That's what I had in mind. On some other BOINC projects, I've seen significant speed differences reported for 32-bit vs 64-bit, Windows vs Linux, and even Intel vs AMD CPUs.

I wouldn't be surprized if W7 has something I've read about for Vista - the swap space file is kept near the high end of the C: disk space even when everything else is contiguous and at the low end. In that case, it MIGHT help to reduce the size of the C: partition as much as you can, reboot, and try this again.

Also, it's likely to help to create another bootable Windows partition, boot that one, then find what's normally your C: partition and try to reduce its size.

Possibly somebody would like to make it reality and graduate!

Graduate Fellowship Program
NVIDIA´s Graduate Fellowship Program provides funding to PhD students researching topics that will lead to major advances in the graphics and high–performance computing industries by leveraging the power of the GPU. Applications due by 2/3/10.

Learn more: http://is.gd/5WqTZ

Accelerating the Pace of Drug Discovery using GPUs

http://blogs.nvidia.com/ntersect/2010/01/acce...discovery-using-gpus.html

Nice talk, but no real details

I will also become a full time WCG cruncher when it gets a GPU Client or use the GPU capability of the BOINC client (v. 6.10.58), meanwhile, If you want to do some protein research in the same style as WCG then you can join F@H GPU Cleint

F@H Support Forum


to configure the GPU ATI Client (I have 2x Radeon 4670HD):
1) create the following environment variables:

- BROOK_YIELD = 2
- CAL_NO_FLUSH = 1
- CAL_PRE_FLUSH = 1
- FLUSH_INTERVAL= 128 to 256 on ATI Radeon 4000 series, similar or higher values for 5000 series.

1.1) To configure, Right-click on the GPU client and click on 'Configure...'
- If you want to join ATI Team join team #51394.
- On 'Connection' tab, Check the allowance of 10MB WUs.
- On 'Advanced' tab, check 'do NOT lock cores to specific CPU' for the GPU client to use any core.

With these values only 5% max of CPU usage is taken (on a 4 core CPU), allowing your GPU to work in parallel with your CPU.

2) If you have more than one video card in a non-CrossFire/SLI mode, if you have have only 1 Video card skip this step:
2.1) For the first GPU (Video Card), modify the 'direct access' with something like this:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Folding@home\Folding@home-gpu\Folding@home.exe" -gpu 0 -advmethods -forcegpu ati_r700

+ use '-forcegpu ati_r700' to force the ATI GPU Client to recognize/use a Radeon 4000HD series GPU, this will prevent some VPUs (GPU hangs).
+ '-advanced methods' will help more to the project, solving more complex proteins with advanced algorithms.
+'-gpu 0' is the default setting, specified here for clarity purposes.

2.2) In the 'direct access' 'Start in' text box you'll have something like this:

d:\ProgramData\Folding@home-gpu

2.3) so for the second GPU you need to copy-paste the direct access and modify it like this (mods are in bold ):

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Folding@home\Folding@home-gpu\Folding@home.exe" -gpu 1 -advmethods -forcegpu ati_r700

in the 'direct access' 'Start in' text box you'll need to modify it to have something like this:

d:\ProgramData\Folding@home-gpu1

Now you need to go 'd:\ProgramData\' and create the actual data folder/directory for the second GPU: 'Folding@home-gpu1' and copy-paste the content of the first/original GPU Client data folder/directory. Yeah, both will crunch the same first work unit, but they'll get different new ones once they've finish with it.

In Windows 7, You'll need to have a dummy monitor plug or an actual monitor connected to the second Video card in order to have that Video card ready for use. So you only need 3 resistors connected like this:


What it does is to get each color (red, green, blue) to their respective grounds.

The latest GPU Client for nVidia is 'GPU3' (for ATI is still GPU2) and it looks like it doesn't need a dummy connector.

2.4) Once the second GPU Client is running, right-click configure like you did with the first GPU Client.

For nVidia & ATI installation guide

Related: standalone memory tester for ATI+NV GPUs

I hope this post is not outside the Terms of Service.

Cheers.