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Game of Life

Federico Soave, MCSN student

Shared libraries

  • Matrix.o main GameOfLife logic code
  • MatrixG.o graphical version, needs OpenCV3 to compile

Executables

Running any of the below without arguments provides the user with a help message:

Usage: ./main.out [<params>]
Where <params> are:
  --thread | -t <number>  number of threads
  --height | -h <number>  height of the matrix
  --width  | -w <number>  width of the matrix
  --step   | -s <number>  number of steps
  --check  | -c           print hashcodes
  --bottles               draw some Bottles
  --engines               draw some Schick's Engines
  --gliders               draw some Gliders
  --guns                  draw some Gosper's Guns
  --blobs                 draw some Blobs
  --heads                 draw some Hammerheads
  --help   | -?           print this help
If no patterns are drawn, the World will be initialized at random.
  • main.out POSIX threads parallel implementation
  • main.ff.out FastFlow parallel implementation
  • main.seq.out sequential implementation
  • main.x.out graphical (pthreads) version, needs OpenCV3. This program allows to test the correctness of the algorithm by visualizing some example well-known patterns.

Compiling

Compilation is done via make. Three makefiles are provided to address different target machines:

  • makefile suitable for compilation on a generic GNU/Linux operating system
    • the OPENCV variable should be set to contain the correct compilation flags to include the OpenCV3 libraries. If these libraries are globally installed on the system, the provided pkg-config command should automate this task.
    • the FF_ROOT variable should be set to the absolute path containing the fastflow source code
  • makefile.xeon suitable for compilation on the Xeon host machine with the Intel C++ compiler
    • the FF_ROOT variable should be set to the absolute path containing the fastflow source code
  • makefile.mic suitable for cross-compilation for the MIC architecture

For example, to compile the FastFlow version for the MIC, run:

cd src
make -f makefile.mic main.ff.out

When switching from one makefile to the other, remember to make clean beforehand, or use the -B flag.

Verification

The graphical version allows to easily verify the correctness by providing some example well-known patterns. For example, try running

./main.x.out --height 500 --width 500 --step 1000 --engines --guns

to see some Schick's Engines lose battle to a batallion of Gosper's Guns.

To check that all programs produce consistent results, the --check (-c) flag can be used. If enabled, the program outputs a pair of 128-bit hex-encoded hashes computed from the matrix at its first and last iteration, respectively. For any given pair width,height, the initial state should always be the same and, for any given pair initial state,steps, the final state should always be the same.

Running

All executable are typically run in this way:

./main.out -w <width> -h <height> -s <steps> -t <threads>

No output is printed, unless the -c flag is present. The matrix is randomly initialized before starting the actual computation.