Specifying a minimum micro-architecture

[GlennPietrow]

Hi,

I'd like to be able to specify a minimum architecture when compiling our FORTRAN engine to take advantage of a "baseline" of supported instructions and optimize the performance.

At one point I'd found what I was looking for but have since "lost" it. I'd like the set the SkyLake family of processors as the minimum supported by my "engine". I did find the /tune:skylake optimization but don't want to restrict my engine to only that processor.

Can someone point me in the right direction? Perhaps I'm not looking for a minimum processor, but a minimum instruction set?

Thank you for any help/guidance offered.

GP

[Steve_Lionel]

You're looking for the -x option (/Qx on Windows.)

[GlennPietrow]

So, /QxSKYLAKE would be what I'm looking for?

GP

[Steve_Lionel]

Yes, that's correct, though my own preference would be to choose one of the keywords relating to instruction sets directly, such as AVX. The /Qx option will add a check at the beginning of execution to see if you're running on an Intel processor supporting the specified instruction set (or higher). If not, it will give an error and exit. (/QxHost says to generate code for the CPU you compile on, which doesn't have to be Intel.) There's also /Qax, which will, when needed, generate an alternate "generic" code path for a CPU that doesn't meet the requirements - you can specify what the generic path does with /arch.

[GlennPietrow · Accepted solution]

Thanks Steve. Went with /QxAVX as suggested.

GP