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PGI New Release Questions

Release 7.1 PGI Compiler Features and Performance

(NEW) MPI Debugging and Profiling included in all Linux products. PGI Workstation and PGI Server for Linux now include the ability to debug and profile up to four local MPI processes. Both products also include a precompiled MPICH library.
(NEW) Debugging and Profiling of Microsoft MPI programs (MSMPI) running on Microsoft Compute Cluster Server (CCS).
(NEW) Expanded Products and Platforms
- PGI Workstation for MacOS 10.4.9 and 10.5.
- PGI Server cross-platform (Linux, MacOS & Windows/SUA)
- PGI Visual Fortran Server network floating license
(NEW) Expanded Linux Distributions Support
- SuSE 10.2 and SLES 10
- Fedora Core 7
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5
(NEW) Unlimited OpenMP thread counts in all PGI products
Quad-Core AMD Opteron micro-architecture optimizations
- Optimize code selection to take full advantage of 128-bit FPU (reduce merge dependencies)
- Aggressive use of 2MB huge pages to exploit increased number of TLB entries
- Optimized heap allocation to improve use of 2-way set associative L1 cache
Over 5% performance increase over latest update of release 7.0
Memory hierarchy and memory allocation optimizations including huge pages support
Enhanced auto-parallelization of vector loops across multiple cores using memory bandwidth-based profitability analysis
PGCC and PGC++ inlining enhancements and optimizations
- inlining of file static functions across files
- PFO-driven inlining of indirect calls through IPA
Improved IPA compilation speed
Enhanced profile-feedback optimizations
- Feedback aggregation over multiple runs
- Function inlining
- Register allocation
Enhance code placement optimizations
- Improved handling of large functions
- Optimize placement of successor blocks with similar probabilities
- Improved placement in absence of dynamic profile feedback
Support for dynamic linking on Windows SFU
Support for static linking on Windows
Vectorization optimizations
- Extended SSE vectorization for loops with indirect addressing
- Additional SSE3 extensions
- Optimized register selection
- Cache alignment tuning for multi-core
Enhanced gcc/g++ compatibility
- source correlation and handling of include files
- support for namespaces, overloading and reference variables
PGDBG debugger enhancements
- Improved stack traces
- interoperability with Microsoft Visual C++
- fast disassemply
- performance improvements
- improved interoperability with gcc/g++
PGPROF MPI profiling of aggregate communication routines
PGI CDK supports MVAPICH running over InfiniBand*
Updated PGI User's Guide and PGI Visual Fortran Users Guide
Pre-validation of de facto standard support libraries including NetCDF,
F90 OpenGL, ATLAS, ScaLAPACK, MPI-CH and LAM MPI
Pre-validation of POP, MM5, CAM, MOM4, WRF2, AMBER, CHARMM, GAMESS, MOLPRO, MCNP5 and TBMD

Complete details are included in the PGI Workstation 7.1 Release Notes, the PGI Visual Fortran Release Notes and the PGI CDK 7.1 Release Notes.

What are the latest releases?

The current PGI release versions are

	PGI Workstation and PGI Server for Linux		7.1-6, updated March 11, 2008
	PGI CDK® for Linux		7.1-6, updated March 11, 2008
	PGI Workstation and PGI Server for Windows		7.1-6, updated March 11, 2008
	PGI Workstation and PGI Server for Windows SUA 32		7.1-6, updated March 11, 2008
	PGI Workstation and PGI Server for Windows SUA 64		7.1-6, updated March 11, 2008
	PGI Workstation and PGI Server for Windows SFU 32		7.1-6, updated March 11, 2008
	PGI Visual Fortran®		7.1-6, updated March 11, 2008
	PGI CDK® for Windows		7.1-6, updated March 11, 2008

Download the current or an older release from the PGI archive.

How do I get the latest release?

PGI products are available in the download section of this website.

How do I find out if my license will work with the current release?

The license file will have a field with 3.000, 3.100, 3.200, 3.300, 4.000, 4.100, 5.000, 5.100, 5.200, 6.000, 6.100, 6.200, 7.000, or 7.100 in it. This is the highest release this license will support. For the current release, you should have a 7.100 . Note: Any release prior to the value in the field should work with the license.

How do I find out if I qualify for a current release license?

The subscription information is available by going to the online key generation system. If you go online with the access codes (PIN and password) for your account, and link to the key generation process, you will find entries in the information display that indicate when your subscription expires and your current release. Note: If you qualify for release 7.1-2, for example, you will also qualify for 7.1-3, 7.1-5, and so on when/if they occur.

What is a subscription?

A subscription entitles the user to get new licenses for new minor releases. Whatever product you have purchased a license for, a subscription fee will allow you to upgrade to the latest release for up to a year. If you do not purchase a subscription, you are allowed an upgrade for up to 60 days after purchase. If your subscription expires, you can become a current subscriber by paying the subscription charge over the lapsed period. You may also wish to read the PGI Subscription Service Agreement.

How do I get the access codes?

The access codes are sent when you purchase your compilers. An order acknowledgement email is sent with the codes. If you lose/forget them, email PGI License Support and request your original order acknowledgement.

How does this release differ from the previous release?

The 7.1 release has a switch -Bstatic_pgi, which statically links PGI created libraries, but not the linux libraries typically linked dynamically. This allows users to create executables on simliar Linux systems, and running them without installing the Portability Package. Note that PGI executables can run successfully on a wider range of Linux systems when using the dynamically linked Portability Package.
The 7.1 release, currently available in the download section will now support SUSE 10.3, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, and Fedora Core 7, for 64-bit on AMD64 or EM64T.
The current release supports quad-core AMD Barcelona and Dual-core Intel Woodcrest/Penryn systems.
The current release has no limit on the number of threads an OpenMP supports.
The current release supports module load builds, a style of program compilation and linking (like makefiles) that some sites have requested (note: do not confuse this with Fortran 95 modules). Those sites can download and will know how to edit and install the Module TCL script as file 7.1 in a directory named pgi so that
```
module load pgi/7.1
```
works as expected.
Further information can be found in the 7.1 Release Notes located in the documentation section.

Any known problems with the recent releases?

Releases 7.0-3, 7.0-4, 7.0-5, and 7.0-6 have exhibited the following problem in pgCC, both 32-bit and 64-bit versions.
When executing pgCC, the following message is displayed before the compiler quits

This Licensed Software was made available from STMicroelectronics under a time-limited Beta License. The Beta License expires on "some date". Any attempt to use this product after "some date" is a violation of the terms of the PGI End-User License Agreement.

To correct this problem, download the pgCC patch and follow the instructions in the README file.
32-bit executables that use libpthreads may fail on 64-bit Linux systems because libpthreads reduces stack size to 2MB. This is a Linux limitation. libpthreads is used by routines compiled -mp or -Mconcur. 64-bit executables do not experience this limitation.
Some users linking with libpthreads (-mp or -Mconcur) have seen the error message symbol _h_errno, version GLIBC_2.2.5 not defined in file libc.so.6 with link time reference This can be worked around with the environment variable LD_ASSUME_KERNEL export LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.4.1 or export LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.2.5 for example.