Altair RADIOSS Structural Solver Achieves Unmatched Performance Using NVIDIA GPUs

TROY, Mich., Aug. 7, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --  Altair, a leading global provider of simulation technology and engineering services, is featuring another of its leading HyperWorks simulation solutions, RADIOSS™, accelerated by NVIDIA professional graphics processing units (GPUs), at SIGGRAPH 2012, this week in Los Angeles.

RADIOSS is the premier next-generation finite element structural solver for linear and non-linear simulations. It is widely used in the automotive and aerospace industries to maximize structural durability, noise-and-vibration performance, crashworthiness, safety and manufacturability of product designs.

Solvers are the heart of Altair's HyperWorks computer-aided engineering (CAE) simulation platform and the RADIOSS Implicit solution demonstrates unmatched performance using a hybrid parallelization approach, significantly reducing the time needed for computer simulation analysis. The RADIOSS Implicit direct solver is employed extensively in structural analysis and sensitivity calculations, while the RADIOSS Implicit iterative solver is particularly suited to solving large engineering models with millions of degrees of freedom.

By offloading the intensive matrix computation from either of these two solvers onto NVIDIA GPUs and using heterogeneous GPU and CPU computing, the solver's speed can be increased significantly when compared to a multi-core CPU-only approach. This innovative hybrid parallelization -- based on message passing interface (MPI) to decompose over multiple GPUs using NVIDIA® CUDA® and multiple CPU cores with OpenMP parallelism -- allows a dramatic reduction in solution time. Test results utilizing an NVIDIA Tesla® M2090 GPU have demonstrated up to four times faster acceleration  in performance, as compared with the latest six-core CPU running the same simulation.

"Altair has some of world's best solver products, from structural optimization to computational fluid dynamics to multiphysics simulation, and our collaboration with NVIDIA is helping to make us an even stronger player in the solver market," said Altair Senior Vice President for Solver Products Detlef Schneider. "We are committed to continue to enhance our solver solution portfolio, including innovations based on the advancement of computing technology, such as general-purpose GPUs."

Users also benefit from accelerated access to compute resources in the cloud, thanks in part to GPU support by PBS Professional, Altair's leading high-performance computing (HPC) workload management product.

Altair and NVIDIA are discussing this hybrid parallelization technique during the SIGGRAPH 2012 exhibition Aug. 7-9 at the Los Angeles Convention Center, at the NVIDIA exhibition booths (634 & 735).

Altair Operations Director Devin Jensen is describing the process in a presentation titled, "Accelerating Simulation and Analysis with Hybrid GPU Parallelization and Cloud Computing," scheduled for Thursday, Aug. 9 from 1:00-1:30 p.m. at the NVIDIA Innovation Theater, in booth 634.

"We continue to work closely with ISVs such as Altair, and the impressive capabilities they're demonstrating are helping us further expand the application of GPU technology," said Andrew Cresci, general manager of strategic alliances, NVIDIA. "We plan to continue to work with Altair on heterogeneous innovations like these that will further capitalize on our combined technologies."

NVIDIA Tesla GPUs were integrated into AcuSolve, the HyperWorks computational fluid dynamics (CFD) application, in 2010. Performance tests of Altair's market-leading GPU-supported CFD flow solver showed as much as a doubling in performance with the NVIDIA Tesla C2050 GPU, compared with the most current quad-core CPU running the same simulation. In addition, PBS Professional currently supports NVIDIA Tesla C2050/2070/2075 and M2050/2070/2090 GPUs.

Official GPU support of RADIOSS will be made available in the next release of HyperWorks.  Certification will include NVIDIA Tesla GPUs for compute servers, as well as certification for NVIDIA Maximus™ technology that combines the visualization performance of NVIDIA Quadro® professional graphics with the computing power of NVIDIA Tesla GPUs in a single desktop workstation. PBS Professional will support the forthcoming NVIDIA Tesla K20 GPU, based on the next-generation NVIDIA Kepler™ compute architecture.

About HyperWorks

HyperWorks, a platform for innovation, is a comprehensive simulation solution for rapid design exploration and decision-making. HyperWorks provides a tightly integrated suite of best-in-class tools for all facets of the simulation process: modeling, analysis, optimization, visualization, reporting and collaborative knowledge management. Leveraging a revolutionary pay-per-usage licensing model, HyperWorks delivers maximum value and flexibility for customers worldwide. For more information, please visit: www.altairhyperworks.com.

About Altair

Altair empowers client innovation and decision-making through technology that optimizes the analysis, management and visualization of business and engineering information. Privately held, with more than 1,500 employees, Altair has offices throughout North America, South America, Europe and Asia/Pacific. With a 26-year track record for high-end software for engineering and computing, enterprise analytics solutions, and innovative product design and development, Altair consistently delivers a competitive advantage to customers in a broad range of industries. To learn more, please visit www.altair.com and www.simulatetoinnovate.com.

SOURCE Altair