Copyright Marcelo Pereira
Distributed under the GNU General Public LicenseThese scripts allow the extraction of distributable libraries from Intel and AMD for accelerating Linear Algebra operations in R by replacing the default BLAS/LAPACK libraries shipped with R for Windows.
The scripts below must be executed in a terminal window, both PowerShell and CMD can be used. The terminal window MUST be opened with administrator (Admin) rights using Windows Start menu, or right-clicking on it and choosing "Terminal (Admin)" on the context menu.
The provided syntax assume the current directory is the same where the script files were downloaded/installed. On the terminal window use:
cd [INST_DIR]
to change the current directory to INST_DIR, the download/install directory.
BLAS-LAPACK-import.bat extracts the required dynamic libraries from the official installations of Intel OneAPI Math Kernel Library (MKL) and AMD AOCL BLIS and libFLAME libraries (required only for AMD EPYC/Ryzen processors). After extraction, the original packages can be uninstalled.
If OneAPI MKL and AOCL are installed on the default locations, the script should be able to find them. If not, one may pass the locations to the script command line:
BLAS-LAPACK-import [ONEAPI_DIR] [AOCL_DIR] [LIB_DIR]
If no LIB_DIR destination directory is supplied, the extraction is done to the "lib" subdirectory of the directory containing the script.
R-BLAS-LAPACK.bat configures the BLAS/LAPACK used by R in Windows. It can take 3 arguments:
R-BLAS-LAPACK R_DIR [R,Intel,AMD] [LIB_DIR]
The first argument, the R installation directory (R_DIR) for the version being modified, must be provided (e.g. "C:\Program Files\R\R-4.4.1"). Quotes are required if the path contains spaces. If R_DIR is in the default location (e.g. "C:\Program Files\R\R-4.4.1"), the command above must be run in a administrative terminal/command prompt.
The second argument can be one of: "R", to revert to the original R libraries; "Intel", to install the Intel MKL libraries; or "AMD", to install the AMD libraries. If not provided, the default is "R" (restore to original libraries).
If a non-default extraction directory was used (i.e. not "Lib" subdirectory), inform its full path as the third argument to the script.
When options "Intel" or "AMD" are used, the script replaces the BLAS/LAPACK libraries which come with R, by renaming the Rblas.dll and Rlapack.dll in R_DIR\bin\x64 and creating symbolic links to the correct Intel/AMD equivalents in the LIB_DIR directory, and adding the LIB directory to the system PATH environment variable (required). The original R configuration can be restored using option "R".
The provided R script R-benchmark-25.R can be used to evaluate the performance of BLAS/LAPACK libraries.
It is recommended to revert the original libraries before uninstalling R. Non-original libraries are not removed by R uninstaller, they are left behind together with part of the old R directory structure.
Please note that the script adds your library directory to the PATH environment variable, if it is not already included. However, due to a Windows limitation, the script can only do that if the new PATH content, including the library directory, has a length equal or less than 1024 characters. If this is not the case, the script will issue a warning, and the PATH variable MUST be adjusted manually. To do so, in a terminal execute:
sysdm.cpl
In the open window choose the Advanced tab, and click on the "Environment Variables..." button. In the new window that opens, scroll the "System variables" list to select the "Path" item, and click on the "Edit..." button. On the new window, click the "New" button, type the path to the library directory (this was show on the warning message), and click on the "OK" button three times to close all the opened windows.
When reverting to the original R libraries with the "R" option, the library path is not removed from the PATH environment variable. In this case, it can be manually removed if not used by other software, by using the instructions above.