2Gb + 3Gb swap). I caught it before anything bad happened and killall'd the pbzip2 process. My system was crawling by this stage. My swap partition is on a 74Gb Raptor. PTS is installed on a 250Gb Seagate.

Hmmm, I haven't encountered that problem nor have I heard of any other reports of this problem.

Firstly, I made the suggestion of a standardised Phoronix Live CD. It was seconded by another poster at AMDZone. I know this has been mentioned in various ToDo lists here. I believe it's very important for PTS to be more robust in its reproducibility of results. Having a standardised live CD environment (obviously being able to specify where PTS should be installed on the host's filesystems) would be a huge step up for PTS.

Both a PTS Linux LiveCD and PTS OpenSolaris LiveCD will be a high priority item once the Phoronix Test Suite GUI is complete around version 2.0 this year. Once the GUI is in place, the only other roadblock will be having enough server resources to distribute the massive media, but hopefully I'll find some server/bandwidth sponsors

Another poster at AMDZone suggested par2 to be part of the benchmark suite. A single threaded test, but still interesting none the less.

I would be happy to add Par2 to the Phoronix Test Suite. However, I am not too familiar with Par2. Do you have any recommended sample files to use with Par2 or any other recommendations?

Lastly, on PTS Global, I would find it very useful to be able to search for individual CPU models plus benchmarks at the same time. For example, find all GnuPG benchmarks on Core 2 Quads and Phenoms (heh, gotta love the strength of AMD CPUs in encryption ). This would make it much easier to compare different CPUs. Sure it's fairly apples-to-oranges with peoples' systems, but it gives a good idea. Being able to search simultaneously for system property and benchmark type would make the process quicker.

Phoronix Global improvements will be coming.

That's all for now. Thanks Michael & team for the great work on PTS. It would be great to see mainstream review sites (other than Phoronix) using PTS regularly to test new hardware. I believe it will get there, or at least PTS will be perfectly suitable for such use (as a standardised Live CD).

You are welcome.

Actually, Tom's Hardware and IDG already use PTS (http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12925) and there's a few other review web-sites out there already using it too. As more review sites turn to Linux, I look forward to the Phoronix Test Suite becoming the de facto standard

[lem79]

Hmmm, I haven't encountered that problem nor have I heard of any other reports of this problem.

The user atari030 in this thread at AMDZone reported something very similar. No details other than it's an overclocked Phenom 9550 running x86_64 Gentoo.

Both a PTS Linux LiveCD and PTS OpenSolaris LiveCD will be a high priority item once the Phoronix Test Suite GUI is complete around version 2.0 this year. Once the GUI is in place, the only other roadblock will be having enough server resources to distribute the massive media, but hopefully I'll find some server/bandwidth sponsors

Great to hear it! BT would always be an option for distribution. I don't suppose you could stick a project like that into SourceForge? lol.. that would give you nice global mirroring.

I would be happy to add Par2 to the Phoronix Test Suite. However, I am not too familiar with Par2. Do you have any recommended sample files to use with Par2 or any other recommendations?

Anandtech uses par2, actually a multithreaded variety! Never knew that existed until MKruer mentioned it (same thread on AMDZone mentioned above). Here's the link he provided to Anandtech: par2 benchmark. Not sure what sort of data they use, but they deliberately corrupt 60mb of a 708mb archive, then get par2 to repair it. Perhaps PTS could generate a 700mb or even 1Gb file from /dev/random, md5sum it, generate parity for it (benchmark this part as well, not just repair like Anandtech did), corrupt it (randomly write from /dev/random to 5% of the file, or however much parity you ask par2 to create), then get par2 to repair it, and maybe md5sum the result to make sure it was ok (par2 obviously repairs it according to its parity data, but eh, can't be too careful with data integrity ).

I'm a casual user, and am not sure if that method would be acceptable, but it sounds ok.. and it would save people downloading something like the latest Ubuntu ISO for PTS to deliberately corrupt

Actually, Tom's Hardware and IDG already use PTS (http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12925) and there's a few other review web-sites out there already using it too. As more review sites turn to Linux, I look forward to the Phoronix Test Suite becoming the de facto standard

Great PTS 2.0 on live CD should increase that list