GPU Emulator for CUDA programming without the hardware
cpu, cuda, emulation, gpu
Solution
For those who are seeking the answer in 2016 (and even 2017) ...
Disclaimer
- I've failed to emulate GPU after all.
- It might be possible to use `gpuocelot` if you satisfy its list of dependencies.
I've tried to get an emulator for BunsenLabs (Linux 3.16.0-4-686-pae #1 SMP Debian 3.16.7-ckt20-1+deb8u4 (2016-02-29) i686 GNU/Linux).
I'll tell you what I've learnt.
`nvcc` used to have a `-deviceemu` option back in CUDA Toolkit 3.0
I downloaded CUDA Toolkit 3.0, installed it and tried to run a simple program:
#include <stdio.h>
__global__ void helloWorld() {
printf("Hello world! I am %d (Warp %d) from %d.\n",
threadIdx.x, threadIdx.x / warpSize, blockIdx.x);
}
int main() {
int blocks, threads;
scanf("%d%d", &blocks, &threads);
helloWorld<<<blocks, threads>>>();
cudaDeviceSynchronize();
return 0;
}
Note that in CUDA Toolkit 3.0 `nvcc` was in the `/usr/local/cuda/bin/`.
It turned out that I had difficulties with compiling it:
NOTE: device emulation mode is deprecated in this release
and will be removed in a future release.
/usr/include/i386-linux-gnu/bits/byteswap.h(47): error: identifier "__builtin_bswap32" is undefined
/usr/include/i386-linux-gnu/bits/byteswap.h(111): error: identifier "__builtin_bswap64" is undefined
/home/user/Downloads/helloworld.cu(12): error: identifier "cudaDeviceSynchronize" is undefined
3 errors detected in the compilation of "/tmp/tmpxft_000011c2_00000000-4_helloworld.cpp1.ii".
I've found on the Internet that if I used `gcc-4.2` or similarly ancient instead of `gcc-4.9.2` the errors might disappear. I gave up.
`gpuocelot`
The answer by Stringer has a link to a very old `gpuocelot` project website. So at first I thought that the project was abandoned in 2012 or so. Actually, it was abandoned few years later.
Here are some up to date websites:
- GitHub;
- Project's website;
- Installation guide.
I tried to install gpuocelot following the guide. I had several errors during installation though and I gave up again. `gpuocelot` is no longer supported and depends on a set of very specific versions of libraries and software.
You might try to follow this tutorial from July, 2015 but I don't guarantee it'll work. I've not tested it.
MCUDA
The MCUDA translation framework is a linux-based tool designed to effectively compile the CUDA programming model to a CPU architecture.
It might be useful. Here is a link to the website.
CUDA Waste
It is an emulator to use on Windows 7 and 8. I've not tried it though. It doesn't seem to be developed anymore (the last commit is dated on Jul 4, 2013).
Here's the link to the project's website: https://code.google.com/archive/p/cuda-waste/
CU2CL
Last update: 12.03.2017
As dashesy pointed out in the comments, CU2CL seems to be an interesting project. It seems to be able to translate CUDA code to OpenCL code. So if your GPU is capable of running OpenCL code then the CU2CL project might be of your interest.
Links:
- CU2CL homepage
- CU2CL GitHub repository
Problem
Question: Is there an emulator for a Geforce card that would allow me to program and test CUDA without having the actual hardware? Info: I'm looking to speed up a few simulations of mine in CUDA, but my problem is that I'm not always around my desktop for doing this development. I would like to do some work on my netbook instead, but my netbook doesn't have a GPU. Now as far as I know, you need a CUDA capable GPU to run CUDA. Is there a way to get around this? It would seem like the only way is a GPU emulator (which obviously would be painfully slow, but would work). But whatever way there is to do this I would like to hear. I'm programming on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS.