From 52ee1bb6e860b503edd01aec0ba7d6d3ae5ae5c5 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Saqib Khan <11544614+saqibkh@users.noreply.github.com>
Date: Mon, 26 Oct 2026 08:14:06 -0500
Subject: [PATCH] doc: how the simulated-GPU CI job works

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+Tests on a simulated GPU
+========================
+
+GitHub's runners have no GPU, so the main workflow (`ccpp.yml`) builds GPUJPEG
+but cannot run it. The workflow in `.github/workflows/simulated-gpu.yml` fills
+that gap: it runs the tests on a simulated NVIDIA T4, using
+[PantheonSim](https://pantheonsim.com), a GPU simulator that runs ordinary CUDA
+programs on the CPU. This page explains what the job does and how to read it.
+
+When it runs
+------------
+
+- on every pull request;
+- on pushes to `devel`, `master` and `run_tests` that touch source files,
+  `CMakeLists.txt` or the workflow itself.
+
+What it does
+------------
+
+1. Installs Ubuntu's CUDA toolkit and PantheonSim with the
+   [setup-pantheonsim](https://github.com/pantheongpu/setup-pantheonsim)
+   action, set to simulate an `nvidia/t4`. The compiler is the real `nvcc`.
+2. Installs ImageMagick and ffmpeg, which the regression tests use to compare
+   images.
+3. Builds GPUJPEG with:
+   - `CMAKE_CUDA_ARCHITECTURES=75`, so the binaries carry PTX for the T4
+     (`compute_75` also runs on every newer NVIDIA card);
+   - `CMAKE_CUDA_RUNTIME_LIBRARY=Shared`, so that at run time the simulator's
+     `libcudart` can take the place of the real one.
+4. Runs `ctest --test-dir build --output-on-failure`, which covers `unittests`,
+   `test-colors` and `regression`. The action puts the simulator's libraries on
+   `LD_LIBRARY_PATH`, so the tests start the same way they would on a machine
+   with a GPU.
+
+What it tells you
+-----------------
+
+The kernels really execute, so a green run means encoding and decoding gave the
+expected results. It does not tell you anything about speed: the simulator has
+no timing model, and the times in the log mean nothing. Anything that depends
+on a real card (performance, driver quirks, OpenGL interop, which this
+workflow does not enable) still needs a real GPU.
+
+How long it takes
+-----------------
+
+PantheonSim is built from source the first time and then cached. A run with a
+cold cache spends about 15 minutes in the first step, and the build and tests
+take under 2 minutes after that. GitHub drops caches that have not been used
+for a week, so the first run after a quiet spell is slow again. This is
+expected.
+
+If a run fails
+--------------
+
+Open the `Unit and regression tests on the simulated GPU` step and look at the
+failing test. Usually it is a real problem in the change, as on any other CI.
+Sometimes the simulator does not support a CUDA call yet: it then returns a
+CUDA error and says what was missing, so a test that ignores return codes can
+also misbehave. If the same code passes on a real GPU, please open an issue at
+[pantheongpu/pantheonsim](https://github.com/pantheongpu/pantheonsim/issues)
+with the log. These are usually fixed quickly.
+
+Versions and safety
+-------------------
+
+The action is pinned by commit, and each release of the action pins the
+simulator version it was tested with, so nothing changes in the job until the
+pin is moved. To update it, replace the commit in the `uses:` line with a newer
+release of `pantheongpu/setup-pantheonsim`. The workflow's token is read-only
+(`permissions: contents: read`), it uses no secrets, and it installs packages
+only from Ubuntu and NVIDIA.