There are a lot of differences (and similarities). Simics does not provide cycle-accurate simulation but does provide full system functionality. GEMS was designed to explore multiprocessor (multicore) architecture features and add cycle accuracy and a detailed memory hierarchy to Simics. M5 supports cycle accurate full system simulation and system call emulation (a la SimpleScalar) for multicore architectures on a couple of architecture families. With the inclusion of Ruby in M5, the GEM5 project has both the detailed memory model of GEMS and the rich processor support of M5.
gem5 is FOSS and you can download and run it immediately (after some setup). Simics is available for academic licensing through Wind River Systems, whom you would contact to request a site license. They grant one per institution typically. GEMS is installed as an extension to Simics and runs as a plugin module. Since all of the source code is readily available, gem5 is easier to code and debug. I have written extensions to both simulators and found the gem5 approach to be more mature and usable. gem5 supports more architecture families, although its ALPHA support is most mature, with x86 and ARM catching up. gems works only on the SPARC v9 instruction set. With gem5, Linux is the OS of choice. With gems, it is difficult to use any OS other than Solaris, although some groups have had success. gem5 is still maintained, whereas most of the gems authors have moved on. My opinion is that if you are just starting out, you will do better with gem5. The reason to use simics/gems would be if you already are familiar with it and have it set up to work in your lab. Good luck. 2011/6/15 冬雨 <[email protected]>: > hi, I am a new user of the architecture simulators. > Can anyone tell me the differents between the gem5 and the gems&simics ? > In addition, I also want to know how to get the simics for free as a > student? > _______________________________________________ > gem5-users mailing list > [email protected] > http://m5sim.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gem5-users > _______________________________________________ gem5-users mailing list [email protected] http://m5sim.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gem5-users
