0deef376d9
This patch includes software engineering changes and some generic bug fixes
Joel Hestness and Yasuko Eckert made to McPAT 0.8. There are still known
issues/concernts we did not have a chance to address in this patch.
High-level changes in this patch include:
1) Making XML parsing modular and hierarchical:
- Shift parsing responsibility into the components
- Read XML in a (mostly) context-free recursive manner so that McPAT input
files can contain arbitrary component hierarchies
2) Making power, energy, and area calculations a hierarchical and recursive
process
- Components track their subcomponents and recursively call compute
functions in stages
- Make C++ object hierarchy reflect inheritance of classes of components
with similar structures
- Simplify computeArea() and computeEnergy() functions to eliminate
successive calls to calculate separate TDP vs. runtime energy
- Remove Processor component (now unnecessary) and introduce a more abstract
System component
3) Standardizing McPAT output across all components
- Use a single, common data structure for storing and printing McPAT output
- Recursively call print functions through component hierarchy
4) For caches, allow splitting data array and tag array reads and writes for
better accuracy
5) Improving the usability of CACTI by printing more helpful warning and error
messages
6) Minor: Impose more rigorous code style for clarity (more work still to be
done)
Overall, these changes greatly reduce the amount of replicated code, and they
improve McPAT runtime and decrease memory footprint.
This is the gem5 simulator.
For detailed information about building the simulator and getting
started please refer to:
* The main website: http://www.gem5.org
* Documentation wiki: http://www.gem5.org/Documentation
* Doxygen generated: http://www.gem5.org/docs
* Tutorials: http://www.gem5.org/Tutorials
Specific pages of interest are:
http://www.gem5.org/Introduction
http://www.gem5.org/Build_System
http://www.gem5.org/Dependencies
http://www.gem5.org/Running_gem5
Short version:
External tools and required versions
To build gem5, you will need the following software:
g++ version 4.3 or newer.
Python, version 2.4 - 2.7 (we don't support Python 3.X). gem5 links in the
Python interpreter, so you need the Python header files and shared
library (e.g., /usr/lib/libpython2.4.so) in addition to the interpreter
executable. These may or may not be installed by default. For example,
on Debian/Ubuntu, you need the "python-dev" package in addition to the
"python" package. If you need a newer or different Python installation
but can't or don't want to upgrade the default Python on your system,
see http://www.gem5.org/Using_a_non-default_Python_installation
SCons, version 0.98.1 or newer. SCons is a powerful replacement for make.
If you don't have administrator privileges on your machine, you can use the
"scons-local" package to install scons in your m5 directory, or install SCons
in your home directory using the '--prefix=' option.
SWIG, version 1.3.34 or newer
zlib, any recent version. For Debian/Ubuntu, you will need the "zlib-dev" or
"zlib1g-dev" package to get the zlib.h header file as well as the library
itself.
m4, the macro processor.
4. In this directory, type 'scons build/<ARCH>/gem5.opt' where ARCH is one
of ALPHA, ARM, MIPS, POWER, SPARC, or X86. This will build an optimized version
of the gem5 binary (gem5.opt) for the the specified architecture.
If you have questions, please send mail to gem5-users@gem5.org
WHAT'S INCLUDED (AND NOT)
-------------------------
The basic source release includes these subdirectories:
- gem5:
- configs: example simulation configuration scripts
- ext: less-common external packages needed to build gem5
- src: source code of the gem5 simulator
- system: source for some optional system software for simulated systems
- tests: regression tests
- util: useful utility programs and files
To run full-system simulations, you will need compiled system firmware
(console and PALcode for Alpha), kernel binaries and one or more disk images.
Please see the gem5 download page for these items at http://www.gem5.org/Download