Release 10.0-001 (April 2009) of GEMPACK

No serious bugs have been detected in the year since GEMPACK Release 10.0 (May 2008) was introduced: this update includes minor bug fixes and some enhancements. The main enhancements are briefly described below. For more details, see this document.

Relaxed size limits

The Limited Executable-Image Version of GEMPACK will not solve models above a certain size. The same limits apply to TABLO-generated models (produced by you using Source-Code GEMPACK) distributed to people who have no GEMPACK licence (read more here). We have now enlarged these limits, so that, for example, you can solve the GTAP model aggregated to 12 regions and 12 sectors (was 9 x 9). Read more about the size limits here.

Support for Intel Fortran 11

Source-code GEMPACK now allows you to use Intel Fortran 11 (previously only Version 10 was supported). If you are already using Intel Fortran 10.1.021 (Build 20080312) or later, there is no reason to upgrade to Version 11 [type "ifort" at command line to see your version/build numbers]. If you have an earlier version of Intel Fortran 10.1, we advise you to update (you may be able to do this for free at the Intel website).

If you decide to install Version 11 of Intel Fortran for use with GEMPACK 10.0-001 or later, please follow our instructions. [The instructions in GPD-6 only apply to Version 10 of Intel Fortran.]

Faster running EXE files

We have tuned compiler settings for Intel Fortran versions 10 or 11 so that it makes faster running EXE files. The speedup applies mostly to the LU (linear solve) phase of simulations -- so is most noticeable where this phase takes most of the time. For example, GTAP solve times are 30% less than for Release 10.0. The Exe-Image Version of GEMPACK 10.0-001 also benefits since it is compiled with Intel Fortran.

This improvement continues the progress we have made during the last few years:

• Using GEMPACK Release 9.0-003 (August 2006), and Lahey Fortran LF95, a 3-5-7 Gragg solution of the standard GTAP model with 30 regions and 30 sectors takes 322 seconds on a PC with a Q9550 CPU.
• GEMPACK Release 10.0 (May 2008) introduced a more effective scheme for pivot re-use, halving solve time (with LF95) to 159 seconds. Release 10.0 also introduced support for Intel Fortran, which allowed the same simulation to run in 143 seconds on the same PC.
• Using the improved compiler settings of this 10.0-001 update, an Intel-produced GTAP.EXE can do the simulation in 101 seconds -- less than 1/3 of the 2006 time.
• Using the parallelization introduced with GEMPACK 10.0 [servants=1], the time can be further reduced to 78 seconds -- less than 1/4 of the 2006 time.

Availability

Release 10.0-001 will be supplied to all new GEMPACK purchasers from April 2009. Current subscribers to the "annual payment scheme" for the source-code version of GEMPACK Release 10.0 are entitled to download a free upgrade if they wish -- they should email sales@gempack.com (specifying their licence number) for further details.

See also:
Improvements for GEMPACK Release 10.0-002 (April 2010)
New features of GEMPACK Release 10.0 (May 2008)
All GEMPACK release notes