CUDA GPU Guide

The EDEM GPU module makes use of the latest GPU technology (General Purpose computing on Graphical Processing Units). By utilizing cutting edge Nvidia GPU cards EDEM is able to deploy contact model calculations across literally thousands of processing cores and deliver simulation results many times faster than by using traditional desktop CPUs.

The EDEM GPU and Multi-GPU solver engine is based on CUDA. The CUDA code requires compute capability of 3.5 or later and is compatible with Windows or Linux.

The range of GPU cards available and the technology behind them is constantly changing and moving fast so if you are not sure of what hardware you need please get in touch and our engineers will be happy to talk about results from our most recent rounds of testing.

The CUDA GPU engine offers a range of precision modes including double, hybrid and single.

A CUDA API is available and documented in the API section and the API help section available in the EDEM folders.

As of EDEM 2018, EDEM GPU contains a fully double precision solver.

Hardware Requirements

In order to run EDEM using the CUDA solver, you must ensure that the following requirements are met:

(Hardware) The system must have a CUDA enabled GPU with compute capability at least 3.5. However, a compute capability at least 6.0 is required to use the direct add feature in the advanced options.
(Software) The system must have an Nvidia driver installed which supports at least version 11.0 of the CUDA toolkit. https://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/cuda-toolkit-release-notes/index.html.
(Software) The system must have an Nvidia driver installed which supports the CUDA enabled GPU that is in use. This requirement may be more or less stringent than the requirement given by (2), so in general it is recommended to upgrade to the most recent driver version possible.

The command line utility nvidia-smi is installed along with the Nvidia driver can be used to check the installed driver version: https://developer.nvidia.com/nvidia-system-management-interface

NOTE

It is not mandatory to install any CUDA toolkit to run EDEM. It is only necessary to install a sufficiently up-to-date version of the Nvidia driver.