Bug 85785 - Multiple CPU calculate
Summary: Multiple CPU calculate
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Calc (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
4.2.6.3 release
Hardware: All All
: medium enhancement
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
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Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2014-11-03 03:27 UTC by mardocheo
Modified: 2016-06-30 12:27 UTC (History)
3 users (show)

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Description mardocheo 2014-11-03 03:27:06 UTC
I thank you for your support in advance.
I use Calc to open very big files, with 350.000 records.
I have in the same file, about 10 pivot tables, all based on this large dataset.

I combine that pivot with another astronomical dataset and I have another dataset with the results, and finally I filter by Standard filter or Quick filter these data for the purpose that I need.

I don't have graph on this documents.

My problem:

In any situation, doesn't matter if I am opening the file, or, I am saving the file, or if I change the data in the master table in order to ask to pivot to change to (heavy calculate is involved), or if I filter the data...
In any of these above situation, my i7 Laptop always show 1 CPU used for all above operation.

i understand it's not easy to access to the same area of data to process multiple PIVOT, or opening session, but in some situation is possible, I am sure because I could make saccesfully in some my software.

Of course i don't uderstand in the detail the kind of approchaing have LibreOffice to the calculate system, but maybe it's possible.

Please consider that if you can make so We can erase for ever the competition with Excel, becuase the ability of Excel to use parallel CPU is one of the most positive point for the Microsoft suite.

Best reguards.
MF
Comment 2 Robinson Tryon (qubit) 2014-12-23 20:39:27 UTC
(In reply to mardocheo from comment #0)
> In any situation, doesn't matter... my i7 Laptop always show 1 CPU used for all
> above operation.
> ...
> ... the ability of Excel to use parallel CPU is
> one of the most positive point for the Microsoft suite.

Sounds like a reasonable idea for improvement. We do have Bug 63554 - Put every application in different CPU process, but that's a slightly different suggestion.

Severity -> enhancement
Status -> NEW
Comment 3 Robinson Tryon (qubit) 2014-12-23 20:39:53 UTC
Hardware -> (Generalize)
Comment 4 mardocheo 2014-12-24 05:06:23 UTC
Thank you very much for the link about the openCL support in CALC.
I think it's very nice that the most of formulas can use openCL standard in order to access multple CPU/GPU in the Computer.

But there are 2 kind of issue about that:
1) I have a i7 hd4000 laptop, and so no dedicated GPU but HD4000 standard openCL ability of course.
I enebled in CALC the ability to use openCL but I CANNOT SEE my multiple CPU option in the list of openCL options.

So I tried to install Khronos but it was a little difficult and anyway it didn't work.

It seems that openCL was born in collaboration with AMD and so for the moment AMD APU can work better.
Why don't put this ability working well and stable on the most common platform like intel i7 and hd4000 ?

2) if we put the problem to use multiple cores on the CPU only on openCL, we depend from another layer of driver, but if we can use directly the CPU in the computers can be very useful.
For example fierfox, chrome, and also now explorer have put each new navigation tab, like a new process, and this gives to them the ability to use fully the multi-core CPU at full power, WITHOUT OPENCL.

i think that openCL can only partially solve the problem.

The finally point is this:
are we using wisely the resources of our muti-core CPU ?
Comment 5 Michael Meeks 2016-06-30 12:27:26 UTC
Hi Mardocheo - if you install the right Intel drivers you should be able to use Software OpenCL to parallelize the calculation of simple formulae in your spreadsheet; this should not require a GPU.

Of course - there are certainly a -lot- of ways that we can improve parallel computation with new calculation methods - without any engineering resource or volunteers to put on them - I don't know that this bug is a good place to build interest there.

I have a lot of ideas here if you are interested in hacking on them - please contact me; otherwise closing this issue =)