Hi All,

I have been generating elastic traces based on the instructions given on the 
http://gem5.org/TraceCPU and then replaying them for Low Power DDR models:

  1.  Elastic trace Generation:
./build/ARM/gem5.opt -d <out_dir> ./config/examples/se.py 
--cpu-type=O3_ARM_v7a_3 --caches --cmd=<binary location> 
--data-trace-file=deptrace.proto.gz --inst-trace-file=fetchtrace.proto.gz 
--mem-type=SimpleMemory

  1.  Elastic trace Replay:

./build/ARM/gem5.opt -d <out_dir> ./config/examples/etrace_replay.py 
--cpu-type=TraceCPU --caches --data-trace-file=<location of deptrace.proto.gz> 
--inst-trace-file=<location of fetchtrace.proto.gz> --mem-type=<LPDDR model>

  1.  Baseline Simulation:
./build/ARM/gem5.opt -d <out_dir> ./config/examples/se.py 
--cpu-type=O3_ARM_v7a_3 --caches --cmd=<binary location> --mem-type=<LPDDR 
model>

When comparing the results from the replay with the baseline, I see a 
significant variance in multiple key metrics (CPI, system.mem_ctrls.bw*, etc.). 
There is a CPI variance of 40-60% and other mem_ctrl BW metrics see an even 
higher variance. This variance is seen for both LLVM Stanford test-cases as 
well as for SPEC benchmarks. I noticed that the sim_seconds for the replay is 
significantly shorter for the replay simulations (20% of baseline) which I feel 
could be the cause of the high variance.

As a potential solution, I increased the memory latency for the etrace 
generation from 1ns to 45ns which is closer to the slower LPDDR memories. This 
instantly improved results bringing down the variance between baseline and 
replay simulations to within 10%. I know that we want to keep the memory 
latency down to the minimal to keep it from affecting the COMP_DELAY, so I am 
not sure if increasing this latency should affect the results as I see them.

If I should not increase the memory latency, what else can I do to get more 
accurate results from the replayed simulations?

Thanks,
Sharookh Daruwalla



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