Source level performance simulation of GPU cores

Graphic processing units (GPUs) contain a lot of complex architectural features, which make performance analysis and simulation of applications using them for general purpose computation very difficult. Especially when trying to do performance simulations at a higher abstraction level than interpreted instruction set simulators these features are not handled accurately by state of the art simulation techniques. This paper proposes a method for source level performance simulation of the microarchitecture of a GPU core that provides high enough simulation speeds to make testing of large application scenarios possible.