Advanced Single Instruction Multiple Data (SIMD) Programming with Intel® Implicit SPMD Program Compiler | SIGGRAPH 2019 Technical Sessions

SIGGRAPH 2019 | LOS ANGLES | 28 JULY - 1 AUGUST

Jefferson Amstutz, Dmitry Babokin, Pete Brubaker
Contributions by Jon Kennedy, Jeff Rous, Arina Neshlyaeva
Advanced SIMD Programming with the
Intel® ISPC Compiler
https://ispc.github.io/
Epic Chaos Demo - Image courtesy of Epic Game® Epic Chaos Demo - Image courtesy of Epic Games ®Intel® OSPRay

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ISPC : A Brief Recap
Intel® OSPRay : Disney’s Moana Island Scene: over 15 billion instanced primitives rendered interactively

• Exploiting Parallelism is essential for obtaining peak
performance on modern computing hardware
• Task Parallelism : Multithreading - Utilize all the cores
• SIMD Parallelism : SIMD Programming - Utilize all the vector
units
• Learning intrinsics is time consuming, and not always accessible
to every programmer.
• Make it easier to get all the FLOPs without being a ninja
programmer
• Reduce the development cost by working with a high level
language
Why ISPC?

• The Intel SPMD Program Compiler
• SPMD == Single Program, Multiple Data programming model
• It’s a compiler and a language for writing vector (SIMD) code.
• Open-source, LLVM-based language and compiler for many SIMD architectures.
• Generates high performance vector code targeting many vector ISAs.
• Cross platform support (Windows/Linux/MacOS/PS4/Xbox/ARM AARCH64)
• The language is C based
• Simple to use and easy to integrate with existing codebase.
• ISPC is not an “autovectorizing” compiler!
• Vectors are built into the type system, not discovered
• The programmer explicitly specifies vector or scalar variables
What is ISPC?

• C based, so it’s easy to read and
understand
• Code looks sequential, but executes
in parallel
• Easily mixes scalar and vector
computation
• Explicit vectorization using two new
keywords, uniform and varying
• Vector iteration via foreach keyword
https://ispc.godbolt.org/z/sOpQ8Z
What does the language look like?
It is basically shader programming for the CPU!

• The ISPC compiler produces everything required for very simple
integration into application code.
• C/C++ header file
• Contains the API/function call for each kernel you have written
• Contains any data structures defined in your ISPC kernel and
required by the application code.
• Object files to link against
• No bulky runtime or verbose API
Easy integration

• Programmers no longer need to know the ISA to write good vector code.
• More accessible to programmers who aren’t familiar with SIMD intrinsics.
• More programmers are able to fully utilize the CPU in different areas of application
development.
• Reduced development cost
• It’s easier to develop and maintain. Simple integration. It looks like scalar code.
• Increased optimization reach
• Supporting a new ISA is as easy as changing a command line option and recompiling.
• Increased performance over scalar code
• SSE : ~3-4x; AVX2 : ~5-6x
• YMMV ☺
Why is this good?

Advanced ISPC
Vector Loops
Epic Chaos Demo - Image courtesy of Epic Games®

Vector Loops
• Foreach is a convenience mechanism:
• It is a simd_for loop and iterates in chunks of
simd width sized steps
• Unmasked main body for when all SIMD
lanes are enabled
• Masked tail body for when some SIMD lanes
are disabled
• Foreach can be N dimensional, where each
dimensional index is a varying
• For loop
• A for loop with a varying index will use
masking in the loop body
• Safe, but with a slight cost
• A for loop with a uniform index will have no
masking
• The user will need to add a tail body
https://ispc.godbolt.org/z/r1eflk
foreach(…) vs for(…)

Vector Loops
foreach example
https://ispc.godbolt.org/z/00eIcH
Unmasked Main Body
Masked Tail Body

Vector Loops
• Serializes over each active SIMD lane
• Many Uses :
• Atomic operations
• Custom reductions
• Calls to uniform functions
• …
https://ispc.godbolt.org/z/i18Lux
Unreal Engine 4.23, Chaos Physics ISPC Source
foreach_active

Vector Loops
• Loop over each unique value in a varying only once
• Execution mask enabled for all SIMD lanes with the same value
https://ispc.godbolt.org/z/r49y7i
foreach_unique

Vector Loops
Naïve ports to uniform code paths can miss opportunities
Axis of parallelization
Try looking for a new axis of parallelization
https://ispc.godbolt.org/z/GF7myA
Scalar
Vector

Vector Loops
• ISPC supports multiple axis of
parallelization within a kernel
• HLSL/GLSL/CL only support 1
• User controlled
• Provides optimization opportunities
https://github.com/ispc/ispc/blob/master/examples/sgemm/SGEMM_kernels.ispc
Multiple axes of parallelisation

Advanced ISPC
Structures and Pointers
Intel® OSPRay : Gramophone rendered in Pixar’s usdview

struct vec3f {
float x, y, z;
};
struct Ray {
vec3f origin;
vec3f direction;
float tnear;
float tfar;
};
Uniform Ray
uniform Ray r;
Varying Ray
varying Ray r;
Uniform vs. Varying structures

struct vec3f {
float x, y, z;
};
struct PerspRay {
uniform vec3f origin;
vec3f direction;
float tnear;
float tfar;
};
Uniform PerspRay
uniform PerspRay r;
Varying PerspRay
varying PerspRay r;
Uniform vs. Varying structures

• Pointers are complex
• The variability is specified like ‘const’ in C/C++
uniform float * varying vPtr;
• Variability: 2 parts
• The pointer itself
• Single pointer? Different pointer per SIMD lane?
• Default: varying
• The item pointed-to
• Scalar value? Vector value?
• Default: uniform
• Be explicit and specify the variability so it’s correct and clear to the reader
ISPC pointers

->
Pointer Data
f
-> f f f f
-> -> -> ->
f f
f f
-> -> -> ->
f f f f
f f f f
f f f f
f f f f
uniform float * uniform uPtr2u;
varying float * uniform uPtr2v;
uniform float * varying vPtr2u;
varying float * varying vPtr2v;
ISPC pointers

Advanced ISPC
Memory Access

uniform vec3f uPos
{
}
varying vec3f vPos
{
}
Memory Access
struct vec3f
{
float x;
float y;
float z;
};
Memory Layout:
x
y
z
x y z x y z …
x
y
z
x
y
z
x
y
z
x
y
z
x x x x y y y y …
Uniform vs. Varying data layout

varying Ray uRay
{
origin {
}
direction {
}
tnear
tfar
}
Memory Access
Complex data layout
uniform Ray uRay
{
origin {
}
direction {
}
tnear
tfar
}
struct Ray {
vec3f origin;
vec3f direction;
float tnear;
float tfar;
};
x
y
z
x
y
z
x
y
z
x
y
z
x
y
z
x
y
z
x
y
z
x
y
z
x
y
z
x
y
z

Memory Access
• ISPC will automatically transpose your array of structures (AoS) data to structures of
arrays (SoA) and back
• Useful for block copying uniform structs into varyings
• It will just work!
• But there may be faster alternatives?
Data transposition
https://ispc.godbolt.org/z/4_p44L

Memory Access
• Vector reads/writes to non-contiguous
memory
• AVX2 onwards supports an optimised
gather instruction
• AVX512 supports an optimised scatter
instruction
• ISPC will use these if available
• ISPC will emit performance warnings when it
finds gather/scatters
#pragma ignore warning(perf)
• Gather performance has improved over
successive generations
• But there can be faster alternatives,
especially if there is cacheline locality
• Aos_to_Soa() helpers
• Good for packed float3/float4 data types
• Shuffle()
• Load a vector register from memory and
swizzle the data
• You will need to experiment on your dataset.
• The fastest form of gather is no gather –
read contiguous memory where possible!
Scatter/Gather

Memory Access
• It's best to use SoA or AoSoA layouts with
ISPC
• Re-arranging data is not always easy
• Transposing the input data can be
faster than using gather/scatter
instructions.
• When to transpose?
• If the algorithm is cheap, it's best to
convert the data into a temporary
buffer, do the work then convert back.
• Otherwise transpose live data on the
way in/out of the kernel.
AOS to SOA
Transpose
Array of Structures
(AoS)
Structure of Arrays
(SoA)
Hybrid Array of Structures of Arrays
(AoSoA)

Memory Access
• There are stdlib functions,
aos_to_soa3/4.
• They assume arrays of
vec3/vec4 input data.
• What about strided data?
• You can write your own
transpose functions using
the stdlib.
• Use loads, shuffles, inserts, etc.
AOS to SOA
Vector Load Vector Load Vector Load
Vector Store Vector Store Vector Store
Shuffle
Shuffle

Memory Access
AOS to SOA example
https://ispc.godbolt.org/z/NwLihI
Unreal Engine 4.23, Chaos Physics ISPC Source

DRAM
Memory Access
• Allows writes to memory to occur bypassing the cache
• Avoids cacheline reads and cache pollution
• Useful when bandwidth limited
• Not always faster than normal stores
• Never read the memory straight after the write
• It won’t be in cache and will be slow…
• Write full cachelines to avoid partial writes
• Used for techniques such as :
• Texture writes
• Geometry transformations
• Compression
• …
• Experiment with your dataset.
• What about streaming loads?
• Unless the memory was specifically allocated with the
write combining flag, they won’t do anything
Streaming stores
Normal Write
Cache Hierarchy Write Combine Buffer
Streaming Store

Memory Access
Streaming stores example
https://ispc.godbolt.org/z/bKOJ1m

Memory Access
• Loads and stores can be aligned or unaligned
(default)
• There are specific instructions for each type
• Historically this had a performance impact
• Unaligned loads/stores may straddle cachelines
• Newer Intel architectures have reduced/removed
this impact
• Alignment needs to be the register width
• SSE : 16byte, AVX2 32byte, AVX512 64byte
• Simple to enable in ISPC
• --opt=force-aligned-memory
• Try it – YMMV!
Aligned memory
Cacheline Cacheline
Cacheline
Unaligned Load
CachelineAligned Load

Advanced ISPC
Control Flow
Intel® OSPRay : Richtmyer–meshkov volume shown with shadows and ambient occlusion

Control Flow
Divergent control flow
Control flow divergence can be costly
1 1 1 10 1 0 11 0 1 0
1 1 1 11 1 1 10 0 0 0
Divergent branch causes both expensive
operations to be executed
Uniform branch causes a single
expensive operation to be executed
Consider this :
Now consider this :
Execution Mask
Execution Mask
https://ispc.godbolt.org/z/XM0MEw

Control Flow
Unmasked Functions
• Avoids masked operations
• Useful if you want to use a different execution
mask
Unmasked Blocks
• An optimisation
• Avoids masked operations
• Useful when you know there are no side
effects
Unmasked
https://ispc.godbolt.org/z/i18Lux

Advanced ISPC
Interfacing Tricks

Interfacing Tricks
• Input data is generally an array of
uniforms
• These can be copied directly to varyings
by using a varying index
• Such as programIndex
• They can be cast to a varying pointer and
dereferenced
• Applications can pass in ‘fake’ varyings
which still generates SIMD code
Mapping input data to ispc varyings
https://ispc.godbolt.org/z/-hbfO1

Interfacing Tricks
• Just like normal C/C++ code, there are times when you need to call external code
• ISPC supports this for any external function using ‘C’ linkage
Calling back to C
https://ispc.godbolt.org/z/P5XcuT

Advanced ISPC
Choosing the Right Target

• ISPC has a limited set of decoupling of SIMD width
and ISA
• “Double Pumped”
• Vector instructions executed twice to
emulate double width registers
• Can be effective at hiding latency
• sse4-i32x8, avx2-i32x16, etc
• “Half Pumped”
• Vector instructions executed with
narrower SIMD width registers
• Use a richer ISA for performance
gains
• avx512skl-i32x8
• Avoids platform specific AVX512
power scaling
• As simple as changing the command line
• --target=...
• Experiment to find the best targets for your
workload
Asymmetrical SIMD register width and target SIMD ISA
https://ispc.godbolt.org/z/4EhA2A

ISPC supports compiling to multiple targets
at once
• Currently, only 1 target per ISA
• Auto dispatch will choose the highest
supported compiled target that a platform
supports, at runtime
• Manual dispatch will be coming in a future
release…
Compile for all of the main targets
• SSE4, AVX2, AVX512
• This will allow the best performing ISA to run
on your system
• Unreal Engine and OSPRay compile for all of
the main targets by default.
Auto dispatch : multi-target compilation
--target=sse4-i32x4,avx2-i32x8,
avx512skx-i32x16

Advanced ISPC
ISPC StdLib
Intel® OSPRay : OSPRay’s path tracer supports physically-based materials and a common principled material

ISPC STDLIB
Use ISPC stdlib
ISPC provides a rich stdlib of operations:
• Logical operators
• Bit ops
• Math
• Clamping and Saturated Arithmetic
• Transcendental Operations
• RNG (Not the fastest!)
• Mask/Cross-lane Operations
• Reductions
• And that’s not all!
https://github.com/ispc/ispc/blob/master/stdlib.ispc

Advanced ISPC
Floating Point Determinism

To increase floating point precision/determinism :
• Don’t use `--opt=fast-maths`
• Do use `--opt=disable-fma`
• But, there will be a performance penalty
Floating Point Determinism
A Quick note!

Advanced ISPC
Debugging and Optimizing ISPC Kernels

• Compile ISPC kernels with –g
• Visual Studio, gdb, lldb etc
works as expected
• View registers, uniform and
varying data
• Visual Studio Code ISPC
Plugin available
• Syntax highlights, Auto-
complete stdlib, Real-time
validation
Debugging ISPC Kernels
Debugging

• The best way to check for performance deltas when optimising code is to
benchmark it
• Sometimes the code of interest is too small, so need a microbenchmark
• A small ISPC kernel run many times, ideally on real data
• Caution as the results may not be representative of the final gains
• ISPC git repo will soon contain a microbenchmark `ispc-bench`
• Based on google benchmark
• Simple to use and augment
• ISPC Dev team are looking for contributions to help improve ISPC
Optimising ISPC kernels
Benchmarking

ISPC is supported by the Compiler Explorer
• Simply copy and paste your kernels into a browser
• Try different command line arguments
• Look for optimization opportunities in the ASM code
• Experiment with all of the example code from this presentation
• Now supports using ispc (trunk)
Godbolt Compiler Explorer
http://ispc.godbolt.org/

• LLVM-MCA provides static code uOp/cycle counts
• Doesn’t accurately report the cost of memory ops, but still useful
Godbolt Compiler Explorer : llvm-mca
https://ispc.godbolt.org/z/etmC_T

• Profile your ispc kernels looking for hotspots
• Compile the kernels with –g for debugging symbols
• ISPC heavily inlines, so use ‘noinline’ to target hotspot functions
VTune
https://software.intel.com/en-us/vtune

Advanced ISPC
ISPC Roadmap
Intel® OSPRay : Disney’s Moana Island Scene: over 15 billion instanced primitives rendered interactively

ISPC Roadmap
ISPC v1.12
• ARM support
• Cross compilation support
(iOS/Android/Switch/Xbox/PS4)
• Noinline keyword
• Performance improvements
ISPC v1.next
• Performance improvements
• Future hardware support
• Manual dispatch
ISPC roadmap
File an issue on github – let us know what you need!
Submit a patch – show us what you need!

Advanced ISPC
ISPC Resources
Intel® OSPRay : OSPRay’s path tracer supports physically-based materials and a common principled material

ISPC Resources
ISPC Home Page
• https://ispc.github.io/ispc.html
ISPC Origins
• https://pharr.org/matt/blog/2018/04/18/ispc-origins.html
ISPC on Intel® Developer Zone
• https://software.intel.com/en-
us/search/site/language/en?query=ispc
Visual Studio Code ISPC Plugin
• https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=intel-
corporation.ispc
ISPC Compiler Explorer
• https://ispc.godbolt.org/
Intel® Intrinsics Guide
• https://software.intel.com/sites/landingpage/IntrinsicsGuide/
Agner Fog Instruction Tables
• https://www.agner.org/optimize/instruction_tables.pdf
uOps Latency, Throughput and Port Usage Information
• http://uops.info/
ISPC Github
• https://github.com/ispc/ispc/
Intel® OSPRay
• https://www.ospray.org/
Unreal Engine
• https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/
ISPC Texture Compressor
• https://github.com/GameTechDev/ISPCTextureCompressor
ISPC DX12 nBodies Sample
• https://github.com/GameTechDev/ISPC-DirectX-Graphics-
Samples
SPIRV to ISPC Project
• https://github.com/GameTechDev/SPIRV-Cross
ISPC in Unreal Engine Blog Post
• https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/unreal-engines-new-
chaos-physics-system-screams-with-in-depth-intel-cpu-
optimizations
ISPC on the web

56

Advanced Single Instruction Multiple Data (SIMD) Programming with Intel® Implicit SPMD Program Compiler | SIGGRAPH 2019 Technical Sessions

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