RE: NONMEM memory vs. run time
Based on some of my long running-time NONMEM programs (in days on
PCs/Windows-based servers), multitasks have more profound effect on overall
running time than the SIZES settings. I guess your memory has to be above a
threshold, though, to see no significant difference in running time for
different SIZES settings (I don't know the threshold for each combination of
SIZES settings).
Alan
Quoted reply history
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Elassaiss - Schaap, J.
(Jeroen)
Sent: Monday, September 08, 2008 2:27 PM
To: Nick Holford
Cc: nmusers
Subject: RE: [NMusers] NONMEM memory vs. run time
Nick,
Now I spot it indeed. And I certainly will give it a go, as I have never
seen this big/small difference - actually hoped you would have an answer
ready.
Swapfile time: depends on other applications running, memory demands and
the actual memory access. During my PhD I have had to program against
swap-file behaviour often enough, so I wouldn't be surprised by 5
seconds. On the other hand, that was several years ago ....
Jeroen
________________________________
From: Nick Holford [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Monday, 08 September, 2008 20:14
To: Elassaiss - Schaap, J. (Jeroen)
Cc: nmusers
Subject: Re: [NMusers] NONMEM memory vs. run time
Jeroen,
The executable building was explicitly excluded (please read my previous
email carefully). I cannot say how long it takes to create a swapfile
but I would be surprised if it took 5 seconds.
If you want to know if these results scale with model runtime and other
variables such as available RAM then I suggest you try it on your
datasets. I did this a long time ago and made it easy with WFN to build
and switch between different sizes of NONMEM according to the problem.
That way I dont need to waste time running test problems :-)
Nick
Elassaiss - Schaap, J. (Jeroen) wrote:
Nick,
Interesting observations. I however wouldn't be surprised if the
additional 4-5 seconds would be due to I/O activities (swapfile,
executable building etc.) rather than calculations. How do these
differences scale with model runtime, i.e. for models than run
hours
rather than minutes, does the big/small nonmem difference
increase from
seconds to minutes?
Best regards,
Jeroen
J. Elassaiss-Schaap
Scientist PK/PD
Clinical Pharmacology and Kinetics
Schering-Plough
PO Box 20, 5340 BH Oss, Netherlands
Phone: + 31 412 66 9320
Fax: + 31 412 66 2506
e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Behalf Of Nick Holford
Sent: Monday, 08 September, 2008 17:12
To: nmusers
Subject: Re: [NMusers] NONMEM memory vs. run time
Leonid, Darin,
Here are some experimental results rather than theoretical
predictions.
I ran a problem (ADVAN6) with two 'sizes' of NONMEM created with
NMQUAL
using Wings for NONMEM. The 'std' size is the default NONMEM
configuration. The '570' size is close to the 'big' version
provided
with NMQUAL. I ran the problems with an Intel core duo processor
with 1
Gb RAM compiled with Intel Fortran version 10.1024. I used
NONMEM VI 2.0
installed with NMQUAL-6.3.2 and Windows XP.
I tried each size of problem two times. Run times exclude
NM-TRAN and
the compile/link step. You will see that the bigger NONMEM size
took 5%
longer to complete. There were no page faults visible with the
Task
Manager using either size.
std =Mem Usage 51.1 M byte VM Size 97.1 Mbyte
Runtimes: 80.88
sec/ 81.82 sec
570=Mem Usage 199.8 M byte VM Size 1107.9 Mbyte Runtimes:
84.10
sec/ 87.22 sec
These results are similar to those I have observed before. The
bigger
versions of NONMEM run more slowly. This is why I prefer to
match the
NONMEM size to the problem size. For smaller problems (fewer
parameter,
fewer obs/subject) I use the std size. For bigger problems WFN
allows a
choice to increase either parameters, obs/subject or both.
Nick
Darin Perusich wrote:
The increase in memory consumption doesn't impact
runtime positively
or negatively, unless of course your system doesn't have
enough
physical memory to accommodate the increase. NONMEM's
memory footprint
is directly related to the buffer values in the SIZES
file, as you
increase the values the memory footprint increases to
accommodate.
In the end processor speed is really the only thing that
positively or
negatively effects NONMEM runtime.
Leonid Gibiansky wrote:
Dear All,
I noticed that the Nonmem installed with NMQUAL
"big nm6" defaults
instead of the standard ones results in
approximately 10-times
increase
in the memory required to run Nonmem (on my
recent problem, from 12
MB
to 140 MB). I am wondering whether anybody
checked how this
influences
the run time. Is it better (in terms of the run
time) to use standard
sizes, or "big" is OK if you have enough RAM?
Thanks!
Leonid
--
Nick Holford, Dept Pharmacology & Clinical Pharmacology
University of Auckland, 85 Park Rd, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New
Zealand
[EMAIL PROTECTED] tel:+64(9)923-6730 fax:+64(9)373-7090
http://www.fmhs.auckland.ac.nz/sms/pharmacology/holford
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