[Paraview] pvserver maxed out

[David Thompson]

> I confirm that with mpich2 version 1.0.7, using the default device
> (ch3:sock), the load of an idle pvserver is near 0. With ch3:nemesis,
> all but one of the processes use a full cpu. With OpenMPI, I think all
> processes use a full cpu.

This is configurable on the mpirun command line:

http://www.open-mpi.org/faq/?category=running#force-aggressive-degraded

If you set the MCA parameter mpi_yield_when_idle to a non-zero value,
OpenMPI will not aggressively poll inside MPI routines. For example:

  mpirun --mca mpi_yield_when_idle 1 -np 4 pvserver

David

> In conclusion, if you are running pvserver on a Mac laptop, use mpich2
> with default build options.
> 
> -berk
> 
> On Mon, Jun 15, 2009 at 9:11 PM, Berk Geveci<berk.geveci at kitware.com> wrote:
> > For this reason, I use MPICH2 on my MacBook Pro and OpenMPI on my Mac
> > Pro. I can't remember which device I ended up settling on - I think
> > the default. If I remember correctly, ch3:nemesis was causing the same
> > issue as OpenMPI.
> >
> > -berk
> >
> > On Mon, Jun 15, 2009 at 1:44 PM, Randy Heiland<heiland at indiana.edu> wrote:
> >> Thanks Utkarsh.  Just to add to this thread, I asked some of the OMPI
> >> developers and apparently it's not possible to avoid this behavior.
> >> -Randy
> >> On Jun 15, 2009, at 11:35 AM, Utkarsh Ayachit wrote:
> >>
> >> Yup, that's expected. That's because of your MPI implementation. OpenMPI
> >> does a busy wait when waiting for mpi messages. I think there's an
> >> environment variable or something that you can set to disable that, I am no
> >> sure. Maybe someone on the mailing list knows, or try checking the OpenMPI
> >> documentation.
> >>
> >> Utkarsh
> >>
> >> On Mon, Jun 15, 2009 at 11:28 AM, Randy Heiland <heiland at indiana.edu> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> When I use 'mpirun -np 2 pvserver'  on my dual core MacBook (either
> >>> connecting to it via paraview client or standalone), it keeps one of my CPUs
> >>> pegged at nearly 100%.  Is this to be expected?  (Just running the serial
> >>> './pvserver' of course just generates 'Listening...Waiting for client...'
> >>> with no CPU load).
> >>>
> >>> % ./pvserver --version
> >>> ParaView3.7
> >>>
> >>> % ompi_info
> >>>                Open MPI: 1.3.1
> >>>
> >>> thanks, Randy
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