VectorSSE is a Ruby gem that uses x86 Streaming SIMD Extensions (SSE) to accelerate array and matrix computations. SIMD instructions perform a single operation on a vector of data rather than on a single value. Vector operations can improve the performance of algorithms that exhibit data-level parallelism.

A simple example: Let us say you need to compute the sum of an array containing 1000 floating point numbers. One approach is to loop through the array and consecutively add each element to a running sum. Another approach is to break the problem into a set of smaller, independent computations that can be performed in parallel with SIMD instructions. For example, we can break the 1000-element array into four 250-element arrays and use SIMD extensions to find four sums in parallel. Of course, this leaves us with four separate sums, so we must add these using normal, non-SSE instructions to yield the overall sum of the 1000-element array.

Install it with RubyGems

gem install vector_sse

or add this to your Gemfile if you use Bundler:

gem "vector_sse"

The VectorSSE gem defines two data types: the Array class, which inherits from the core Array class, and the Matrix class. Unlike typical Ruby containers, the Array and Matrix classes are intended to store a homogeneous data type. At this time, the supported data types include signed 32 and 64-bit signed integers, 32-bit floating point, and double-precision floating point. The type is identified when the Array or Matrix is constructed so that all operations can use the appropriate implementation.

 require 'vector_sse'

 left = VectorSSE::Matrix.new( VectorSSE::Type::F32, 4, 4, [
       1.2,  2.3,  3.4,  4.5,
       5.6,  6.7,  7.8,  8.9,
       9.05, 10.9, 11.85, 12.2,
       13.43, 14.85, 15.67, 16.5
 ])
 right = VectorSSE::Matrix.new( VectorSSE::Type::F32, 4, 2, [
       1,  2,
       5,  6,
       9, 10,
      13, 14
 ])

 product = left * right

 require 'vector_sse'

 left = VectorSSE::Matrix.new( VectorSSE::Type::F32, 4, 4, [
      1.2,  2.3,  3.4,  4.5,
      5.6,  6.7,  7.8,  8.9,
      9.05, 10.9, 11.85, 12.2,
      13.43, 14.85, 15.67, 16.5
 ])

 product = left * 3.14

 require 'vector_sse'

 # Initialize a four element integer array
 left = VectoSSE::Array.new( VectorSSE::Type::S32, 10 )
 left.fill([
      1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
 ])
 right = VectoSSE::Array.new( VectorSSE::Type::S32, 10 )
 right.fill([
      10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
 ])

 # Subtract the arrays
 result = left - right

 # Get the sum of the elements of an array
 sum = left.sum

VectorSSE is released under the BSD License.

Copyright: (C) 2015 by Robert Glissmann. All Rights Reserved.