how to partition the 2d arrays among the processes for "The Game of Life"

Question

I am doing an assignment using MPI to implement Game of Life. I was wondering if I should use a block-row partitioning, a cyclic row partitioning or a block-checkerboard partitioning?

Answer 1

What are the pros and cons between the types of partitioning? I tried to find references to the partitionings (which seems to tie in with parallell processing) but it was difficult to find such without going way over my head into it. :)

Try the one that fits your needs the most, since it is an assignment you should try the simplest one first and do the others when time allows.

Answer 2

However you do it, don't forget to make your partitions bigger on each side with some overlap.

This will mean duplicating some data, but it also means each partition can compute independently. At the end of each tick your partitions can copy their overlap to their neighbors.