Technical description of Altruist program

Instructions

You don't have to understand the technical details in order to use the program. Just start the program and use the help facilities. See download instructions.

Output options

The program has several options for graphic representations of what happens during a simulation, as well as options for output to data files.

Options for multiple simulations

The program has several options for doing series of simulations when you want to sweep one or more parameters through a range of values. The program can do simple statistical calculations on such parameter sweeps. It is possible to set an unlimited number of simulation jobs in queue so that the computer is kept busy for a long time without needing human attention.

Program structure

The Altruist program contains three main parts

The main program contains the user interface, run control, statistics, etc. Each model DLL contains executable code defining the algorithm for a specific simulation model. There is one model DLL for each simulation model, and you can make your own simulation models by compiling new model DLLs. The main program is designed so flexible that it doesn't have to be recompiled to make it accept a new model. The function library, containing random number generators and other functions, is called by the model DLLs using static linking. 

Uniform and non-uniform random number generators

The Altruist program uses a combined random number generator of very high quality. See my page on random number generators. All random events are simulated on the basis of this generator.

A library of non-uniform random number generators makes it possible to simulate events with many different probability distributions. This static link library is used by the model DLLs. This library includes various distributions such as normal, binomial, poisson, hypergeometric, etc.

Optimization techniques

Complicated simulations may be very time consuming. Therefore, I have used various approaches to speed up the calculations:

Compiler support

The model DLL's are written in C++ language. The model code and function library has support for almost all common compilers for 32-bit Windows. The main program can only be compiled with the Borland compiler.

Altruist version history

version number date operating system technical changes model changes
unpublished 1990-1993 DOS 3 Limited by system constraints Island, endogamy, conformity, and a now obsolete model where four alleles at altruism locus have different mutation rates. 
1.00 1995 Windows 3.1 Improved user interface. Models in separate DLL's Epistasis model with 2 and 3 loci.
2.00 1997 Windows 95 Improved 32-bit code. Improved random number generator.  
2.01 1999-12-19 Windows 95 Source code published.
Various errors fixed.
Haystack model.
Group territoriality model.
2.02 2000-02-19 Windows 95 Minor improvements in main program. Terri model optimized for speed. Better handling of enclaves in terri model. Formula in terri model changed.
2.03 2000-04-17 Windows 95 Minor improvements in main. More options and minor change in island model.
2.04 2001-01-06 Windows 95 Minor bug fix.  

A new version is planned, but it will take some time before it is finished.

Speed history

microprocessor clock frequency, MHz program version relative speed
8088  8 0.00 1
8088+8087 8 0.00 16
80286+80287 10 0.00 25
80386SX+80387SX 16 1.00 65
80386DX+80387DX 25 1.00 100
80486DX 33 1.00 380
80486DX4 100 1.00 1000
Pentium 100 2.01 1800
Pentium MMX 200 2.01 4300
Pentium II 400 2.01 9000
Pentium III 550 2.02 13000

As the table shows, the speed of calculation is very sensitive to the type of microprocessor, since the calculations are very processor-intensive. All versions use microprocessor-specific methods for optimizing speed.