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World Community Grid Forums
Category: Support
Forum: BOINC Agent Support
Thread: Manage CPU usage when another app is running. |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 9
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Using the cc_config.xml file I was able to stop crunching when certain apps run. In my case, Windows Media Player and VLC Player. The reason being that the HTPC sits idle most of the day and night, but when I watch a movie I want to be able to watch it without occasional jerkiness. This did correct the jerkiness of the movies.
Unfortunately this creates a new problem. Sometimes when a DVD is done being watched the app is left running(I am not the only person that uses the computer). This stalls the crunching sometimes for a day or more until I notice it. By default I want Boinc to utilize 100% CPU time when the computer is idle, but can it throttle back something like 50% or so when the app is running? This is an issue I also have on my gaming machine. When I play some games(World of Warcraft in particular) I stop crunching because WCG interferes with the game when at 100%, but I don't want to set WCG to 75% utilization and I don't want to have to keep tweaking the settings. Ideally I'd like Boinc to throttle back to like 75% when I play instead of me killing it completely. Thanks, -Josh |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Hi Josh,
----------------------------------------Yes, seen this request many a time in variations, also popping up on the developers forum and then getting the silent treatment or another volunteer cruncher chipping in how to work around. Form 1: Set the number of threads when a device is used (percent of processors) Form 2: Percent of time [but useless in the way the BOINC throttle is implemented, with emphasis on technical constraint due the 1 code base for multiple platforms]. Form 3: Snooze with multiple options... 60 minutes, 120 minutes, 180 minutes, 240 minutes. There may be more variations on the theme. And of course, the Rosetta of all, set "Run based on preferences" with a resume delay of 30 minutes or any other value you choose. When gaming, BOINC just sits back and when you stop WoW, BOINC resumes xx minutes after the machine stops receiving joystick, mouse, keyboard input. This does not work for DVD of course, hence the Form 3, Snooze with a time of choice, not just the flat 60 minutes it currently has. That is the one that can be coded and compiled to work on Windows, Mac, Linux without much effort [in my estimation] For Windows there are more technical solutions. ThreadMasterGui for a permanent throttle control [but recently found out it does not work on my W7-64 hyperthreaded device **] and the pinnacle of tweaking, conditional rules and all ... Process Lasso, which needs a bit of studying and experimenting. This one can force sciences into slow mode and control core affinities and boost / suppress applications based on conditions you specify. A [not derisively meant] 'Geeks paradise'... I'm one too ;>). --//-- edit: insert qualifiers. edit2: ** Got it to work, just the gotcha of lowering the default to under 100% was needed... to 100/8 core = 12.5, so set it to 10 which works a 10 *8 = 80% maximum... again smooth throttling.  [Edit 4 times, last edit by Former Member at Feb 22, 2012 7:23:23 AM] |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Outstanding. I'll check out threadmaster. Never heard of it, but I've done plenty of google searches and apparently never hit those super secret keywords that would let me find it. I was hoping for a way to have the CPU sit at 100% usage.. when I run wow.exe it drops to 50%(or some other predetermined value I set). When wow.exe process ends the CPU goes back up to 100%. I'd rather not stop all wcg processing because I sometimes play wow for 6-8 hours on saturday and sunday when i'm not doing anything else and that adds up to alot of lost CPU time.
----------------------------------------So let me ask this question.. is there an app that lets you lock threads to a given CPU. For instance, say I have WCG processes named "WCG1" through "WCG13" on a 16 processor system. Is there an app that will hunt down the WCG threads and then assign each thread to its own CPU? Perhaps have WCG13 tie to CPU16, WCG12 to CPU15, and so on. One thing I've noticed with WCG threads is the threads jump CPUs like CRAZY on windows, but remain relatively constant on Linux. There's lots of studies that have shown that jumping cores results in inefficiencies in the L1, L2 and L3 cache resulting in significant performance penalties for the running process. I can't seem to find an app that can do this, and since I haven't done any programming in a few years I'm a little rusty or I'd try to write one myself. [Edit 2 times, last edit by Former Member at Feb 1, 2012 3:59:49 PM] |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
snip
----------------------------------------So let me ask this question.. is there an app that lets you lock threads to a given CPU. For instance, say I have WCG processes named "WCG1" through "WCG13" on a 16 processor system. Is there an app that will hunt down the WCG threads and then assign each thread to its own CPU? The locking to a processor thread [called affinity] can be done with the said Process Lasso. The ThreadMasterGUI aka TMG has a topic in the Start Here FAQ's with a few more tools. Look in the SH index stickied at top of all forums. Alternate, TThrottle [for BOINC] is on offer. Assuming that gaming and DVD playing increases GPU temps, it can be the agent to slow down crunching. I know that if I stream with WMP, the GPU temps go up on the laptop, but it has never caused for BOINC to interfere, here. --//-- edit: insert snip quote [Edit 2 times, last edit by Former Member at Feb 1, 2012 4:10:04 PM] |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Honestly, I didn't realize Process Lasso had changed so much since I tried it a year or 2 ago. I have setup a "rule" in process lasso to take the 14 WCG tasks and set the CPU affinity to 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15. While this freed up cores 0 and 1(the temp of the idle cores dropped 25F!), there's no way for me to prove(or disprove) if the other tasks are "core thrashing" on the remaining cores or not. I couldn't find any feature where it could find each copy of WCG and assign it another core incrementally. Process Lasso is definitely a geek's wet dream for playing with CPU affinity, thread prioritization, etc.
I did find in the Process Lasso forum a post where someone posted asking for precisely what I am asking for in 2009 and the admin said he would think about it and that was the end of it. I'm going to play around with Process Lasso a little more and make sure there isn't a way to create a rule to accomplish what I want. If I can't figure it out I might ask the Process Lasso forum if/how to do it. TThrottle looks very interesting. I might have to try it out on my laptop and see how it goes! I've avoiding crunching on my laptop because it gets pretty hot. If I could set the temp to low enough to prevent the fan from kicking from low to high and back all the time I might start crunching on it! |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Hi again,
With TThrottle set BoiNC itself to 100% else you've got 2 Throttles fighting each other. I've used and am using Process Lasso for probably 5 years. Don't know if it's a good idea to have 16 processes of BOINC roam 14 cores, but I know it works. Since WCG cant guarantee the order and number of tasks, just set the rule for PL to assign BOINC tasks to 2-15. The OS itself will have little reason to change core assignments, which you say is impacting performance, when it has 0-1 all idling up to do anything you please, where of course you'll want to put WoW/WMP to run on these 2 with affinity. Enjoy playing and do let us know if you learn any hottips to share to others. --//-- |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
I think I confused you. I setup boinc to only use 87.5% of my cores (14 of 16).
Thanks to your help and Process Lasso I have forced them to the the last 14 cores. I agree though, trying to force 16 process into 14 cores would probably not work too well. I'll let you know if there is anything interesting that comes out of this little test. |
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pramo
Veteran Cruncher USA Joined: Dec 14, 2005 Post Count: 716 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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posting here only because of a search on tthottle-
----------------------------------------just upgraded from 3.41 to 5.10 and saw the % it used in Windows Task manager (intel core duo E4500) go from a steady 2% to 1%. maybe no big deal but if true numbers it adds up eventually. /aside, Comodo firewall had me approve everything from changing exe's, to modifying a setup log file to blinking   |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
I just wanted to provide a quick update. I have been experimenting with Process Lasso and have tested an SR-2 machine (8 cores, 16 threaded machine) using Process lasso to force 14 threads of Boinc to cores 2-15. The intent was to minimize CPU swapping. Unfortunately the machine does NOT become any more or less responsive(I've never had a problem with the system being unresponsive due to Boinc) and the work units do not finish any faster than letting the windows scheduler handle them. I wanted to be able to tie each WU to each core, but there was no way to do that with process lasso. The process Lasso forum did have a request for this feature from another cruncher from 2010 and the Process Lasso programmer mentioned that he would add it in the future, however he has not at the present time.
Happy crunching! -Josh |
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