Code Optimization for Differential Equations
See this FAQ for information on common pitfalls and how to improve performance.
Code Optimization in Julia
Before starting this tutorial, we recommend the reader to check out one of the many tutorials for optimization Julia code. The following is an incomplete list:
- The Julia Performance Tips
- MIT 18.337 Course Notes on Optimizing Serial Code
- What scientists must know about hardware to write fast code
User-side optimizations are important because, for sufficiently difficult problems, most time will be spent inside your f function, the function you are trying to solve. “Efficient” integrators are those that reduce the required number of f calls to hit the error tolerance. The main ideas for optimizing your DiffEq code, or any Julia function, are the following:
- Make it non-allocating
- Use StaticArrays for small arrays
- Use broadcast fusion
- Make it type-stable
- Reduce redundant calculations
- Make use of BLAS calls
- Optimize algorithm choice
We'll discuss these strategies in the context of differential equations. Let's start with small systems.
Example Accelerating a Non-Stiff Equation: The Lorenz Equation
Let's take the classic Lorenz system. Let's start by naively writing the system in its out-of-place form:
function lorenz(u, p, t)
dx = 10.0 * (u[2] - u[1])
dy = u[1] * (28.0 - u[3]) - u[2]
dz = u[1] * u[2] - (8 / 3) * u[3]
[dx, dy, dz]
endlorenz (generic function with 1 method)Here, lorenz returns an object, [dx,dy,dz], which is created within the body of lorenz.
This is a common code pattern from high-level languages like MATLAB, SciPy, or R's deSolve. However, the issue with this form is that it allocates a vector, [dx,dy,dz], at each step. Let's benchmark the solution process with this choice of function:
using DifferentialEquations, BenchmarkTools
u0 = [1.0; 0.0; 0.0]
tspan = (0.0, 100.0)
prob = ODEProblem(lorenz, u0, tspan)
@btime solve(prob, Tsit5()); 3.365 ms (192104 allocations: 7.44 MiB)The BenchmarkTools.jl package's @benchmark runs the code multiple times to get an accurate measurement. The minimum time is the time it takes when your OS and other background processes aren't getting in the way. Notice that in this case it takes about 5ms to solve and allocates around 11.11 MiB. However, if we were to use this inside of a real user code, we'd see a lot of time spent doing garbage collection (GC) to clean up all the arrays we made. Even if we turn off saving, we have these allocations.
@btime solve(prob, Tsit5(), save_everystep = false); 2.963 ms (169897 allocations: 6.49 MiB)The problem, of course, is that arrays are created every time our derivative function is called. This function is called multiple times per step and is thus the main source of memory usage. To fix this, we can use the in-place form to ***make our code non-allocating***:
function lorenz!(du, u, p, t)
du[1] = 10.0 * (u[2] - u[1])
du[2] = u[1] * (28.0 - u[3]) - u[2]
du[3] = u[1] * u[2] - (8 / 3) * u[3]
nothing
endlorenz! (generic function with 1 method)Here, instead of creating an array each time, we utilized the cache array du. When the in-place form is used, DifferentialEquations.jl takes a different internal route that minimizes the internal allocations as well.
Notice that nothing is returned. When in in-place form, the ODE solver ignores the return. Instead, make sure that the original du array is mutated instead of constructing a new array
When we benchmark this function, we will see quite a difference.
u0 = [1.0; 0.0; 0.0]
tspan = (0.0, 100.0)
prob = ODEProblem(lorenz!, u0, tspan)
@btime solve(prob, Tsit5()); 748.216 μs (23214 allocations: 1013.30 KiB)@btime solve(prob, Tsit5(), save_everystep = false); 357.118 μs (71 allocations: 3.89 KiB)There is a 16x time difference just from that change! Notice there are still some allocations and this is due to the construction of the integration cache. But this doesn't scale with the problem size:
tspan = (0.0, 500.0) # 5x longer than before
prob = ODEProblem(lorenz!, u0, tspan)
@btime solve(prob, Tsit5(), save_everystep = false); 1.837 ms (71 allocations: 3.89 KiB)Since that's all setup allocations, the user-side optimization is complete.
Further Optimizations of Small Non-Stiff ODEs with StaticArrays
Allocations are only expensive if they are “heap allocations”. For a more in-depth definition of heap allocations, there are many sources online. But a good working definition is that heap allocations are variable-sized slabs of memory which have to be pointed to, and this pointer indirection costs time. Additionally, the heap has to be managed, and the garbage controllers has to actively keep track of what's on the heap.
However, there's an alternative to heap allocations, known as stack allocations. The stack is statically-sized (known at compile time) and thus its accesses are quick. Additionally, the exact block of memory is known in advance by the compiler, and thus re-using the memory is cheap. This means that allocating on the stack has essentially no cost!
Arrays have to be heap allocated because their size (and thus the amount of memory they take up) is determined at runtime. But there are structures in Julia which are stack-allocated. structs for example are stack-allocated “value-type”s. Tuples are a stack-allocated collection. The most useful data structure for DiffEq though is the StaticArray from the package StaticArrays.jl. These arrays have their length determined at compile-time. They are created using macros attached to normal array expressions, for example:
using StaticArrays
A = SA[2.0, 3.0, 5.0]
typeof(A) # SVector{3, Float64} (alias for SArray{Tuple{3}, Float64, 1, 3})SVector{3, Float64} (alias for StaticArraysCore.SArray{Tuple{3}, Float64, 1, 3})Notice that the 3 after SVector gives the size of the SVector. It cannot be changed. Additionally, SVectors are immutable, so we have to create a new SVector to change values. But remember, we don't have to worry about allocations because this data structure is stack-allocated. SArrays have numerous extra optimizations as well: they have fast matrix multiplication, fast QR factorizations, etc. which directly make use of the information about the size of the array. Thus, when possible, they should be used.
Unfortunately, static arrays can only be used for sufficiently small arrays. After a certain size, they are forced to heap allocate after some instructions and their compile time balloons. Thus, static arrays shouldn't be used if your system has more than ~20 variables. Additionally, only the native Julia algorithms can fully utilize static arrays.
Let's ***optimize lorenz using static arrays***. Note that in this case, we want to use the out-of-place allocating form, but this time we want to output a static array:
function lorenz_static(u, p, t)
dx = 10.0 * (u[2] - u[1])
dy = u[1] * (28.0 - u[3]) - u[2]
dz = u[1] * u[2] - (8 / 3) * u[3]
SA[dx, dy, dz]
endlorenz_static (generic function with 1 method)To make the solver internally use static arrays, we simply give it a static array as the initial condition:
u0 = SA[1.0, 0.0, 0.0]
tspan = (0.0, 100.0)
prob = ODEProblem(lorenz_static, u0, tspan)
@btime solve(prob, Tsit5()); 262.099 μs (2615 allocations: 392.66 KiB)@btime solve(prob, Tsit5(), save_everystep = false); 185.629 μs (25 allocations: 2.03 KiB)And that's pretty much all there is to it. With static arrays, you don't have to worry about allocating, so use operations like * and don't worry about fusing operations (discussed in the next section). Do “the vectorized code” of R/MATLAB/Python and your code in this case will be fast, or directly use the numbers/values.
Example Accelerating a Stiff Equation: the Robertson Equation
For these next examples, let's solve the Robertson equations (also known as ROBER):
\[\begin{aligned} \frac{dy_1}{dt} &= -0.04y₁ + 10^4 y_2 y_3 \\ \frac{dy_2}{dt} &= 0.04 y_1 - 10^4 y_2 y_3 - 3*10^7 y_{2}^2 \\ \frac{dy_3}{dt} &= 3*10^7 y_{2}^2 \\ \end{aligned}\]
Given that these equations are stiff, non-stiff ODE solvers like Tsit5 or Vern9 will fail to solve these equations. The automatic algorithm will detect this and automatically switch to something more robust to handle these issues. For example:
using DifferentialEquations
using Plots
function rober!(du, u, p, t)
y₁, y₂, y₃ = u
k₁, k₂, k₃ = p
du[1] = -k₁ * y₁ + k₃ * y₂ * y₃
du[2] = k₁ * y₁ - k₂ * y₂^2 - k₃ * y₂ * y₃
du[3] = k₂ * y₂^2
nothing
end
prob = ODEProblem(rober!, [1.0, 0.0, 0.0], (0.0, 1e5), [0.04, 3e7, 1e4])
sol = solve(prob)
plot(sol, tspan = (1e-2, 1e5), xscale = :log10)
using BenchmarkTools
@btime solve(prob); 110.979 μs (1671 allocations: 129.91 KiB)Choosing a Good Solver
Choosing a good solver is required for getting top-notch speed. General recommendations can be found on the solver page (for example, the ODE Solver Recommendations). The current recommendations can be simplified to a Rosenbrock method (Rosenbrock23 or Rodas5) for smaller (<50 ODEs) problems, ESDIRK methods for slightly larger (TRBDF2 or KenCarp4 for <2000 ODEs), and QNDF for even larger problems. lsoda from LSODA.jl is sometimes worth a try for the medium-sized category.
More details on the solver to choose can be found by benchmarking. See the SciMLBenchmarks to compare many solvers on many problems.
From this, we try the recommendation of Rosenbrock23() for stiff ODEs at default tolerances:
@btime solve(prob, Rosenbrock23()); 67.120 μs (714 allocations: 35.20 KiB)Declaring Jacobian Functions
In order to reduce the Jacobian construction cost, one can describe a Jacobian function by using the jac argument for the ODEFunction. First we have to derive the Jacobian $\frac{df_i}{du_j}$ which is J[i,j]. From this, we get:
function rober_jac!(J, u, p, t)
y₁, y₂, y₃ = u
k₁, k₂, k₃ = p
J[1, 1] = k₁ * -1
J[2, 1] = k₁
J[3, 1] = 0
J[1, 2] = y₃ * k₃
J[2, 2] = y₂ * k₂ * -2 + y₃ * k₃ * -1
J[3, 2] = y₂ * 2 * k₂
J[1, 3] = k₃ * y₂
J[2, 3] = k₃ * y₂ * -1
J[3, 3] = 0
nothing
end
f! = ODEFunction(rober!, jac = rober_jac!)
prob_jac = ODEProblem(f!, [1.0, 0.0, 0.0], (0.0, 1e5), (0.04, 3e7, 1e4))ODEProblem with uType Vector{Float64} and tType Float64. In-place: true
Non-trivial mass matrix: false
timespan: (0.0, 100000.0)
u0: 3-element Vector{Float64}:
1.0
0.0
0.0@btime solve(prob_jac, Rosenbrock23()); 61.089 μs (694 allocations: 34.28 KiB)Automatic Derivation of Jacobian Functions
But that was hard! If you want to take the symbolic Jacobian of numerical code, we can make use of ModelingToolkit.jl to symbolic-ify the numerical code and do the symbolic calculation and return the Julia code for this.
using ModelingToolkit
de = complete(modelingtoolkitize(prob))\[ \begin{align} \frac{\mathrm{d} \mathtt{x_1}\left( t \right)}{\mathrm{d}t} &= - \mathtt{x_1}\left( t \right) \mathtt{\alpha_1} + \mathtt{x_2}\left( t \right) \mathtt{x_3}\left( t \right) \mathtt{\alpha_3} \\ \frac{\mathrm{d} \mathtt{x_2}\left( t \right)}{\mathrm{d}t} &= \mathtt{x_1}\left( t \right) \mathtt{\alpha_1} - \left( \mathtt{x_2}\left( t \right) \right)^{2} \mathtt{\alpha_2} - \mathtt{x_2}\left( t \right) \mathtt{x_3}\left( t \right) \mathtt{\alpha_3} \\ \frac{\mathrm{d} \mathtt{x_3}\left( t \right)}{\mathrm{d}t} &= \left( \mathtt{x_2}\left( t \right) \right)^{2} \mathtt{\alpha_2} \end{align} \]
We can tell it to compute the Jacobian if we want to see the code:
ModelingToolkit.generate_jacobian(de)[2] # Second is in-place:(function (ˍ₋out, __mtk_arg_1, ___mtkparameters___, t)
#= /root/.cache/julia-buildkite-plugin/depots/0185fce3-4489-413a-a934-123dd653ef61/packages/Symbolics/M5oEc/src/build_function.jl:368 =# @inbounds begin
#= /root/.cache/julia-buildkite-plugin/depots/0185fce3-4489-413a-a934-123dd653ef61/packages/Symbolics/M5oEc/src/build_function.jl:368 =#
begin
#= /root/.cache/julia-buildkite-plugin/depots/0185fce3-4489-413a-a934-123dd653ef61/packages/SymbolicUtils/KHJCP/src/code.jl:402 =#
#= /root/.cache/julia-buildkite-plugin/depots/0185fce3-4489-413a-a934-123dd653ef61/packages/SymbolicUtils/KHJCP/src/code.jl:403 =#
#= /root/.cache/julia-buildkite-plugin/depots/0185fce3-4489-413a-a934-123dd653ef61/packages/SymbolicUtils/KHJCP/src/code.jl:404 =#
begin
__mtk_arg_2 = ___mtkparameters___[1]
__mtk_arg_3 = ___mtkparameters___[2]
begin
#= /root/.cache/julia-buildkite-plugin/depots/0185fce3-4489-413a-a934-123dd653ef61/packages/SymbolicUtils/KHJCP/src/code.jl:457 =# @inbounds begin
#= /root/.cache/julia-buildkite-plugin/depots/0185fce3-4489-413a-a934-123dd653ef61/packages/SymbolicUtils/KHJCP/src/code.jl:453 =#
ˍ₋out[1] = (*)(-1, __mtk_arg_2[2])
ˍ₋out[2] = __mtk_arg_2[2]
ˍ₋out[3] = 0
ˍ₋out[4] = (*)(__mtk_arg_1[3], __mtk_arg_2[1])
ˍ₋out[5] = (+)((*)((*)(-2, __mtk_arg_1[2]), __mtk_arg_2[3]), (*)((*)(-1, __mtk_arg_1[3]), __mtk_arg_2[1]))
ˍ₋out[6] = (*)((*)(2, __mtk_arg_1[2]), __mtk_arg_2[3])
ˍ₋out[7] = (*)(__mtk_arg_1[2], __mtk_arg_2[1])
ˍ₋out[8] = (*)((*)(-1, __mtk_arg_1[2]), __mtk_arg_2[1])
ˍ₋out[9] = 0
#= /root/.cache/julia-buildkite-plugin/depots/0185fce3-4489-413a-a934-123dd653ef61/packages/SymbolicUtils/KHJCP/src/code.jl:455 =#
ˍ₋out
end
end
end
end
end
end)Now let's use that to give the analytical solution Jacobian:
prob_jac2 = ODEProblem(de, [], (0.0, 1e5), jac = true)ODEProblem with uType Vector{Float64} and tType Float64. In-place: true
Initialization status: FULLY_DETERMINED
Non-trivial mass matrix: false
timespan: (0.0, 100000.0)
u0: 3-element Vector{Float64}:
1.0
0.0
0.0@btime solve(prob_jac2); 96.049 μs (1587 allocations: 119.39 KiB)See the ModelingToolkit.jl documentation for more details.
Accelerating Small ODE Solves with Static Arrays
If the ODE is sufficiently small (<20 ODEs or so), using StaticArrays.jl for the state variables can greatly enhance the performance. This is done by making u0 a StaticArray and writing an out-of-place non-mutating dispatch for static arrays, for the ROBER problem, this looks like:
using StaticArrays
function rober_static(u, p, t)
y₁, y₂, y₃ = u
k₁, k₂, k₃ = p
du1 = -k₁ * y₁ + k₃ * y₂ * y₃
du2 = k₁ * y₁ - k₂ * y₂^2 - k₃ * y₂ * y₃
du3 = k₂ * y₂^2
SA[du1, du2, du3]
end
prob = ODEProblem(rober_static, SA[1.0, 0.0, 0.0], (0.0, 1e5), SA[0.04, 3e7, 1e4])
sol = solve(prob, Rosenbrock23())retcode: Success
Interpolation: specialized 2nd order "free" stiffness-aware interpolation
t: 61-element Vector{Float64}:
0.0
3.196206628740808e-5
0.00014400709669791316
0.00025605212710841824
0.00048593872520561496
0.0007179482298405134
0.0010819240431281
0.0014801655696439716
0.0020679567767069723
0.0028435846274559506
⋮
25371.934242574636
30784.11997687391
37217.42637183451
44850.61378119757
53893.69155452613
64593.73799781129
77241.71960460565
92180.81944906656
100000.0
u: 61-element Vector{StaticArraysCore.SVector{3, Float64}}:
[1.0, 0.0, 0.0]
[0.9999987215181657, 1.2780900152625978e-6, 3.9181897521319503e-10]
[0.9999942397327672, 5.718510591908378e-6, 4.175664083814195e-8]
[0.9999897579685716, 9.992106860321925e-6, 2.4992456809854223e-7]
[0.99998056266788, 1.7833624284594367e-5, 1.6037078354141815e-6]
[0.9999712826600025, 2.403488607694387e-5, 4.6824539206438825e-6]
[0.9999567250106862, 3.0390689558961382e-5, 1.2884299754832173e-5]
[0.999940798607161, 3.388427373871301e-5, 2.531711910029394e-5]
[0.9999172960308617, 3.583508668595173e-5, 4.686888245237194e-5]
[0.9998862913719596, 3.641240165367128e-5, 7.729622638673522e-5]
⋮
[0.055635077310009065, 2.3546320422346706e-7, 0.944364687226786]
[0.0479253487640473, 2.012149504322489e-7, 0.9520744500210007]
[0.041233421490035026, 1.719278816689166e-7, 0.9587664065820823]
[0.03543699837030739, 1.4688361975260092e-7, 0.9645628547460712]
[0.030425371816163987, 1.2546809318472718e-7, 0.9695745027157405]
[0.026099132201150083, 1.0715608431717981e-7, 0.9739007606427643]
[0.02236969169455009, 9.149844876161108e-8, 0.9776302168069992]
[0.01915856331353317, 7.811096380138723e-8, 0.9808413585755008]
[0.01782789385075171, 7.258919982166322e-8, 0.9821720335600463]If we benchmark this, we see a really fast solution with really low allocation counts:
@btime sol = solve(prob, Rosenbrock23()); 18.270 μs (151 allocations: 18.89 KiB)This version is thus very amenable to multithreading and other forms of parallelism.
Example Accelerating Linear Algebra PDE Semi-Discretization
In this tutorial, we will optimize the right-hand side definition of a PDE semi-discretization.
We highly recommend looking at the Solving Large Stiff Equations tutorial for details on customizing DifferentialEquations.jl for more efficient large-scale stiff ODE solving. This section will only focus on the user-side code.
Let's optimize the solution of a Reaction-Diffusion PDE's discretization. In its discretized form, this is the ODE:
\[\begin{align} du &= D_1 (A_y u + u A_x) + \frac{au^2}{v} + \bar{u} - \alpha u\\ dv &= D_2 (A_y v + v A_x) + a u^2 + \beta v \end{align}\]
where $u$, $v$, and $A$ are matrices. Here, we will use the simplified version where $A$ is the tridiagonal stencil $[1,-2,1]$, i.e. it's the 2D discretization of the Laplacian. The native code would be something along the lines of:
using DifferentialEquations, LinearAlgebra, BenchmarkTools
# Generate the constants
p = (1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 10.0, 0.001, 100.0) # a,α,ubar,β,D1,D2
N = 100
Ax = Array(Tridiagonal([1.0 for i in 1:(N - 1)], [-2.0 for i in 1:N],
[1.0 for i in 1:(N - 1)]))
Ay = copy(Ax)
Ax[2, 1] = 2.0
Ax[end - 1, end] = 2.0
Ay[1, 2] = 2.0
Ay[end, end - 1] = 2.0
function basic_version!(dr, r, p, t)
a, α, ubar, β, D1, D2 = p
u = r[:, :, 1]
v = r[:, :, 2]
Du = D1 * (Ay * u + u * Ax)
Dv = D2 * (Ay * v + v * Ax)
dr[:, :, 1] = Du .+ a .* u .* u ./ v .+ ubar .- α * u
dr[:, :, 2] = Dv .+ a .* u .* u .- β * v
end
a, α, ubar, β, D1, D2 = p
uss = (ubar + β) / α
vss = (a / β) * uss^2
r0 = zeros(100, 100, 2)
r0[:, :, 1] .= uss .+ 0.1 .* rand.()
r0[:, :, 2] .= vss
prob = ODEProblem(basic_version!, r0, (0.0, 0.1), p)ODEProblem with uType Array{Float64, 3} and tType Float64. In-place: true
Non-trivial mass matrix: false
timespan: (0.0, 0.1)
u0: 100×100×2 Array{Float64, 3}:
[:, :, 1] =
11.0069 11.0706 11.0502 11.0147 … 11.0011 11.0352 11.0627 11.0185
11.0633 11.0363 11.0173 11.0598 11.073 11.0945 11.0111 11.0594
11.01 11.05 11.0233 11.0334 11.0589 11.0943 11.0648 11.0447
11.0459 11.0739 11.0158 11.0236 11.0233 11.0273 11.0138 11.0501
11.0449 11.0724 11.0929 11.0081 11.0081 11.0919 11.0879 11.0979
11.0507 11.0998 11.0538 11.0092 … 11.0703 11.0775 11.0022 11.057
11.0903 11.0658 11.0364 11.028 11.0913 11.0357 11.08 11.0027
11.0065 11.0518 11.0907 11.0373 11.0116 11.0533 11.0866 11.0566
11.0412 11.0169 11.0285 11.0134 11.043 11.0964 11.0974 11.0366
11.0021 11.0453 11.0918 11.0528 11.0268 11.0154 11.0414 11.0721
⋮ ⋱
11.003 11.0482 11.0478 11.0567 11.0262 11.018 11.0004 11.0436
11.0271 11.0141 11.0701 11.0801 11.0626 11.0009 11.0889 11.075
11.061 11.0863 11.04 11.0728 11.0983 11.0309 11.091 11.0331
11.003 11.0481 11.0974 11.0146 11.0762 11.0927 11.0381 11.0324
11.0622 11.0037 11.0153 11.0844 … 11.0084 11.0403 11.0935 11.0559
11.0051 11.034 11.0628 11.0167 11.0171 11.0755 11.0092 11.0032
11.0532 11.0385 11.0267 11.0681 11.0638 11.0829 11.095 11.0098
11.0074 11.0695 11.0779 11.03 11.048 11.0923 11.0268 11.082
11.0953 11.0173 11.0213 11.0954 11.0868 11.0615 11.0489 11.038
[:, :, 2] =
12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 … 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1
12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1
12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1
12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1
12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1
12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 … 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1
12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1
12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1
12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1
12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1
⋮ ⋮ ⋱ ⋮
12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1
12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1
12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1
12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1
12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 … 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1
12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1
12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1
12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1
12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1 12.1In this version, we have encoded our initial condition to be a 3-dimensional array, with u[:,:,1] being the A part and u[:,:,2] being the B part.
@btime solve(prob, Tsit5()); 55.172 ms (9265 allocations: 194.50 MiB)While this version isn't very efficient,
We recommend writing the “high-level” code first, and iteratively optimizing it!
The first thing that we can do is get rid of the slicing allocations. The operation r[:,:,1] creates a temporary array instead of a “view”, i.e. a pointer to the already existing memory. To make it a view, add @view. Note that we have to be careful with views because they point to the same memory, and thus changing a view changes the original values:
A = rand(4)
@show A
B = @view A[1:3]
B[2] = 2
@show A4-element Vector{Float64}:
0.920030208897922
2.0
0.2121354674020749
0.3296827620165734Notice that changing B changed A. This is something to be careful of, but at the same time we want to use this since we want to modify the output dr. Additionally, the last statement is a purely element-wise operation, and thus we can make use of broadcast fusion there. Let's rewrite basic_version! to ***avoid slicing allocations*** and to ***use broadcast fusion***:
function gm2!(dr, r, p, t)
a, α, ubar, β, D1, D2 = p
u = @view r[:, :, 1]
v = @view r[:, :, 2]
du = @view dr[:, :, 1]
dv = @view dr[:, :, 2]
Du = D1 * (Ay * u + u * Ax)
Dv = D2 * (Ay * v + v * Ax)
@. du = Du + a .* u .* u ./ v + ubar - α * u
@. dv = Dv + a .* u .* u - β * v
end
prob = ODEProblem(gm2!, r0, (0.0, 0.1), p)
@btime solve(prob, Tsit5()); 49.286 ms (6970 allocations: 124.55 MiB)Now, most of the allocations are taking place in Du = D1*(Ay*u + u*Ax) since those operations are vectorized and not mutating. We should instead replace the matrix multiplications with mul!. When doing so, we will need to have cache variables to write into. This looks like:
Ayu = zeros(N, N)
uAx = zeros(N, N)
Du = zeros(N, N)
Ayv = zeros(N, N)
vAx = zeros(N, N)
Dv = zeros(N, N)
function gm3!(dr, r, p, t)
a, α, ubar, β, D1, D2 = p
u = @view r[:, :, 1]
v = @view r[:, :, 2]
du = @view dr[:, :, 1]
dv = @view dr[:, :, 2]
mul!(Ayu, Ay, u)
mul!(uAx, u, Ax)
mul!(Ayv, Ay, v)
mul!(vAx, v, Ax)
@. Du = D1 * (Ayu + uAx)
@. Dv = D2 * (Ayv + vAx)
@. du = Du + a * u * u ./ v + ubar - α * u
@. dv = Dv + a * u * u - β * v
end
prob = ODEProblem(gm3!, r0, (0.0, 0.1), p)
@btime solve(prob, Tsit5()); 42.839 ms (3910 allocations: 31.09 MiB)But our temporary variables are global variables. We need to either declare the caches as const or localize them. We can localize them by adding them to the parameters, p. It's easier for the compiler to reason about local variables than global variables. ***Localizing variables helps to ensure type stability***.
p = (1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 10.0, 0.001, 100.0, Ayu, uAx, Du, Ayv, vAx, Dv) # a,α,ubar,β,D1,D2
function gm4!(dr, r, p, t)
a, α, ubar, β, D1, D2, Ayu, uAx, Du, Ayv, vAx, Dv = p
u = @view r[:, :, 1]
v = @view r[:, :, 2]
du = @view dr[:, :, 1]
dv = @view dr[:, :, 2]
mul!(Ayu, Ay, u)
mul!(uAx, u, Ax)
mul!(Ayv, Ay, v)
mul!(vAx, v, Ax)
@. Du = D1 * (Ayu + uAx)
@. Dv = D2 * (Ayv + vAx)
@. du = Du + a * u * u ./ v + ubar - α * u
@. dv = Dv + a * u * u - β * v
end
prob = ODEProblem(gm4!, r0, (0.0, 0.1), p)
@btime solve(prob, Tsit5()); 42.347 ms (1297 allocations: 30.88 MiB)We could then use the BLAS gemmv to optimize the matrix multiplications some more, but instead let's devectorize the stencil.
p = (1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 10.0, 0.001, 100.0, N)
function fast_gm!(du, u, p, t)
a, α, ubar, β, D1, D2, N = p
@inbounds for j in 2:(N - 1), i in 2:(N - 1)
du[i, j, 1] = D1 *
(u[i - 1, j, 1] + u[i + 1, j, 1] + u[i, j + 1, 1] + u[i, j - 1, 1] -
4u[i, j, 1]) +
a * u[i, j, 1]^2 / u[i, j, 2] + ubar - α * u[i, j, 1]
end
@inbounds for j in 2:(N - 1), i in 2:(N - 1)
du[i, j, 2] = D2 *
(u[i - 1, j, 2] + u[i + 1, j, 2] + u[i, j + 1, 2] + u[i, j - 1, 2] -
4u[i, j, 2]) +
a * u[i, j, 1]^2 - β * u[i, j, 2]
end
@inbounds for j in 2:(N - 1)
i = 1
du[1, j, 1] = D1 *
(2u[i + 1, j, 1] + u[i, j + 1, 1] + u[i, j - 1, 1] - 4u[i, j, 1]) +
a * u[i, j, 1]^2 / u[i, j, 2] + ubar - α * u[i, j, 1]
end
@inbounds for j in 2:(N - 1)
i = 1
du[1, j, 2] = D2 *
(2u[i + 1, j, 2] + u[i, j + 1, 2] + u[i, j - 1, 2] - 4u[i, j, 2]) +
a * u[i, j, 1]^2 - β * u[i, j, 2]
end
@inbounds for j in 2:(N - 1)
i = N
du[end, j, 1] = D1 *
(2u[i - 1, j, 1] + u[i, j + 1, 1] + u[i, j - 1, 1] - 4u[i, j, 1]) +
a * u[i, j, 1]^2 / u[i, j, 2] + ubar - α * u[i, j, 1]
end
@inbounds for j in 2:(N - 1)
i = N
du[end, j, 2] = D2 *
(2u[i - 1, j, 2] + u[i, j + 1, 2] + u[i, j - 1, 2] - 4u[i, j, 2]) +
a * u[i, j, 1]^2 - β * u[i, j, 2]
end
@inbounds for i in 2:(N - 1)
j = 1
du[i, 1, 1] = D1 *
(u[i - 1, j, 1] + u[i + 1, j, 1] + 2u[i, j + 1, 1] - 4u[i, j, 1]) +
a * u[i, j, 1]^2 / u[i, j, 2] + ubar - α * u[i, j, 1]
end
@inbounds for i in 2:(N - 1)
j = 1
du[i, 1, 2] = D2 *
(u[i - 1, j, 2] + u[i + 1, j, 2] + 2u[i, j + 1, 2] - 4u[i, j, 2]) +
a * u[i, j, 1]^2 - β * u[i, j, 2]
end
@inbounds for i in 2:(N - 1)
j = N
du[i, end, 1] = D1 *
(u[i - 1, j, 1] + u[i + 1, j, 1] + 2u[i, j - 1, 1] - 4u[i, j, 1]) +
a * u[i, j, 1]^2 / u[i, j, 2] + ubar - α * u[i, j, 1]
end
@inbounds for i in 2:(N - 1)
j = N
du[i, end, 2] = D2 *
(u[i - 1, j, 2] + u[i + 1, j, 2] + 2u[i, j - 1, 2] - 4u[i, j, 2]) +
a * u[i, j, 1]^2 - β * u[i, j, 2]
end
@inbounds begin
i = 1
j = 1
du[1, 1, 1] = D1 * (2u[i + 1, j, 1] + 2u[i, j + 1, 1] - 4u[i, j, 1]) +
a * u[i, j, 1]^2 / u[i, j, 2] + ubar - α * u[i, j, 1]
du[1, 1, 2] = D2 * (2u[i + 1, j, 2] + 2u[i, j + 1, 2] - 4u[i, j, 2]) +
a * u[i, j, 1]^2 - β * u[i, j, 2]
i = 1
j = N
du[1, N, 1] = D1 * (2u[i + 1, j, 1] + 2u[i, j - 1, 1] - 4u[i, j, 1]) +
a * u[i, j, 1]^2 / u[i, j, 2] + ubar - α * u[i, j, 1]
du[1, N, 2] = D2 * (2u[i + 1, j, 2] + 2u[i, j - 1, 2] - 4u[i, j, 2]) +
a * u[i, j, 1]^2 - β * u[i, j, 2]
i = N
j = 1
du[N, 1, 1] = D1 * (2u[i - 1, j, 1] + 2u[i, j + 1, 1] - 4u[i, j, 1]) +
a * u[i, j, 1]^2 / u[i, j, 2] + ubar - α * u[i, j, 1]
du[N, 1, 2] = D2 * (2u[i - 1, j, 2] + 2u[i, j + 1, 2] - 4u[i, j, 2]) +
a * u[i, j, 1]^2 - β * u[i, j, 2]
i = N
j = N
du[end, end, 1] = D1 * (2u[i - 1, j, 1] + 2u[i, j - 1, 1] - 4u[i, j, 1]) +
a * u[i, j, 1]^2 / u[i, j, 2] + ubar - α * u[i, j, 1]
du[end, end, 2] = D2 * (2u[i - 1, j, 2] + 2u[i, j - 1, 2] - 4u[i, j, 2]) +
a * u[i, j, 1]^2 - β * u[i, j, 2]
end
end
prob = ODEProblem(fast_gm!, r0, (0.0, 0.1), p)
@btime solve(prob, Tsit5()); 7.122 ms (685 allocations: 30.84 MiB)Notice that in this case fusing the loops and avoiding the linear operators is a major improvement of about 10x! That's an order of magnitude faster than our original MATLAB/SciPy/R vectorized style code!
Since this is tedious to do by hand, we note that ModelingToolkit.jl's symbolic code generation can do this automatically from the basic version:
using ModelingToolkit
function basic_version!(dr, r, p, t)
a, α, ubar, β, D1, D2 = p
u = r[:, :, 1]
v = r[:, :, 2]
Du = D1 * (Ay * u + u * Ax)
Dv = D2 * (Ay * v + v * Ax)
dr[:, :, 1] = Du .+ a .* u .* u ./ v .+ ubar .- α * u
dr[:, :, 2] = Dv .+ a .* u .* u .- β * v
end
a, α, ubar, β, D1, D2 = p
uss = (ubar + β) / α
vss = (a / β) * uss^2
r0 = zeros(100, 100, 2)
r0[:, :, 1] .= uss .+ 0.1 .* rand.()
r0[:, :, 2] .= vss
prob = ODEProblem(basic_version!, r0, (0.0, 0.1), p)
de = complete(modelingtoolkitize(prob))
# Note jac=true,sparse=true makes it automatically build sparse Jacobian code
# as well!
fastprob = ODEProblem(de, [], (0.0, 0.1), jac = true, sparse = true)ODEProblem with uType Vector{Float64} and tType Float64. In-place: true
Initialization status: FULLY_DETERMINED
Non-trivial mass matrix: false
timespan: (0.0, 0.1)
u0: 20000-element Vector{Float64}:
11.017899709161647
11.018334299041744
11.007448064759513
11.017653354244102
11.007212900826193
11.002296612772142
11.097565548624507
11.03025589962171
11.09295095521475
11.095513344935462
⋮
12.100000000000001
12.100000000000001
12.100000000000001
12.100000000000001
12.100000000000001
12.100000000000001
12.100000000000001
12.100000000000001
12.100000000000001Lastly, we can do other things like multithread the main loops. LoopVectorization.jl provides the @turbo macro for doing a lot of SIMD enhancements, and @tturbo is the multithreaded version.
Optimizing Algorithm Choices
The last thing to do is then ***optimize our algorithm choice***. We have been using Tsit5() as our test algorithm, but in reality this problem is a stiff PDE discretization and thus one recommendation is to use CVODE_BDF(). However, instead of using the default dense Jacobian, we should make use of the sparse Jacobian afforded by the problem. The Jacobian is the matrix $\frac{df_i}{dr_j}$, where $r$ is read by the linear index (i.e. down columns). But since the $u$ variables depend on the $v$, the band size here is large, and thus this will not do well with a Banded Jacobian solver. Instead, we utilize sparse Jacobian algorithms. CVODE_BDF allows us to use a sparse Newton-Krylov solver by setting linear_solver = :GMRES.
The Solving Large Stiff Equations tutorial goes through these details. This is simply to give a taste of how much optimization opportunity is left on the table!
Let's see how our fast right-hand side scales as we increase the integration time.
prob = ODEProblem(fast_gm!, r0, (0.0, 10.0), p)
@btime solve(prob, Tsit5()); 1.215 s (60142 allocations: 2.76 GiB)using Sundials
@btime solve(prob, CVODE_BDF(linear_solver = :GMRES)); 521.529 ms (14498 allocations: 97.56 MiB)prob = ODEProblem(fast_gm!, r0, (0.0, 100.0), p)
# Will go out of memory if we don't turn off `save_everystep`!
@btime solve(prob, Tsit5(), save_everystep = false); 3.962 s (90 allocations: 2.90 MiB)@btime solve(prob, CVODE_BDF(linear_solver = :GMRES), save_everystep = false); 2.094 s (49399 allocations: 2.68 MiB)prob = ODEProblem(fast_gm!, r0, (0.0, 500.0), p)
@btime solve(prob, CVODE_BDF(linear_solver = :GMRES), save_everystep = false); 3.057 s (71671 allocations: 3.47 MiB)Notice that we've eliminated almost all allocations, allowing the code to grow without hitting garbage collection and slowing down.
Why is CVODE_BDF doing well? What's happening is that, because the problem is stiff, the number of steps required by the explicit Runge-Kutta method grows rapidly, whereas CVODE_BDF is taking large steps. Additionally, the GMRES linear solver form is quite an efficient way to solve the implicit system in this case. This is problem-dependent, and in many cases using a Krylov method effectively requires a preconditioner, so you need to play around with testing other algorithms and linear solvers to find out what works best with your problem.
Now continue to the Solving Large Stiff Equations tutorial for more details on optimizing the algorithm choice for such codes.