CPU2017 Flag Description
Hewlett Packard Enterprise ProLiant DL385 Gen11 (3.60 GHz, AMD EPYC 9474F)

Test sponsored by HPE

Compilers: AMD Optimizing C/C++ Compiler Suite


Base Compiler Invocation

C benchmarks

C++ benchmarks

Fortran benchmarks

Benchmarks using both Fortran and C

Benchmarks using both C and C++

Benchmarks using Fortran, C, and C++


Peak Compiler Invocation

C benchmarks

C++ benchmarks

Fortran benchmarks

Benchmarks using both Fortran and C

Benchmarks using both C and C++

Benchmarks using Fortran, C, and C++


Base Portability Flags

503.bwaves_r

507.cactuBSSN_r

508.namd_r

510.parest_r

511.povray_r

519.lbm_r

521.wrf_r

526.blender_r

527.cam4_r

538.imagick_r

544.nab_r

549.fotonik3d_r

554.roms_r


Peak Portability Flags

503.bwaves_r

507.cactuBSSN_r

508.namd_r

510.parest_r

511.povray_r

519.lbm_r

521.wrf_r

526.blender_r

527.cam4_r

538.imagick_r

544.nab_r

549.fotonik3d_r

554.roms_r


Base Optimization Flags

C benchmarks

C++ benchmarks

Fortran benchmarks

Benchmarks using both Fortran and C

Benchmarks using both C and C++

Benchmarks using Fortran, C, and C++


Peak Optimization Flags

C benchmarks

519.lbm_r

538.imagick_r

544.nab_r

C++ benchmarks

508.namd_r

510.parest_r

Fortran benchmarks

503.bwaves_r

549.fotonik3d_r

554.roms_r

Benchmarks using both Fortran and C

521.wrf_r

527.cam4_r

Benchmarks using both C and C++

511.povray_r

526.blender_r

Benchmarks using Fortran, C, and C++


Base Other Flags

C benchmarks

C++ benchmarks

Fortran benchmarks

Benchmarks using both Fortran and C

Benchmarks using both C and C++

Benchmarks using Fortran, C, and C++


Peak Other Flags

C benchmarks

C++ benchmarks

Fortran benchmarks

Benchmarks using both Fortran and C

Benchmarks using both C and C++

Benchmarks using Fortran, C, and C++


Implicitly Included Flags

This section contains descriptions of flags that were included implicitly by other flags, but which do not have a permanent home at SPEC.


Commands and Options Used to Submit Benchmark Runs

Using numactl to bind processes and memory to cores

For multi-copy runs or single copy runs on systems with multiple sockets, it is advantageous to bind a process to a particular core. Otherwise, the OS may arbitrarily move your process from one core to another. This can affect performance. To help, SPEC allows the use of a "submit" command where users can specify a utility to use to bind processes. We have found the utility 'numactl' to be the best choice.

numactl runs processes with a specific NUMA scheduling or memory placement policy. The policy is set for a command and inherited by all of its children. The numactl flag "--physcpubind" specifies which core(s) to bind the process. "-l" instructs numactl to keep a process's memory on the local node while "-m" specifies which node(s) to place a process's memory. For full details on using numactl, please refer to your Linux documentation, 'man numactl'

Note that some older versions of numactl incorrectly interpret application arguments as its own. For example, with the command "numactl --physcpubind=0 -l a.out -m a", numactl will interpret a.out's "-m" option as its own "-m" option. To work around this problem, we put the command to be run in a shell script and then run the shell script using numactl. For example: "echo 'a.out -m a' > run.sh ; numactl --physcpubind=0 bash run.sh"


Shell, Environment, and Other Software Settings

numactl --interleave=all runcpu

numactl --interleave=all runcpu executes the SPEC CPU command runcpu so that memory is consumed across NUMA nodes rather than consumed from a single node. This helps prevent local node out-of-memory conditions which can occur when runcpu is executed without interleaving. For full details on using numactl, please refer to your Linux documentation, 'man numactl'

Transparent Huge Pages (THP)

THP is an abstraction layer that automates most aspects of creating, managing, and using huge pages. It is designed to hide much of the complexity in using huge pages from system administrators and developers. Huge pages increase the memory page size from 4 kilobytes to 2 megabytes. This provides significant performance advantages on systems with highly contended resources and large memory workloads. If memory utilization is too high or memory is badly fragmented which prevents huge pages being allocated, the kernel will assign smaller 4k pages instead. Most recent Linux OS releases have THP enabled by default.

THP usage is controlled by the sysfs setting /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/enabled. Possible values:

The SPEC CPU benchmark codes themselves never explicitly request huge pages, as the mechanism to do that is OS-specific and can change over time. Libraries such as amdalloc which are used by the benchmarks may explicitly request huge pages, and use of such libraries can make the "madvise" setting relevant and useful.

When no huge pages are immediately available and one is requested, how the system handles the request for THP creation is controlled by the sysfs setting /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/defrag. Possible values:

An application that "always" requests THP often can benefit from waiting for an allocation until those huge pages can be assembled.
For more information see the Linux transparent hugepage documentation.

ulimit -s <n>

Sets the stack size to n kbytes, or unlimited to allow the stack size to grow without limit.

ulimit -l <n>

Sets the maximum size of memory that may be locked into physical memory.

powersave -f (on SuSE)

Makes the powersave daemon set the CPUs to the highest supported frequency.

/etc/init.d/cpuspeed stop (on Red Hat)

Disables the cpu frequency scaling program in order to set the CPUs to the highest supported frequency.

LD_LIBRARY_PATH

An environment variable that indicates the location in the filesystem of bundled libraries to use when running the benchmark binaries.

sysctl -w vm.dirty_ratio=8

Limits dirty cache to 8% of memory.

sysctl -w vm.swappiness=1

Limits swap usage to minimum necessary.

sysctl -w vm.zone_reclaim_mode=1

Frees local node memory first to avoid remote memory usage.

kernel/numa_balancing

This OS setting controls automatic NUMA balancing on memory mapping and process placement. NUMA balancing incurs overhead for no benefit on workloads that are already bound to NUMA nodes.

Possible settings:

For more information see the numa_balancing entry in the Linux sysctl documentation.

kernel/randomize_va_space (ASLR)

This setting can be used to select the type of process address space randomization. Defaults differ based on whether the architecture supports ASLR, whether the kernel was built with the CONFIG_COMPAT_BRK option or not, or the kernel boot options used.

Possible settings:

Disabling ASLR can make process execution more deterministic and runtimes more consistent. For more information see the randomize_va_space entry in the Linux sysctl documentation.

vm/drop_caches

The two commands are equivalent: echo 3> /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches and sysctl -w vm.drop_caches=3 Both must be run as root. The commands are used to free up the filesystem page cache, dentries, and inodes.

Possible settings:

MALLOC_CONF

The amdalloc library is a variant of jemalloc library. The amdalloc library has tunable parameters, many of which may be changed at run-time via several mechanisms, one of which is the MALLOC_CONF environment variable. Other methods, as well as the order in which they're referenced, are detailed in the jemalloc documentation's TUNING section.

The options that can be tuned at run-time are everything in the jemalloc documentation's MALLCTL NAMESPACE section that begins with "opt.".

The options that may be encountered in SPEC CPU 2017 results are detailed here:

PGHPF_ZMEM

An environment variable used to initialize the allocated memory. Setting PGHPF_ZMEM to "Yes" has the effect of initializing all allocated memory to zero.

GOMP_CPU_AFFINITY

This environment variable is used to set the thread affinity for threads spawned by OpenMP.

OMP_DYNAMIC

This environment variable is defined as part of the OpenMP standard. Setting it to "false" prevents the OpenMP runtime from dynamically adjusting the number of threads to use for parallel execution.

For more information, see chapter 4 ("Environment Variables") in the OpenMP 4.5 Specification.

OMP_SCHEDULE

This environment variable is defined as part of the OpenMP standard. Setting it to "static" causes loop iterations to be assigned to threads in round-robin fashion in the order of the thread number.

For more information, see chapter 4 ("Environment Variables") in the OpenMP 4.5 Specification.

OMP_STACKSIZE

This environment variable is defined as part of the OpenMP standard and controls the size of the stack for threads created by OpenMP.

For more information, see chapter 4 ("Environment Variables") in the OpenMP 4.5 Specification.

OMP_THREAD_LIMIT

This environment variable is defined as part of the OpenMP standard and limits the maximum number of OpenMP threads that can be created.

For more information, see chapter 4 ("Environment Variables") in the OpenMP 4.5 Specification.


Operating System Tuning Parameters

Operating System (OS) Application/Service Tuning:

The following OS tunes could've been applied to better optimize performance of some areas of the system:

OS Kernel Parameter Tuning:

The following Linux Kernel parameters were tuned to better optimize performance of some areas of the system:

Linux Huge Page settings:

If one prefers not to use Transparent Hugepages, one can always setup Huge Pages by following the below steps:

Note that further information about huge pages may be found in your Linux documentation file: /usr/src/linux/Documentation/vm/hugetlbpage.txt

Environment Variables:

The following Linux environment variables that could've possibly been tuned to better optimize performance of some areas of the system:


Firmware / BIOS / Microcode Settings

Firmware Settings:

One or more of the following settings may have been set. If so, the "Platform Notes" section of the report will say so; and you can read below to find out more about what these settings mean.

Last updated January 30, 2023.


Flag description origin markings:

[user] Indicates that the flag description came from the user flags file.
[suite] Indicates that the flag description came from the suite-wide flags file.
[benchmark] Indicates that the flag description came from a per-benchmark flags file.

The flags files that were used to format this result can be browsed at
http://www.spec.org/cpu2017/flags/HPE-Platform-Flags-AMD-Genoa-rev2.1.html,
http://www.spec.org/cpu2017/flags/aocc400-flags.2023-02-15.html.

You can also download the XML flags sources by saving the following links:
http://www.spec.org/cpu2017/flags/HPE-Platform-Flags-AMD-Genoa-rev2.1.xml,
http://www.spec.org/cpu2017/flags/aocc400-flags.2023-02-15.xml.


For questions about the meanings of these flags, please contact the tester.
For other inquiries, please contact info@spec.org
Copyright 2017-2023 Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation
Tested with SPEC CPU2017 v1.1.8.
Report generated on 2023-02-15 10:31:57 by SPEC CPU2017 flags formatter v5178.