Viewing a Solution Profile

At any time during or after the solution process, you can examine the computing resources or profile data that were used by Ansys Electronics Desktop solvers during the analysis. The profile data is essentially a log of the tasks performed by Ansys Electronics Desktop during analysis. The log indicates the length of time each task took and how much physical and disk memory was required.

  1. In the project tree, right-click a solution setup, and select Profile.

    2. The Solutions dialog box appears, with the Profile tab selected. You can also click the Solution Data icon on the ribbon to open the Solutions dialog box, and then select the Profile tab.

    Solution Data Icon

    The displayed data depends on the type of problem and solution setup.

    Solutions Window

    If the simulation hangs, equivalent messages appear in the Message window and the Solution Profile tab.

    Message Window

  2. If one or more dependent setups exist, you can select the desired profile information from the Simulation drop-down menu. In general, the information displayed includes:

    3. Task Lists the type of task that was performed. Tasks include Start, various Mesh tasks, Simulation Setup, Port Adaptation, Adaptive Pass tasks, including simulation setup, Matrix Assembly, Solver tasks, and Field Recovery, Sweep tasks, and Solution Process summary and Totals for time.
    Real Time The difference in time between the start of the task and the end of the task (elapsed time).
    CPU Time The amount of CPU time required to perform the task.
    Memory The peak amount of physical memory (RAM) used by the individual executable running the task. The memory is freed for other uses after each task is complete.

    Information

    General information about the solution (for example, the number of tetrahedra used in the mesh, disk use, solver information, sweep information, and totals).

    The matrix solver writes specific information in some of these fields, as outlined below:


    Task The matrix solver task reports the type of solution performed by the solver, based on the physics of the problem. It has the form "Solver pdsn" (e.g., Solver MRS2, Solver DCS4-L2), where:
    • p, the precision type is: M (mixed for direct solver), or Mxx (for distributed direct solver), or D (double for direct and iterative solver) or E (extended precisions solve)
    • d, the matrix data type is: R (real) or C (complex)
    • s, the symmetry type is: S (symmetric), A (asymmetric), or H (hermitian)
    • n, the number of processors used. You specify the number of available processors on the local machine in the solver options. If a solve does not use all available processors (local or distributed), the number reported may be less than the number available.

    If a simulation uses the iterative solver, the Solver designation can include a level indicator appended. to an Iterative solver designation (L2 in the example above). The higher the Level number the lower the memory, you will never see L1 (this would be equivalent to direct solver. And a first order solve will only display L2 since it only has one level of order to go down for preconditioning. A second or mixed order solve may display L3 depending on the mesh quality.

    If the solver switches from the Iterative Solver to the Matrix solver, you see a Matrix solver warning: Switch from Iterative Solver to Direct Solver.
    Information The matrix solver information line includes, for example, Disk = 0 KBytes, matrix size 11137 , matrix bandwidth 20.3.
    • Disk – The amount of hard disk space used during the calculation of the matrix solution. If the disk usage for matrix solver is non-zero in profile, it usually indicates off-core matrix solver. If the matrix solver must solve off-core, smaller blocks of the data to be solved are created on disk, each block is then solved in physical memory, and then the matrix solution is reassembled. As a result of this additional processing, the time required to calculate a solution is higher.
    • Matrix size – The size of the matrix that was solved (the number of unknowns)
    • Matrix bandwidth – An FEM matrix is a sparse matrix. The solver only stores the non-zero entries. The matrix bandwidth is the average number of non-zeros per row. It gives an idea of the sparsity of a FEM matrix.Storage for the sparse matrix is proportional to the total number of nonzeros = #rows x bandwidth. The higher the bases order, the larger the bandwidth.
    • Iterations – For the Iterative Solver.

To export the profile data:

  1. Open the Solutions dialog box and select the Profile tab.
  2. Click Export Profile.

    This opens a file save dialog box that lets you provide a file name and location.

  3. Click Save.

    4. The data is saved in a text file with a .prof extension.

Related Topics:

Viewing an Optimetrics Solution's Profile Data