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/Qparallel switch causing 0xc000007b errors on Windows 7 x64 release

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 11:05:52 -0800

I have been using Parallel Studio on a project with Vista x64 and just installed Windows 7 Ultimate x64 (release version) as a second operating system on my development machine. I have migrated Visual Studio 2008 SP1, Parallel Studio (Parallel Composer Update 3) and my project to Windows 7. My project successfully builds on Windows 7, but I get error - "This application failed to initialize properly (0xc000007b). Click on OK to terminate the application." with the /Qparallel switch on.

I have built several sample apps just to test the problem, and found that any app compiled on Windows 7 with the /Qparallel switch produces the same error on launch.

I have even moved a couple of apps that were built on Vista x64, and run without error on Vista, to Windows 7 and get the same error on Windows 7. The error is so bad that if I put a break point at the very beginning of the "main" routine to attempt to step to the cause of the problem, I get the error before the debugger can even start.

Turning off /Qparallel allows the app to run without any further error. I have dual Xeon X5482 processors on an Intel D5400XS motherboard. Please advise.

Thank you,

John Price

Difference between CPU time and Unused CPU time.

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 19:34:57 -0800

Hello everyone. I am trying to implement the Pi program in Intel Parllel studio and these two terms namely CPU time and unused CPU time has been bothering me.So thought of asking with the deveopers itself :)

As per the Intel Amplifier manual ,
CPU time - CPU Time is the sum of CPU time for all threads --ok fine i get it.!
Unused CPU time - Unused CPU Time is the total time for each core when it was either waiting or not utilized by the application... < little confusion arises over this one !

I have attached a screen shot of my program.
According to the screen shot CPU time= 13.063 seconds.
CPU unused time=13.23 seconds << My confusion becomes quad pumped over here !!

Why is the CPU unused time more than the CPU time ?
Could some one in simple terms explain the difference between these two terms.

Please have a look at the screenshot.

Thanks in advance.
Abhay

Composer Update 2 Revised, is now available for download. Windows 7 and Windows 2008 server users - please update

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:39:14 -0800

Intel® Parallel Composer Update 2 Revised, which is part of the the larger Intel® Parallel Studio is released and now available for download! Please go to the Intel Registration Center to download the product.

What's new in Intel Parallel Composer Update 2 Revised:

Important note: The package was rebuilt to correct an issue related to bug fix "DPD200139120". The correctness of the generated code is not an issue. Please refer to the important note section below on this page for more details.
Several bug fixes

Important note:

Title: Errata Reference Number DPD200139120

Problem:

Applications built with the Intel® Parallel Composer may hang or encounter a segmentation-fault when run on Microsoft* Windows 7* or Windows Server 2008* R2. Also, a similar issue may occur during installation of the following compiler versions on these operating system versions.

Version:

Intel® Parallel Studio
Intel® Parallel Composer initial release, and update 1 release

Resolution:

For Intel® Parallel Composer, this issue is resolved in the Update 2 Revised release, available on Intel Registration Center. Intel is still validating these configurations and will update the systems requirements when validation is complete.

Please find additional information on the issues at:

http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/the-installation-or-uninstallation-hangs-at-start-up-dialog-during-reading-existing-licenses/

http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/program-crashes-or-hangs-on-some-systems/

NOTE: *Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.

Intel® Parallel Composer Update 3 is released and available for download...

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:38:02 -0800

Intel® Parallel Composer Update 3 is released, and now available for download! Please visit the

Intel® Registration Center to download the product.

Note: Intel® Parallel Composer is a component of the larger Intel® Parallel Studio.

Parallel Composer + TBB w/VS 2005

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:23:58 -0800

Minor problem report. When installing Parallel Composer on WinXP x64 with VS 2005 (VC8 only) the environment variables TBB_ARCH_PLATFORM and PATH receive the paths to both VC9 then VC8 versions of the TBB libraries. The link (of apps with TBB) attempts to locate the TBBxxx.dll in the VC9 folder but since VC9 not installed attempting to debug with VC balks on attempt to load library from (non-existant) VC9 folder.

The "fix" for me was to delete the paths to the VC9 folders listed in TBB_ARCH_PLATFORM and PATH

Jim Dempsey.

parallel analyser not working on memory errors in the commented code

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:14:08 -0800

hi,

I think my parallel studio failed to work on detecting some memory error (found in memory checker) occured in the commented lines of the code(which it was not supposed to analyse),while visual studio successfully debugs my code(which is obvious as any compiler will not compile commented code). May be i am wrong..but those memory errors which i see are from the commented code.i think it needs to be fixed in that aspect....

Intel Parallel Studio crashes

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:47:21 -0800

I decided to switch the current project to make use of the Intel C++ compiler provided by Composer. The main reason to do that was that Microsoft's compiler/linker from Visual C++ 2005 crashed or produced wrong code in release mode. Other reasons to switch were support for some C++0x features and optimizations.

Today I wanted to profile the application, but Intel Parallel Studio crashed when loading the information from the binary. Trying to open the results file always made IPS crash. I also tried to check for memory correctness, but IPS also crashed when loading the results. It used to work before the latest updates when I also used Microsoft's compiler. I switched back to the previous version of IPS: crash. Finally, I switched back to Microsoft's compiler and now it works as expected.

The crash occurs in msdia90.dll, which is a DLL used to query information from PDB files. The DLL is installed along with IPS. I tried by updating the DLL, but IPS would still crash.

I don't really know whether or not the problem is on Intel's (Intel C++ Compiler) or Microsoft's (msdia90.dll) side, and what could be done about it.

I have sent a bug report already as suggested by the crash report window.

Is it at least a known issue?

Just in case, the only C++0x feature I used was 'auto' types for some iterators, and the projet type is a DLL.

Amplifier - measuring all times

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:52:33 -0800

Is it possible to tell the Amplifier to measure the time of all the functions and code lines, and not only the hot spots?

Thanks,

Amir

Suggestion for Amplifier improvement: callgraph filtering

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 07:32:12 -0800

This is a suggestion for improving viewing of Amplifier data: allow filtering of results based on callgraph structure. Here's the use case: I only case about the performance of a specific function and its descendants. I cannot reliably tell when the function starts and stops so I can't use pause|continue feature. Instead, I run full analysis, find the top-level function I care about, right-click on its name and select "Concentrate on subtree". Amplifier would remove all functions that are not called, directly or indirectly, from the top-level function I selected and re-calculate the %s for each remaining function. This is a very handy feature present in another commercial run-time analysis tool.

False data race with tbb::mutex::scoped_lock shown by Parallel Inspector

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 02:38:49 -0800

Reposting from the TBB forum, since I got no reply there.

In a block of code guarded by a tbb::mutex::scoped_lock Parallel Inspector shows a data race.
With a spin_mutex the error message goes away.
This is in both in a debug and a release build with TBB_USE_THREADING_TOOLS=1.

Looks like Parallel Inspector is kept silent with ITT_NOTIFY, but for some reason isn't with EnterCriticalSection.

Any hints what to do about it?