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THE_PROFESSOR
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GPU CLient ? Beowulf cluster ?

Hi All..

I haven't been folding for years...and now I need to come back.

Is there a GPU client for WCG..?

And does anyone know if it would be better to run multiple CPU clients or try and set up a Beowulf cluster and run one.

Any links would be helpful... I looked all about and couldn't find anything.

CHeers

[Sep 19, 2009 5:51:18 AM]

yalla
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Re: GPU CLient ? Beowulf cluster ?

Is there a GPU client for WCG..?

I'm not aware of that, but WCG consists of multiple projects. Maybe on of the projects supports one or the other GPU.

And does anyone know if it would be better to run multiple CPU clients or try and set up a Beowulf cluster and run one.

Just install the BOINC-Client on every computer you want to work on WCG, no need for any "cluster"-software. As for multiple CPUs, BOINC cares of that. It usually starts multiple clients automatically.

Alex.

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"I am tired of all this sort of thing called science here... We have spent millions in that sort of thing for the last few years, and it is time it should be stopped."
-- Simon Cameron, U.S. Senator, on the Smithsonian Institution, 1861.

[Sep 19, 2009 9:59:20 AM]

THE_PROFESSOR
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Re: GPU CLient ? Beowulf cluster ?

Hi Valla..

Thanks for the reply..

What I was thinking, was twofold...

Firstly how do I most effeciently run the WCG client on a bunch of blades... each dual processor - and secondly was there any mileage in trying to use the GPU as in Folding@home.

I guess the blades each with an instance of BOINC, and it will run two clients automagically on each blade..?

Cheers

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[Edit 1 times, last edit by THE_PROFESSOR at Sep 19, 2009 12:39:32 PM]

[Sep 19, 2009 12:36:39 PM]

Steve WCG
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Re: GPU CLient ? Beowulf cluster ?

1 BOINC installation per OS installation is all you need. BOINC will figure out how many cores / processors and spin up 1 WU per core so if you have dual processors and both are quads it will process 8 WUs at a time.

WCG is not running any GPU projects at this time.

[Sep 19, 2009 12:50:04 PM]

KerSamson
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Re: GPU CLient ? Beowulf cluster ?

Hello TheProfessor,
Thank you for coming back to WCG.

Regarding GPU: no chance at this time by WCG. There are already many discussions about this topic. Providing a stable and reliable solution for some projects (probably not for every project) is currently the major issue. GPU is still an emerging technology (standards are too close to proprietary solution) and the projects supported by WCG are multiple and different.
Regarding the cluster related question: being honest, I don't think that a cluster based host would bring higher performance than a collection of single (multicore) computers. Anyway, the idea of building cluster attracts me too in terms of "experimentation and know-how improvement". I am already thinking about this since several months. The idea would/could be to build a Linux based cluster (not especially beowulf) with several "low cost" PCs (i7 is currently still too expensive for my taste and my budget). I am not sure that boinc is accurately supported by beowulf. Additionally, there is no need for the cluster manager to synchronize computation activities because each boinc instance works "standalone". At this time, I don't have sufficient info for creating a cluster using Ubuntu or openSuse although it is possible without too complex configuration. I would appreciate if somebody could provide a link or references for setting up a Linux-based cluster.

Enjoy crunching for WCG.
Cheers,
Yves

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Décrypthon team progress - KerSamson's contribution

[Sep 19, 2009 4:08:26 PM]

yalla
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Re: GPU CLient ? Beowulf cluster ?

Firstly how do I most effeciently run the WCG client on a bunch of blades... each dual processor - and secondly was there any mileage in trying to use the GPU as in Folding@home.

I got a bunch of Blades - LS21 and HS21 - running too. I just run a single instance of BOINC on every blade. The LS21 - 1x quad-core Opteron - will spawn four instances of the science application - one for every core. The HS21, having two quad-core CPUs, spawns 8 science-apps.

As of Folding@home - I never tried that, I can't comment on that.

Cheers,
Alex.

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[Sep 21, 2009 10:17:58 AM]