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SPEC 2006: Why won't it compile/run?

Introduction

SPEC 2006 is still commonly used as a benchmark suite, but some versions of gcc do not correctly compile all benchmarks. This is sometimes obvious, such as when you see compile errors or the compiler itself crashes. Sometimes it is less obvious, especially when running only parts of the executable in a simulator. For example, some versions of gcc compile a perlbench executable that looks fine, but when run simply allocates more and more memory until it gets an out-of-memory error. This can go unnoticed when executing in gem5, giving you weird results.

This guide is to help me remember what combinations of compiler, portability, and optimization flags I have had success with. Perhaps it will be useful to others as well. Note that adding or changing any compile flags, no matter how harmless they appear, should be followed by running the suite natively to ensure that all benchmarks still compile and produce correct output.

Also, here's a link to a page with solutions to some common problems -- it's very helpful.

Using gcc-4.7.4

This is the latest of the 4.7 versions installed on our department machines. The default compiler one these machines is 4.4.7; see below for those configurations. For a few benchmarks I do not have a working configuration in 4.7.4 and instead use 4.4.7. Paths are for where things are installed on CSL machines.

General flags:

CC = /s/gcc-4.7.4/bin/gcc
CXX = /s/gcc-4.7.4/bin/g++
FC = /s/gcc-4.7.4/bin/gfortran

Exceptions:

Several benchmarks do not work with these flags. You can give additional/alternate options for them in your config file.

Working configurations by benchmark

This is not scientific or exhaustive, but here are some configurations that seem to work for each benchmark, as well as some known bad ones.

400.perlbench

gcc	O	portability	results
4.7.3	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LINUX_X64	works

401.bzip2

gcc	O	portability	results
4.4.7	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works
4.7.3	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works
4.8.4	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works

403.gcc

gcc	O	portability	results
4.4.7	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works
4.7.3	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works
4.8.4	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works
4.9.2	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works

410.bwaves

gcc	O	portability	results
4.4.7	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works
4.7.3	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works
4.8.4	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works

416.gamess

gcc	O	portability	results
4.4.7	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works
4.7.3	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works
4.8.4	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works

429.mcf

gcc	O	portability	results
4.4.7	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works
4.7.3	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works
4.8.4	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works
4.9.2	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works

433.milc

gcc	O	portability	results
4.4.7	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works
4.7.3	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works

434.zeusmp

gcc	O	portability	results
4.4.7	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works
4.7.3	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works
4.8.4	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works

435.gromacs

gcc	O	portability	results
4.4.7	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works
4.7.3	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works
4.8.4	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works

436.cactusADM

gcc	O	portability	results
4.4.7	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works
4.7.3	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works

437.leslie3d

gcc	O	portability	results
4.4.7	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works
4.7.3	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works
4.8.4	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works

444.namd

gcc	O	portability	results
4.4.7	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works
4.7.3	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works

445.gobmk

gcc	O	portability	results
4.4.7	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works
4.7.3	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works

447.dealII

gcc	O	portability	results
4.4.7	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	error: 'atof' is not a member of 'std'
4.4.7	-O2	-include cstdlib -include cstring	works
4.7.3	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	error: 'ptrdiff_t' does not name a type etc.
4.7.3	-O2	-include cstdlib -include cstring	works etc.
4.8.4	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	error: 'ptrdiff_t' does not name a type etc.
4.8.4	-O2	-include cstdlib -include cstring	error: 'ptrdiff_t' does not name a type etc.
4.8.4	-O2	-include cstdlib -include cstring -include cstddef	works
4.9.2	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	error: 'ptrdiff_t' does not name a type etc.
4.9.2	-O2	-include cstdlib -include cstring	error: 'ptrdiff_t' does not name a type etc.
4.9.2	-O2	-include cstdlib -include cstring -include cstddef	works

450.soplex

gcc	O	portability	results
4.4.7	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works
4.7.3	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works
4.8.4	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works

453.povray

gcc	O	portability	results
4.4.7	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works
4.7.3	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works

454.calculix

gcc	O	portability	results
4.4.7	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works
4.7.3	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works

456.hmmer

gcc	O	portability	results
4.4.7	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works
4.7.3	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works

458.sjeng

gcc	O	portability	results
4.4.7	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works
4.7.3	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works

459.GemsFDTD

gcc	O	portability	results
4.4.7	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works
4.7.3	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works

462.libquantum

gcc	O	portability	results
4.4.7	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LINUX	works
4.7.3	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LINUX	works

464.h264ref

gcc	O	portability	results
4.7.3	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works

465.tonto

gcc	O	portability	results
4.7.3	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works

470.lbm

gcc	O	portability	results
4.7.3	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works

471.omnetpp

gcc	O	portability	results
4.7.3	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works

473.astar

gcc	O	portability	results
4.7.3	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works

481.wrf

gcc	O	portability	results
4.7.3	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_CASE_FLAG -DSPEC_CPU_LINUX; wrf_data_header_size = 8	Runtime: At line 6744 of file module_ra_rrtm.fppized.f90 (unit = 10, file = 'RRTM_DATA')
4.7.3	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_CASE_FLAG -DSPEC_CPU_LINUX	works

482.sphinx3

gcc	O	portability	results
4.7.3	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LP64	works

483.xalancbmk

gcc	O	portability	results
4.4.7	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LINUX	error: 'memset' was not declared in this scope
4.4.7	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LINUX -include cstdlib -include cstring	works
4.7.3	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LINUX	error: 'memset' was not declared in this scope
4.7.3	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LINUX -include cstdlib -include cstring	works
4.8.4	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LINUX	error: 'memset' was not declared in this scope
4.8.4	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LINUX -include cstdlib -include cstring	works
4.9.2	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LINUX	error: 'memset' was not declared in this scope
4.9.2	-O2	-DSPEC_CPU_LINUX -include cstdlib -include cstring	works

Please send any corrections or questions to lena@cs. Last updated 29 March 2015.