R help - Dec 2009 - option for multi thread or multi core machines

I notice that R basic installation does not take advantage of multi-thread or
multi-core processors. Is there an option for multi-threaded processors?  I
currently run all of my analysis on thinkpad laptop and most processing is very
quick, however, when I run stepAIC with interaction terms it can take a couple
of hours to complete. I have tried running the same process and a quad core
machine 64 bit machine and process finishes about 10 mins.

Is the improved speed purely a result being able to take advantage of the extra
memory or does the version that installs on a 64 bit machine automatically uses
the multi-core processor?




Chris Anderson
Data Analyst
Medical Affairs
wk: 925-677-4870
cell: 707-315-8486
Fax:925-677-4670





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Standard answer:

It is possible to make use of more than 1 CPU cores by linking against 
some optimized BLAS (for matrix computations) or by parallelizing your 
code. Some packages might be of help, they are listed in the "high 
performance computing" task view on CRAN:

http://cran.r-project.org/web/views/HighPerformanceComputing.html

Uwe Ligges

Anderson, Chris wrote:
> I notice that R basic installation does not take advantage of multi-thread
or multi-core processors. Is there an option for multi-threaded processors?  I
currently run all of my analysis on thinkpad laptop and most processing is very
quick, however, when I run stepAIC with interaction terms it can take a couple
of hours to complete. I have tried running the same process and a quad core
machine 64 bit machine and process finishes about 10 mins.
> 
> Is the improved speed purely a result being able to take advantage of the
extra memory or does the version that installs on a 64 bit machine automatically
uses the multi-core processor?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Chris Anderson
> Data Analyst
> Medical Affairs
> wk: 925-677-4870
> cell: 707-315-8486
> Fax:925-677-4670
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This electronic message transmission, including any attachments, contains
> information which may be confidential, privileged and/or otherwise exempt
> from disclosure under applicable law. The information is intended to be for
the
> use of the individual(s) or entity named above. If you are not the intended
> recipient or the employee or agent responsible for delivering the message
> to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any disclosure,
copying,
> distribution or use of the contents of this information is strictly
prohibited.  If
> you have received this electronic transmission in error, please notify the
sender
> immediately by telephone (800-676-6777) or by a "reply to sender
only"
> message and destroy all electronic and hard copies of the communication,
> including attachments.  Thank you.
> 
> For more information on Paradigm Management Services, LLC, please visit
> http://www.paradigmcorp.com
> 
> 	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
> 
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