CUPTI (PDF) - v9.2.88 (older) - Last updated April 12, 2018 - Send Feedback

## 6. Changelog

## CUPTI changes in CUDA 9.2

CUPTI contains below changes as part of the CUDA Toolkit 9.2 release.

- Added support to query PCI devices information which can be used to construct the PCIE topology. See activity kind `CUPTI_ACTIVITY_KIND_PCIE` and related activity record `CUpti_ActivityPcie`.
- To view and analyze bandwidth of memory transfers over PCIe topologies, new set of metrics to collect total data bytes transmitted and recieved through PCIe are added. Those give accumulated count for all devices in the system. These metrics are collected at the device level for the entire application. And those are made available for devices with compute capability 5.2 and higher.
- CUPTI added support for new metrics:
  - Instruction executed for different types of load and store
  - Total number of cached global/local load requests from SM to texture cache
  - Global atomic/non-atomic/reduction bytes written to L2 cache from texture cache
  - Surface atomic/non-atomic/reduction bytes written to L2 cache from texture cache
  - Hit rate at L2 cache for all requests from texture cache
  - Device memory (DRAM) read and write bytes
  - The utilization level of the multiprocessor function units that execute tensor core instructions for devices with compute capability 7.0
- A new attribute `CUPTI_EVENT_ATTR_PROFILING_SCOPE` is added under enum `CUpti_EventAttribute` to query the profiling scope of a event. Profiling scope indicates if the event can be collected at the context level or device level or both. See Enum `CUpti_EventProfilingScope` for avaiable profiling scopes.
- A new error code `CUPTI_ERROR_VIRTUALIZED_DEVICE_NOT_SUPPORTED` is added to indicate that tracing and profiling on virtualized GPU is not supported.

## CUPTI changes in CUDA 9.1

List of changes done as part of the CUDA Toolkit 9.1 release.

- Added a field for correlation ID in the activity record `CUpti_ActivityStream`.

## CUPTI changes in CUDA 9.0

List of changes done as part of the CUDA Toolkit 9.0 release.

- CUPTI extends tracing and profiling support for devices with compute capability 7.0.
- Usage of compute device memory can be tracked through CUPTI. A new activity record `CUpti_ActivityMemory` and activity kind `CUPTI_ACTIVITY_KIND_MEMORY` are added to track the allocation and freeing of memory. This activity record includes fields like virtual base address, size, PC (program counter), timestamps for memory allocation and free calls.
- Unified memory profiling adds new events for thrashing, throttling, remote map and device-to-device migration on 64 bit Linux platforms. New events are added under enum `CUpti_ActivityUnifiedMemoryCounterKind`. Enum `CUpti_ActivityUnifiedMemoryRemoteMapCause` lists possible causes for remote map events.
- PC sampling supports wide range of sampling periods ranging from 2^5 cycles to 2^31 cycles per sample. This can be controlled through new field `samplingPeriod2` in the PC sampling configuration struct `CUpti_ActivityPCSamplingConfig`.
- Added API `cuptiDeviceSupported()` to check support for a compute device.
- Activity record `CUpti_ActivityKernel3` for kernel execution has been deprecated and replaced by new activity record `CUpti_ActivityKernel4`. New record gives information about queued and submit timestamps which can help to determine software and hardware latencies associated with the kernel launch. These timestamps are not collected by default. Use API `cuptiActivityEnableLatencyTimestamps()` to enable collection. New field `launchType` of type `CUpti_ActivityLaunchType` can be used to determine if it is a cooperative CUDA kernel launch.
- Activity record `CUpti_ActivityPCSampling2` for PC sampling has been deprecated and replaced by new activity record `CUpti_ActivityPCSampling3`. New record accomodates 64-bit PC Offset supported on devices of compute capability 7.0 and higher.
- Activity record `CUpti_ActivityNvLink` for NVLink attributes has been deprecated and replaced by new activity record `CUpti_ActivityNvLink2`. New record accomodates increased port numbers between two compute devices.
- Activity record `CUpti_ActivityGlobalAccess2` for source level global accesses has been deprecated and replaced by new activity record `CUpti_ActivityGlobalAccess3`. New record accomodates 64-bit PC Offset supported on devices of compute capability 7.0 and higher.
- New attributes `CUPTI_ACTIVITY_ATTR_PROFILING_SEMAPHORE_POOL_SIZE` and `CUPTI_ACTIVITY_ATTR_PROFILING_SEMAPHORE_POOL_LIMIT` are added in the activity attribute enum `CUpti_ActivityAttribute` to set and get the profiling semaphore pool size and the pool limit.

## CUPTI changes in CUDA 8.0

List of changes done as part of the CUDA Toolkit 8.0 release.

- Sampling of the program counter (PC) is enhanced to point out the true latency issues, it indicates if the stall reasons for warps are actually causing stalls in the issue pipeline. Field `latencySamples` of new activity record `CUpti_ActivityPCSampling2` provides true latency samples. This field is valid for devices with compute capability 6.0 and higher. See section PC Sampling for more details.
- Support for NVLink topology information such as the pair of devices connected via NVLink, peak bandwidth, memory access permissions etc is provided through new activity record `CUpti_ActivityNvLink`. NVLink performance metrics for data transmitted/received, transmit/receive throughput and respective header overhead for each physical link. See section NVLink for more details.
- CUPTI supports profiling of OpenACC applications. OpenACC profiling information is provided in the form of new activity records `CUpti_ActivityOpenAccData`, `CUpti_ActivityOpenAccLaunch` and `CUpti_ActivityOpenAccOther`. This aids in correlating OpenACC constructs on the CPU with the corresponding activity taking place on the GPU, and mapping it back to the source code. New API `cuptiOpenACCInitialize` is used to initialize profiling for supported OpenACC runtimes. See section OpenACC for more details.
- Unified memory profiling provides GPU page fault events on devices with compute capability 6.0 and 64 bit Linux platforms. Enum `CUpti_ActivityUnifiedMemoryAccessType` lists memory access types for GPU page fault events and enum `CUpti_ActivityUnifiedMemoryMigrationCause` lists migration causes for data transfer events.
- Unified Memory profiling support is extended to Mac platform.
- Support for 16-bit floating point (FP16) data format profiling. New metrics inst_fp_16, flop_count_hp_add, flop_count_hp_mul, flop_count_hp_fma, flop_count_hp, flop_hp_efficiency, half_precision_fu_utilization are supported. Peak FP16 flops per cycle for device can be queried using the enum `CUPTI_DEVICE_ATTR_FLOP_HP_PER_CYCLE` added to `CUpti_DeviceAttribute`.
- Added new activity kinds `CUPTI_ACTIVITY_KIND_SYNCHRONIZATION`, `CUPTI_ACTIVITY_KIND_STREAM` and `CUPTI_ACTIVITY_KIND_CUDA_EVENT`, to support the tracing of CUDA synchronization constructs such as context, stream and CUDA event synchronization. Synchronization details are provided in the form of new activity record `CUpti_ActivitySynchronization`. Enum `CUpti_ActivitySynchronizationType` lists different types of CUDA synchronization constructs.
- APIs `cuptiSetThreadIdType()`/`cuptiGetThreadIdType()` to set/get the mechanism used to fetch the thread-id used in CUPTI records. Enum `CUpti_ActivityThreadIdType` lists all supported mechanisms.
- Added API `cuptiComputeCapabilitySupported()` to check the support for a specific compute capability by the CUPTI.
- Added support to establish correlation between an external API (such as OpenACC, OpenMP) and CUPTI API activity records. APIs `cuptiActivityPushExternalCorrelationId()` and `cuptiActivityPopExternalCorrelationId()` should be used to push and pop external correlation ids for the calling thread. Generated records of type `CUpti_ActivityExternalCorrelation` contain both external and CUPTI assigned correlation ids.
- Added containers to store the information of events and metrics in the form of activity records `CUpti_ActivityInstantaneousEvent`, `CUpti_ActivityInstantaneousEventInstance`, `CUpti_ActivityInstantaneousMetric` and `CUpti_ActivityInstantaneousMetricInstance`. These activity records are not produced by the CUPTI, these are included for completeness and ease-of-use. Profilers built on top of CUPTI that sample events may choose to use these records to store the collected event data.
- Support for domains and annotation of synchronization objects added in NVTX v2. New activity record `CUpti_ActivityMarker2` and enums to indicate various stages of synchronization object i.e. `CUPTI_ACTIVITY_FLAG_MARKER_SYNC_ACQUIRE`, `CUPTI_ACTIVITY_FLAG_MARKER_SYNC_ACQUIRE_SUCCESS`, `CUPTI_ACTIVITY_FLAG_MARKER_SYNC_ACQUIRE_FAILED` and `CUPTI_ACTIVITY_FLAG_MARKER_SYNC_RELEASE` are added.
- Unused field `runtimeCorrelationId` of the activity record `CUpti_ActivityMemset` is broken into two fields `flags` and `memoryKind` to indicate the asynchronous behaviour and the kind of the memory used for the memset operation. It is supported by the new flag `CUPTI_ACTIVITY_FLAG_MEMSET_ASYNC` added in the enum `CUpti_ActivityFlag`.
- Added flag `CUPTI_ACTIVITY_MEMORY_KIND_MANAGED` in the enum `CUpti_ActivityMemoryKind` to indicate managed memory.
- API `cuptiGetStreamId` has been deprecated. A new API `cuptiGetStreamIdEx` is introduced to provide the stream id based on the legacy or per-thread default stream flag.

## CUPTI changes in CUDA 7.5

List of changes done as part of the CUDA Toolkit 7.5 release.

- Device-wide sampling of the program counter (PC) is enabled by default. This was a preview feature in the CUDA Toolkit 7.0 release and it was not enabled by default.
- Ability to collect all events and metrics accurately in presence of multiple contexts on the GPU is extended for devices with compute capability 5.x.
- API `cuptiGetLastError` is introduced to return the last error that has been produced by any of the CUPTI API calls or the callbacks in the same host thread.
- Unified memory profiling is supported with MPS (Multi-Process Service)
- Callback is provided to collect replay information after every kernel run during kernel replay. See API `cuptiKernelReplaySubscribeUpdate` and callback type `CUpti_KernelReplayUpdateFunc`.
- Added new attributes in enum `CUpti_DeviceAttribute` to query maximum shared memory size for different cache preferences for a device function.

## CUPTI changes in CUDA 7.0

List of changes done as part of the CUDA Toolkit 7.0 release.

- CUPTI supports device-wide sampling of the program counter (PC). Program counters along with the stall reasons from all active warps are sampled at a fixed frequency in the round robin order. Activity record `CUpti_ActivityPCSampling` enabled using activity kind `CUPTI_ACTIVITY_KIND_PC_SAMPLING` outputs stall reason along with PC and other related information. Enum `CUpti_ActivityPCSamplingStallReason` lists all the stall reasons. Sampling period is configurable and can be tuned using API `cuptiActivityConfigurePCSampling`. This feature is available on devices with compute capability 5.2.
- Added new activity record `CUpti_ActivityInstructionCorrelation` which can be used to dump source locator records for all the PCs of the function.
- All events and metrics for devices with compute capability 3.x and 5.0 can be collected accurately in presence of multiple contexts on the GPU. In previous releases only some events and metrics could be collected accurately when multiple contexts were executing on the GPU.
- Unified memory profiling is enhanced by providing fine grain data transfers to and from the GPU, coupled with more accurate timestamps with each transfer. This information is provided through new activity record `CUpti_ActivityUnifiedMemoryCounter2`, deprecating old record `CUpti_ActivityUnifiedMemoryCounter`.
- MPS tracing and profiling support is extended on multi-gpu setups.
- Activity record `CUpti_ActivityDevice` for device information has been deprecated and replaced by new activity record `CUpti_ActivityDevice2`. New record adds device UUID which can be used to uniquely identify the device across profiler runs.
- Activity record `CUpti_ActivityKernel2` for kernel execution has been deprecated and replaced by new activity record `CUpti_ActivityKernel3`. New record gives information about Global Partitioned Cache Configuration requested and executed. Partitioned global caching has an impact on occupancy calculation. If it is ON, then a CTA can only use a half SM, and thus a half of the registers available per SM. The new fields apply for devices with compute capability 5.2 and higher. Note that this change was done in CUDA 6.5 release with support for compute capabilty 5.2.

## CUPTI changes in CUDA 6.5

List of changes done as part of the CUDA Toolkit 6.5 release.

- Instruction classification is done for source-correlated Instruction Execution activity `CUpti_ActivityInstructionExecution`. See `CUpti_ActivityInstructionClass` for instruction classes.
- Two new device attributes are added to the activity `CUpti_DeviceAttribute`:
  - `CUPTI_DEVICE_ATTR_FLOP_SP_PER_CYCLE` gives peak single precision flop per cycle for the GPU.
  - `CUPTI_DEVICE_ATTR_FLOP_DP_PER_CYCLE` gives peak double precision flop per cycle for the GPU.
- Two new metric properties are added:
  - `CUPTI_METRIC_PROPERTY_FLOP_SP_PER_CYCLE` gives peak single precision flop per cycle for the GPU.
  - `CUPTI_METRIC_PROPERTY_FLOP_DP_PER_CYCLE` gives peak double precision flop per cycle for the GPU.
- Activity record `CUpti_ActivityGlobalAccess` for source level global access information has been deprecated and replaced by new activity record `CUpti_ActivityGlobalAccess2`. New record additionally gives information needed to map SASS assembly instructions to CUDA C source code. And it also provides ideal L2 transactions count based on the access pattern.
- Activity record `CUpti_ActivityBranch` for source level branch information has been deprecated and replaced by new activity record `CUpti_ActivityBranch2`. New record additionally gives information needed to map SASS assembly instructions to CUDA C source code.
- Sample `sass_source_map` is added to demonstrate the mapping of SASS assembly instructions to CUDA C source code.
- Default event collection mode is changed to Kernel (`CUPTI_EVENT_COLLECTION_MODE_KERNEL`) from Continuous (`CUPTI_EVENT_COLLECTION_MODE_CONTINUOUS`). Also Continuous mode is supported only on Tesla devices.
- Profiling results might be inconsistent when auto boost is enabled. Profiler tries to disable auto boost by default, it might fail to do so in some conditions, but profiling will continue. A new API `cuptiGetAutoBoostState` is added to query the auto boost state of the device. This API returns error `CUPTI_ERROR_NOT_SUPPORTED` on devices that don't support auto boost. Note that auto boost is supported only on certain Tesla devices from the Kepler+ family.
- Activity record `CUpti_ActivityKernel2` for kernel execution has been deprecated and replaced by new activity record `CUpti_ActivityKernel3`. New record additionally gives information about Global Partitioned Cache Configuration requested and executed. The new fields apply for devices with 5.2 Compute Capability.

## CUPTI changes in CUDA 6.0

List of changes done as part of the CUDA Toolkit 6.0 release.

- Two new CUPTI activity kinds have been introduced to enable two new types of source-correlated data collection. The `Instruction Execution` kind collects SASS-level instruction execution counts, divergence data, and predication data. The `Shared Access` kind collects source correlated data indication inefficient shared memory accesses.
- CUPTI provides support for CUDA applications using Unified Memory. A new activity record reports Unified Memory activity such as transfers to and from a GPU and the number of Unified Memory related page faults.
- CUPTI recognized and reports the special MPS context that is used by CUDA applications running on a system with MPS enabled.
- The CUpti_ActivityContext activity record `CUpti_ActivityContext` has been updated to introduce a new field into the structure in a backwards compatible manner. The 32-bit `computeApiKind` field was replaced with two 16 bit fields, `computeApiKind` and `defaultStreamId`. Because all valid `computeApiKind` values fit within 16 bits, and because all supported CUDA platforms are little-endian, persisted context record data read with the new structure will have the correct value for `computeApiKind` and have a value of zero for `defaultStreamId`. The CUPTI client is responsible for versioning the persisted context data to recognize when the `defaultStreamId` field is valid.
- To ensure that metric values are calculated as accurately as possible, a new metric API is introduced. Function `cuptiMetricGetRequiredEventGroupSets` can be used to get the groups of events that should be collected at the same time.
- Execution overheads introduced by CUPTI have been dramatically decreased.
- The new activity buffer API introduced in CUDA Toolkit 5.5 is required. The legacy `cuptiActivityEnqueueBuffer` and `cuptiActivityDequeueBuffer` functions have been removed.

## CUPTI changes in CUDA 5.5

List of changes done as part of CUDA Toolkit 5.5 release.

- Applications that use CUDA Dynamic Parallelism can be profiled using CUPTI. Device-side kernel launches are reported using a new activity kind.
- Device attributes such as power usage, clocks, thermals, etc. are reported via a new activity kind.
- A new activity buffer API uses callbacks to request and return buffers of activity records. The existing `cuptiActivityEnqueueBuffer` and `cuptiActivityDequeueBuffer` functions are still supported but are deprecated and will be removed in a future release.
- The Event API supports kernel replay so that any number of events can be collected during a single run of the application.
- A new metric API `cuptiMetricGetValue2` allows metric values to be calculated for any device, even if that device is not available on the system.
- CUDA peer-to-peer memory copies are reported explicitly via the activity API. In previous releases these memory copies were only partially reported.