Optimisation of multiplet identifier processing on a PLAYSTATION^® 3 ^*

Abstract

To enable high-performance computing (HPC) for applications with large datasets using a Sony^® PLAYSTATION^® 3 (PS3^™) video game console, we configured a hybrid system consisting of a Windows^® PC and a PS3^™. To validate this system, we implemented the real-time multiplet identifier (RTMI) application, which identifies multiplets of microearthquakes in terms of the similarity of their waveforms. The cross-correlation computation, which is a core algorithm of the RTMI application, was optimised for the PS3^™ platform, while the rest of the computation, including data input and output remained on the PC. With this configuration, the core part of the algorithm ran 69 times faster than the original program, accelerating total computation speed more than five times. As a result, the system processed up to 2100 total microseismic events, whereas the original implementation had a limit of 400 events. These results indicate that this system enables high-performance computing for large datasets using the PS3^™, as long as data transfer time is negligible compared with computation time.