Understanding cuobjdump output

Question

I already read about virtual architecture and code generation for nvcc but I still have some questions.

I have a cuda compiled executable whose cuobjdump output is

Fatbin elf code:
================
arch = sm_20
code version = [1,7]
producer = cuda
host = linux
compile_size = 64bit

Fatbin ptx code:
================
arch = sm_20
code version = [5,0]
producer = cuda
host = linux
compile_size = 64bit
compressed

I have two questions:

1. What does code version mean? Documentation doesn't say that.
2. Would such an executable be compatible on a system with a sm_30 (Kepler) device? I believe it should because there's PTX code in the executable and the virtual architecture is sm_20, i.e. it's asking for a very small set of features available from Fermi cards onward (still not sure what that code version means)

Answer 1

1. What does code version mean? Documentation doesn't say that.

It means the version of the fatbin element it is printing -- elf version 1.7 and PTX version 5.0 respectively (see here for PTX versions)

2. Would such an executable be compatible on a system with a sm_30 (Kepler) device?

Yes. The presence of the PTX (version 5.0) means the code can be JIT compiled by the driver to assembler to run on a compute capability 3.0 device (again documentation here)