[petsc-users] Matrix Free Method questions

[Blondel, Sophie]

Hi everyone,

I have been using PETSc for a few years with a fully implicit TS ARKIMEX method and am now exploring the matrix free method option. Here is the list of PETSc options I typically use: -ts_dt 1.0e-12 -ts_adapt_time_step_increase_delay 5 -snes_force_iteration -ts_max_time 1000.0 -ts_adapt_dt_max 2.0e-3 -ts_adapt_wnormtype INFINITY -ts_exact_final_time stepover -fieldsplit_0_pc_type sor -ts_max_snes_failures -1 -pc_fieldsplit_detect_coupling -ts_monitor -pc_type fieldsplit -fieldsplit_1_pc_type redundant -ts_max_steps 100

I started to compare the performance of the code without changing anything of the executable and simply adding "-snes_mf", I see a reduction of memory usage as expected and a benchmark that would usually take ~5min to run now takes ~50min. Reading the documentation I saw that there are a few option to play with the matrix free method like -snes_mf_err, -snes_mf_umin, or switching to -snes_mf_type wp. I used and modified the values of each of these options separately but never saw a sizable change in runtime, is it expected?

And are there other ways to make the matrix free method faster? I saw in the documentation that you can define your own per-conditioner for instance. Let me know if you need additional information about the PETSc setup in the application I use.

Best,

Sophie
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