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World Community Grid Forums
Category: Support
Forum: BOINC Agent Support
Thread: Performance hit in other applications |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 11
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
I've been noticing some performance hit in other applications while having BOINC working in the background.
I can see a considerable hit in flash websites, for example. Animations get clearly choppy. Another (quite bizarre) example is when I'm dragging a file from the desktop to an open folder. With BOINC running the dragging is very choppy once the icon is over the folder's window (like 2 frames per second). Some games also show considerable drops in fps with constant micro-freezings. Wasn't BOINC supposed to be imperceptible? I have an i7 950, Turbo and HT on, 16gb RAM. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Hi fabiopb,
----------------------------------------Yes, but it depends on what science combo you run. CEP2 e.g. is so HD intense, that this one will show up impacting the user if more than a few are run concurrent on a 8 core device. This is not to say that other sciences don't impact the user, so sure would like to understand which WCG sciences / combo's do this to you. There are several mitigations that can be implemented. 1. Use the function that pauses BOINC when non-BOINC activity is exceeding a certain percentage. The WCG default is 50%. Then set Run based on preferences in the activity menu to force that the operation is per preferences. 2. When running WindowsXP/W2K and up, use ThreadMaster GUI to lower the CPU percent at science app level. 3. Disable BOINC to only use for instance 6 cores instead of the maximum, and use a tool like Process Lasso to auto-force affinity to e.g. cores 2-8 and leave 0-1 for your personal exclusive use. 4. BOINC can be forced to pause when certain user applications are loaded (entries required in the cc_config.xml file). 5. Of course, BOINC can be told to pause when you're using the system, but that impacts all of BOINC.... all 8 cores. :( 6. Security software may be scanning infinitely. E.g. Exclude the BOINC data_dir area in the Virus/Firewall. 7. Exit BOINC Manager, whilst letting the BOINC core service running. Note that I've personally tested utilities 2./3. They work great both on XP/Vista and W7, but originally developed for Windows Servers. Only need to tell the settings of a science app when a new version is implemented. (FAAH has not had a change in years, so tweaks needed rather sparsely). edit: The list is not exhaustive... tell us how you like to approach the tweaking which best suites your experience, whilst maintaining the throughput that you wish to achieve and contribute. [Edit 3 times, last edit by Former Member at Jan 11, 2011 9:23:42 AM] |
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KerSamson
Master Cruncher Switzerland Joined: Jan 29, 2007 Post Count: 1679 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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Hi
----------------------------------------Since several years I operate boinc without any limitation (no throttle, CPU with 100% on every core) and I did never notice any problem with the performance of other applications. On my children PC (running many flash applications, iTunes, etc.) there is also no noticeable problems (and I did never listen complaint). I am surprised to read about such performance problems. The cause is maybe not boinc but another application ? ... Cheers, Yves |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Ker:
I think it could be, although it would have to be at least related to BOINC since when it's snoozing those lags and stutterings disappear. I'm also running it 100% with 8 cores (I even put some money on a better cooling system just for that). SekeRob: What you're saying makes sense. 8 simultaneous threats would mean 8 times more hard disk access. I think I'll start by trying to find out which researches have higher HD activity and avoid them. This way I would have zero impact on crunching performance. If that's not enough I'll go deeper and try the tools you suggested - thanks a lot! - Fabio |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
I'm seeing a 10-30% performance hit for a backup program (about 30 MB/s less throughput) when BOINC is running.
----------------------------------------Could the issue be that the "nice" behavior only applies to CPU cycles, so that BOINC (or the OS) doesn't even notice that the system is busy when the bottleneck is something other than the CPU, like graphics/memory/network bandwidth or IO operations? Use the function that pauses BOINC when non-BOINC activity is exceeding a certain percentage Where do I find this function - I can't see it in Device Profiles? (I'm on a headless Linux box, so I can't use the client GUI, but I'm fine with editing configuration files.) EDIT: Never mind, I found it - but it only talks about CPU %, are there any tricks for pausing BOINC with similar thresholds for disk or network activity? [Edit 1 times, last edit by Former Member at Jan 20, 2011 8:03:45 PM] |
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CandymanWCG
Senior Cruncher Romania Joined: Dec 20, 2010 Post Count: 421 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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Sorry, waitingForTheMiracle, from my (limited) experience, you can only set a CPU threshold, but if you want the BOINC manager to be as less intrusive as possible, then all you need to do is set it to run only when you are not using the PC/laptop.
----------------------------------------Question: what limit did you set on your CPU? Just out of curiosity. Not really an expert, but hope my short advice helps. Cheers! Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world! - Albert Einstein   |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
I'm seeing a 10-30% performance hit for a backup program (about 30 MB/s less throughput) when BOINC is running. Could the issue be that the "nice" behavior only applies to CPU cycles, so that BOINC (or the OS) doesn't even notice that the system is busy when the bottleneck is something other than the CPU, like graphics/memory/network bandwidth or IO operations? Use the function that pauses BOINC when non-BOINC activity is exceeding a certain percentage Where do I find this function - I can't see it in Device Profiles? (I'm on a headless Linux box, so I can't use the client GUI, but I'm fine with editing configuration files.) EDIT: Never mind, I found it - but it only talks about CPU %, are there any tricks for pausing BOINC with similar thresholds for disk or network activity? Premise for this to work: 1. Client 6.10.34 or higher 2. Set Activity menu to "Run Based on Preferences"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 3. On website device profile "Custom" section or in local prefs set: "While processor usage is less then percent 50 percent (0 means - No restriction)". Using website profile requires the client to communicate first with the server for the setting to transfer. The WCG default is 50%, the Berkeley hard default is 25%. Experiment with the value best suited to your specific conditions. I've found that even at 90% the client was too often going in suspend mode which is tested every 10 seconds. You need to set "Leave application in Memory when suspended", as else the sciences unload each time. That's all. There are only Memory and CPU % controls. PS, there was a FAQ put together about a year ago on CPU throttling. So far, 245 of the 500,000 members read it. :O |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Question: what limit did you set on your CPU? Just out of curiosity. I had set it to 100% CPU on all cores, 90% memory and "suspend work if CPU usage is above X%" disabled. I'll try experimenting with lower limits. @SekeRob: Thanks. And the number of views on your FAQ has now increased to 250  |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
of course, if your system has sufficient memory and you can create an in memory VDISK and have your bionic work against that vdrive you might see some changes in your system performance as it relates to I/O against your HDD.
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RT
Master Cruncher USA - Texas - DFW Joined: Dec 22, 2004 Post Count: 2636 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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I have several i7s running a mix of projects. Generally they run 8 wus at a time and I have had almost no performance issues. The one exception was with the CEPII wherein I think the I/O activity was so high that it made the system sluggish for my normal work. I changed over some of the systems and now only run CEPII on Ubuntu machines that are solely there for crunching. My Windows based machines run the other projects currently.
----------------------------------------I think SekeRob has given you the exact advice but for me, the simple solution was to not run CEPII on a Windows box that someone was actually using...in my case Windows. Have a great day, and thank you for contributing to the WCG |
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