GPU2 client for nVidia cards

[PorPorMe]

I've done a clean install and what ever conflict the 9800GT was haveing appeares to have been rectified. 180.48 XP drivers and the Systry client 6.20r1 is running 1 core. The viewer sux. Besides being buggy, it doesn't tell you a lot. Is there a specific monitoring software for this client?

[dabaerman]

FAHMon works like it does for the rest.

Ron

[PorPorMe]

I got Fahspy to work as well.
Miquel-mabe it's time for spell chk!

[PorPorMe]

Did a look at stats thru Fahspy and got this surprise:


PorPoMe Last updated: Mon Nov 24 04:00:03 PST 2008
Mon Nov 24 12:00:03 UTC 2008

Date of last work unit None
Total score 0
Overall rank (if points are combined) 1136197 of 1136197
Active processors (within 50 days) 0
Active processors (within 7 days) 0



Contributions by team and project:

That is all that is all that is on my page. The rest of the stat pages comeup fine. My stats come up fine if I go to them from any other link=not worried. Just got surprised an curious.

[ThunderRd]

Well, here we go again with complex, larger proteins released in new projects:
Folding Forum • View topic - New GPU projects 5749-5764

The 5749-5764 WUs are slower and run hotter, for a few more points-I have gotten a few today for 511 points.

However, on my rig they are running nearly half as fast: from 1:25 to 2:40. That's a big difference. I'm not noticing much of a temp difference(perhaps 2-3 C, within a normal error tolerance) but some are reporting 10C increases.

Keep us informed here in this thread if you make any observations or have problems. The thread on the community forum is starting to take off - expect another long one...

[PorPorMe]

Will do when I get back to my regular rig. I'm running HDD Regenerator on it, a boot loading HDD test and repair program that is VERY thorough. but it will take some where between 6 and 6 hrs to do my 160GB HDD.
So I guess I'l watch TV tonite................no, can't do that! I've up-graded this Compaq from win 98 to ME. I forgot what a dog ME is! I'll install XP PRo- beats the heck out of TV!

[dabaerman]

now I'm getting 'client-core communications error'. actually every time I uninstall/reinstall the GPU FAH client and start it. just because I think I followed the directions every time, doesn't mean I got it right. here I go again!

Ron

edit; being the ATI card, there are 2.dll files that have NOT been made part of the latest core. they are 'amdcalrt.dll' and 'amdcalcl.dll' there are replacement files from amd.com. just drop them in there proper location.

Ron

[ccperf721p]

I finally found a little time to set up the GPU2 client under linux. I haven't looked around to see what others are getting for time per step, but I am chumming along at 66 seconds per step which sounds reasonable for the clocks I am at.

I'll do a little experimenting running it along the side the smp client and see how it fairs later this week.

[ThunderRd]

Cliff-that sounds about right for your card. The new series of WUs with bigger proteins (511 points)is much slower(about 30%)than the older ones, so you may still see some changes in the speed until the old WUs get finished up entirely. The really fast 480 pointers are all but gone. For now the faster ones are the 384 pointers. I'm identifying them by points because I don't have a project number breakdown in front of me right now, but lots of the bigger, slower ones are project 57xx.

Also, FWIW-the 180.xx drivers are showing me nearly no CPU usage at all. Before, I had my 2 9600s pinned to one core with affinities, and the SMP client on the fourth core. Now, with the new drivers, the GPU use of the core is so small that I can run the SMP on all 4 cores, and the GPU client shows only about a 2-3 second loss of production. I think it is a real improvement.

[ccperf721p]

Thanks for the tip on the drivers. Freed up enough cpu cycles to not have any effect at all on times.

I'll fold through the weekend to see how it does. I'll have to shut down for a couple of days next week to make the transition to my new i7 920 setup but should be back up and folding by the end of the week.

[dabaerman]

can we get a 'STICKY' on this?

Ron

[ThunderRd]

New forced core update has gone out for fahcore_14.exe.

So far on my rigs it is a bit faster, but that may be because of the new projects that have been released [5900+], and not the core.

This core will exhibit some unusual behaviors. For one, the temperatures will be lower, reportedly, 10-15C. The other unusual behavior is that it will have variable CPU usage - which also will indicate heavily variable frame times. Don't be alarmed if you notice these symptoms. For more info check this thread:
http://foldingforum.org/viewtopic.ph...core_14#p86208

Keep us informed here of any observations on the new core and/or projects.

PS to Daniel, GIz, Aedan, et al...I second the motion for a sticky, we shouldn't let this thread fall off the first page...

[Samuknow]

I am down to hardly any CPU usage on GPU already. Sweet.

[ccperf721p]

What kind of PPD are people getting from 9 series cards? Contemplating the GPU client under wine but my card still has the stock cooler so I'd have to replace that I'm sure. Depends on the PPD the card adds I guess..

[ThunderRd]

My 2 9600GTs do about 3500 ppd each, sometimes a bit more or less depending on the WU. There are a few WUs out there that they will only do 2800ppd on.

Essential reading if you are going the WINE route:
Folding Forum • View forum - unOfficial Linux GPU (WINE wrapper) (3rd party support)

[ccperf721p]

Thanks for the info and the link. I had the GPU client running under wine for a short time awhile back but with the stock cooled card I just wasn't able to keep it going.

I was trying to figure out PPD with my core i7 at stock clocks, but I restarted hal while I had folding running in a terminal so restarting hal kills the xserver and logs out. When I restarted fah I got a write to local file error I couldn't recover from.. I was looking at about 6500 PPD and overclocking brings the steps from 4:15 to 3:07 so once everything if final I should be in good shape for production..

Still making my move to 64 bit, I have the main things set up the way I like it, Internet and multi-media apps are in place. Now for the rest of the crap..

[ThunderRd]

Make sure you have the ia32-libs package installed if you go to 64-bit or you won't be able to start the client. In 64-bit debian distros it isn't present so it has to be user-installed. Not sure whether your 64-bit distro of the day has it, though, so check.

[chrisbard]

...or u can simply use Windows and forget about all this problems! Did i mentioned that using WHQL NV driver will double your ppd output?

[ccperf721p]

Originally Posted by chrisbard

...or u can simply use Windows and forget about all this problems! Did i mentioned that using WHQL NV driver will double your ppd output?

That was actually kind of funny Pope Bard 3.5, but sometimes I enjoy my computer doing what I want it to do, so I use linux..

[ccperf721p]

Originally Posted by ThunderRd

Make sure you have the ia32-libs package installed if you go to 64-bit or you won't be able to start the client. In 64-bit debian distros it isn't present so it has to be user-installed. Not sure whether your 64-bit distro of the day has it, though, so check.

Everything is in place as far as that goes. I churned out a few WU's to make sure everything worked correctly.

I pretty much stick to Gentoo for my main rig, always some other distro on another partition though. Biggest problem is the 32 bit install was a 6 year work in progress with a ton of overlays and apps compiled from the authors source. As it stands now I barely have the basics and it it took four overlays, and compiling a few apps from the authors source to get that far.

I have personal quirks that I have not been able to resolve yet. One is theming of GUI driven apps. If I cannot theme a GUI to exactly match my system I won't use it, instead I will grab something CLI that does the job and write bash scripts to handle the chores I need.