Compile-time Based Performance Prediction

Abstract

In this paper we present results we obtained using a compiler to predict performance of scientific codes. The compiler, Polaris [3], is both the primary tool for estimating the performance of a range of codes, and the beneficiary of the results obtained from predicting the program behavior at compile time. We show that a simple compile-time model, augmented with profiling data obtained using very light instrumentation, can be accurate within 20% (on average) of the measured performance for codes using both dense and sparse computational methods