Details
---------------
Background:
NX has always supported the notion of SMP (Symmetric Multi-processing) on
systems configured with multi-CPU's.
Historically, such hardware was considered esoteric, requiring a 2nd processor
to be configured separately on the computers back plane. Such systems did
exist, but were quite rare as the financial costs exceeded any immediate
benefit to a typical designer.
However, NX (and earlier versions of Unigraphics) did allow the parasolid
kernel to execute on up to 2 processors in parallel (aka multi-threading).
Such functionality was enabled by setting UGII_SMP_ENABLE=1 in the
ugii_env.dat file.
Present Situation:
Today, multi-core, multi-cpu hosts configured with 8 (or even more) processors
are common. Chip manufacturers such as Intel commonly place 4 (quad)
processors on a single chip substrate. Configurations such as dual (2) quad
core (4) = (8) total processors are also common.
Can Parasolid fully utilize these newer configurations?
Solution
YES. Newer versions of Parasolid can utilize multi-CPUS!
Extract from SIEMENS technical bulletin:
Thread-Safe Parasolid
Parasolid has extended its support for multi-core processor hardware to enable
applications based on Parasolid to take full advantage of their significant
performance advantage over single-core processors. Parasolid V31 is now fully
thread-safe, enabling applications to have several threads running on
different processors, with each calling any Parasolid function simultaneously.
Extract from %UGII_BASE_DIR%\ugii\ugii_env_ug.dat
# This variable enables Symmetric Multi-processing (SMP) on systems
# with multiple CPU's or that support hyperthreading. Performance will
# be improved in certain Parasolid operations, such as Mass Properties,
# Booleans and silhouette generation. This option is only supported on
# platforms where Parasolid supports multi-threading.
#
# Set to 0 to disable SMP
# Set to 1 to enable SMP
# Unset will take the Parasolid default
# UGII_SMP_ENABLE = 1
Extract from .syslog.
If you are unsure which version of Parasolid you are using, search your
.syslog for the string "parasolid".
Default versions for recent releases of NX.
NX 1847
*** Enabling SMP using 8 threads on 8 processors ***
Parasolid version 31.0 build 203 on 19:45:02 08-08-2018
Notes and References
IR6795738
Hardware/Software Configuration
Platform: INTEL
OS: window
OS Version: 1064
Product: NX
Application: SYSENG
Version: V1847
Function: INTEL_PLATFORM
Ref: 002-7007043