Cache Simulator

A cache simulator for studying the factors that affects the performance of cache accesses

Getting Started

Prerequisites

This project requires the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) as the compiler.
See this link for further details about GCC

Compilation

If you have ever compiled before, please clean an executable program and object files first by running this command in project's root directory. Otherwise, just skip this step.

make clean

Now, you can compile by running this command:

make

How to use this Cache Simulator

Usage

./bin/Simulator [options] <path_to_address_file>

Options

Option	Description
-s, --size <cache_size>	Set cache size (kilobyte)
-sb, --size-b <cache_size>	Set cache size (byte)
-dm, --direct-mapped <block_size>?	Set cache structure to a direct mapped with specific block size (4 by default)
-as, --associativity <n_way>?	Set cache structure to an associativity with specific n (2 by default)
-lru, --least-recently-used	Set least recently used as a replacement algorithm when --associativity option is triggered (default)
-rr, --round-robin	Set round robin as a replacement algorithm when --associativity option is triggered
-h, --help	Show help message

Note that ? after <argument> indicates that <argument> is optional and you can also view this help message by including --help or -h option after command.

Example

Example 1

Specification	Value
Cache type	Direct Mapped
Cache size	4 KB
Block size	4 Bytes

./bin/Simulator input/gcc_ld_trace.txt --direct-mapped 4 --size 4

Example 2

Specification	Value
Cache type	Associativity
Cache size	1024 KB
N-way	4
Replacement algorithm	Least recently used

./bin/Simulator input/gcc_ld_trace.txt --associativity 4 --size 1024 --least-recently-used

Address File

An address file fed to this simulator must be conform to the following pattern:

name_label
address
address
...

Example

gcc_ld_trace
0x40119618
0x1ffff1d0
0x40119618
0x1ffff1d0
0x1ffff1d0

Report

Direct Mapped

Command:

./bin/Simulator input/gcc_ld_trace.txt --direct-mapped <block_size> --size <cache_size>

Hit

Direct mapped (Hit)
Block Size (Bytes)	Cache Size (KB)
	4	8	16	32
4	1669560	1775198	1849934	1895088
8	1652147	1766215	1846558	1895885
16	1677463	1784151	1860161	1906747
32	1687566	1793431	1867498	1911848

Miss

Direct mapped (Miss)
Block Size (Bytes)	Cache Size (KB)
	4	8	16	32
4	330440	224802	150066	104912
8	347853	233785	153442	104115
16	322537	215849	139839	93253
32	312434	206569	132502	88152

Miss rate

Direct mapped (Miss rate)
Block Size (Bytes)	Cache Size (KB)
	4	8	16	32
4	0.1652	0.1124	0.0750	0.0525
8	0.1739	0.1169	0.0767	0.0521
16	0.1613	0.1079	0.0699	0.0466
32	0.1562	0.1033	0.0663	0.0441

Associativity

Command:

./bin/Simulator input/gcc_ld_trace.txt --associativity <n_way> --size <cache_size> [--round-robin | --least-recently-used]

Hit

Associativity (Hit)
Cache Size (KB)	Two-way		Four-Way
	LRU	RR	LRU	RR
1	1491704	1458831	1527679	1475129
4	1759588	1740139	1786471	1759111
8	1834446	1821673	1852267	1834498
32	1939563	1934739	1950492	1943335
512	1974599	1974538	1974745	1974736
1024	1974717	1974691	1974753	1974753

Miss

Associativity (Miss)
Cache Size (KB)	Two-way		Four-Way
	LRU	RR	LRU	RR
1	508296	541169	472321	524871
4	240412	259861	213529	240889
8	165554	178327	147733	165502
32	60437	65261	49508	56665
512	25401	25462	25255	25264
1024	25283	25309	25247	25247

Miss rate

Associativity (Miss rate)
Cache Size (KB)	Two-way		Four-Way
	LRU	RR	LRU	RR
1	0.2541	0.2706	0.2362	0.2624
4	0.1202	0.1299	0.1068	0.1204
8	0.0828	0.0892	0.0739	0.0828
32	0.0302	0.0326	0.0248	0.0283
512	0.0127	0.0127	0.0126	0.0126
1024	0.0126	0.0127	0.0126	0.0126

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE.md file for details