Message boards : Graphics cards (GPUs) : GPU enabled only on GPUGRID project?
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I was wondering if the BOINC project has to be GPU enabled to use the GPU procesing. The reason I ask is because I participate in the "World Community Grid", and it would be nice to harness the power of the GPUs for that project. | |
ID: 2356 | Rating: 0 | rate: / Reply Quote | |
In the moment (Boinc 6.3.10) the boinc-client assigns one WU to each CPU, regardless if this WU is a GPU-WU or a CPU-WU. To meet your target, you have to fool the boinc-client by announcing one additional CPU, e.g. Host 8166 with 5 CPU's. On this host i am crunching 4 CPU-WU's (PrimeGrid) and one PS3-WU; the PrimeGrid-WU's with 99% per CPU and PS3 with about 5%. | |
ID: 2358 | Rating: 0 | rate: / Reply Quote | |
???? How did you manage to do that?? | |
ID: 2359 | Rating: 0 | rate: / Reply Quote | |
???? How did you manage to do that?? 1. check out the sources. 2. file boinc/client/hostinfo_unix.C in line 764: p_ncpus = p_ncpus + 1; (+=1) 3. compile and use it (linux version) for a windows version #2 should be done in ...hostinfo_win.C | |
ID: 2360 | Rating: 0 | rate: / Reply Quote | |
Hi, is the GPU application any slower doing this? gdf | |
ID: 2361 | Rating: 0 | rate: / Reply Quote | |
Hi, In 21 hours and 26 minutes my 8800-Card has made 1 WU and 36,5% of the next WU. That matches exactly the average time of 54200 seconds per WU with the 6.42 application. Perhaps (?) the CPU-usage of 5%-6% is one percent higher than before, but this is not significant. It is a great success that you can use (nearly) one more CPU for other projects. | |
ID: 2362 | Rating: 0 | rate: / Reply Quote | |
I searched for hostinfo_win.C in the boinc/client path, but was not able to locate it. Any ideas? I installed as protected so BOINC is running as a user account. Could this have any impact on me being able to locate this file? | |
ID: 2363 | Rating: 0 | rate: / Reply Quote | |
svn co http://boinc.berkeley.edu/svn/trunk/boinc Have you done this? Or what do you mean with "installed protected mode"? "Check out" is not an installation! | |
ID: 2364 | Rating: 0 | rate: / Reply Quote | |
He's talking about downloading the BOINC source files, editing a line and compiling it yourself. I don't want to be rude, but if you didn't get this it's probably not meant for you ;) | |
ID: 2365 | Rating: 0 | rate: / Reply Quote | |
He's talking about downloading the BOINC source files, editing a line and compiling it yourself. I don't want to be rude, but if you didn't get this it's probably not meant for you ;) Please do not change the BOINC code if possible. It will be difficult to debug issues for us if there are different policies in place. If this user test confirms that the GPU application runs at the same speed, we will change the server policy to release the processor. If the gpu application is slower with the current boinc client and all cpu taken, you will be losing credits instead of increasing it, because you are slowing down the fastest device on the computer. Just wait a couple of days of testing with this user machine. gdf | |
ID: 2366 | Rating: 0 | rate: / Reply Quote | |
Hi gdf, | |
ID: 2368 | Rating: 0 | rate: / Reply Quote | |
I think GDF is right. We don't want people to start messing with compilers and learning all the tricks and glitches the hard way by causing errors in a beta project. The only realistic option would be to distribute the modded BOINC, but since 6.3.11 is not that far away this probably isn't worth the hassle. | |
ID: 2369 | Rating: 0 | rate: / Reply Quote | |
Hi gdf, That's good. If we see that works, we will release the cpu. The new boinc client is designed to make sure that the gpu application is not suspended while time-slicing the cpu between the other tasks. This can potentially making the gpu application slower (it was so when we tested months ago, but we were also using 100% of cpu). gdf | |
ID: 2370 | Rating: 0 | rate: / Reply Quote | |
Hi gdf, Also, now that the cpu is free, we may end up using it anyway for doing other computing tasks while GPU is crunching. This will give additional credits of course (work in progress). gdf | |
ID: 2371 | Rating: 0 | rate: / Reply Quote | |
There are other, more easier ways to let BOINC use more processors than the system actually has. Don't ask... Figure it out, its not difficult or far away! | |
ID: 2372 | Rating: 0 | rate: / Reply Quote | |
He's talking about downloading the BOINC source files, editing a line and compiling it yourself. I don't want to be rude, but if you didn't get this it's probably not meant for you ;) Over my head. :-) Just running BOINC to help out science. Don't want to get too involved or create issues by tweaking something that possibly will be a feature in a future version of BOINC. I'll keep crunching along -- thanks for the response. | |
ID: 2373 | Rating: 0 | rate: / Reply Quote | |
???? How did you manage to do that?? can be done both in linux and windows in cc_config.xml with attribute <ncpus> see here for documentaiton of cc_config http://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/Client_configuration But it slows down processing ALOT (maybe only on windows, problem with the scheduler?) 31k seconds before and 55k seconds after the modification. We tracked down the issue (it was not the firewall causing the increase in computation time). | |
ID: 2387 | Rating: 0 | rate: / Reply Quote | |
???? How did you manage to do that?? This <ncpus> is meant for diagnostics only and not meant to be used as a normal way to run boinc. I would advise to wait for an official release. | |
ID: 2391 | Rating: 0 | rate: / Reply Quote | |
This <ncpus> is meant for diagnostics only and not meant to be used as a normal way to run boinc. Well, this is what I use currently under Windows after Stoffels hint at our team forum. It works pretty well for me, already crunching the second WU with it, while the 2 main cpus doing PrimeGrid. ____________ Member of BOINC@Heidelberg and ATA! | |
ID: 2454 | Rating: 0 | rate: / Reply Quote | |
things go bad when a project goes into "High Priority Mode" when you have it configured that way. And it doesn't stop BOINC from running 3 WUs from primgrid or any other project. | |
ID: 2477 | Rating: 0 | rate: / Reply Quote | |
Message boards : Graphics cards (GPUs) : GPU enabled only on GPUGRID project?