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World Community Grid Forums
Category: Support
Forum: GPU Support Forum
Thread: Looking for advice on GPU crunching on a new machine |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 39
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Richard Mitnick
Veteran Cruncher USA Joined: Feb 28, 2007 Post Count: 583 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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I am about to start up a new machine, about 10 days away. I am looking for any advice I might need to have the machine working on GPU projects at its best capacity. I know that WCG is not yet into GPU processing; however, I also know that there are many people on these forums who are extrremely experienced and knowledgeable. So that I why I am coming here.
----------------------------------------Here are the specs of the machine: Chassis: MAINGEAR SHIFT Chassis with Advanced Vertical Heat Dissipation Motherboard: Asus® Rampage IV Extreme Supporting SATA 6G, USB 3.0, 3-way SLI Processor: Intel® CoreT i7 3930K Six-core 3.2GHz/3.8GHz Turbo 12MB L3 Cache w/ HyperThreading Processor Cooling: MAINGEAR EPIC 140 Supercooler Intel Turbo Boost Advanced Automatic Overclocking Memory: 16GB Corsair® VengeanceT DDR3-1866 1.5V (4x4GB) Graphics and GPGPU Accelerator: 2x EVGA® GeForceT GTX 580 6GB GDDR5 Total in SLI with MAINGEAR EPIC X2 Liquid Cooling [ULTIMATE] Power Supply: 1000 Watt Seasonic® XP-1000 80+ Platinum Certified Modular Power Supply ROHS What I want to know, since while I am an avid cruncher I am technically at a loss, is there anything special I need to do in configuration of preferences so that both graphics cards are functioning on work units? I will be running on local preferences. Is there anything special in a cc.config.xml line that I need? I am coming in with this now, because a couple of years ago when I brought on an i7-920, it took a month and a great deal of help to keep that machine from running out of work, and that was just with CPU processing. A great deal of that help came from WCG people. So, if there is any experiential reasoned advice, I would appreciate it very much. |
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Coleslaw
Veteran Cruncher USA Joined: Mar 29, 2007 Post Count: 1343 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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To use both you will need to add the following to the cc_config.xml:
----------------------------------------<cc_config> <options> <use_all_gpus>1</use_all_gpus> </options> </cc_config> Other then that, it will come down to what projects you support. Some projects do well using the Anonymous platform which allows you to run multiple work units at a time on each card. With those cards, it would be a viable option on most projects. However, to get help maxing the cards out on those projects require knowing which you support. Next, SLI probably wont do you any good with BOINC, but if someone knows of an example where it does, I will let them chime in here. Next, we need to know if you are looking for points or looking for a science that means something to you. Each project seems to favor a brand or line of cards. For those who just care about the science, then points really don't matter and thus changes the advice. Also, some people don't care about the points but do want badges. There are now a hand full of projects offering badges and 2 of them have GPU work units. (Currently PrimeGrid and GPUGrid.net)     |
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Richard Mitnick
Veteran Cruncher USA Joined: Feb 28, 2007 Post Count: 583 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Coleslaw-
----------------------------------------Thanks so much. I am primarily interested in the science, especially CEP2 and the T4T project at CERN. But, hey, everyone has an ego. I had wanted to get to the 99th percentile for all of BOINC and I did that. I am sure that with a hyper threaded six core CPU, I do not need to even think about credits. |
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mikey
Veteran Cruncher Joined: May 10, 2009 Post Count: 826 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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Coleslaw- Thanks so much. I am primarily interested in the science, especially CEP2 and the T4T project at CERN. But, hey, everyone has an ego. I had wanted to get to the 99th percentile for all of BOINC and I did that. I am sure that with a hyper threaded six core CPU, I do not need to even think about credits. How many units at a time do you run at MilkyWay? If you run two at once then you are probably good to go for here at WCG too. If only one then did you put Coleslaw's file in the Boinc data directory and then restart Boinc? Make sure the file is in the right place by checking the event log in Boinc, near the top it will say 'config: use all processors' and then you can use both, or more if you have space for them.   |
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Coleslaw
Veteran Cruncher USA Joined: Mar 29, 2007 Post Count: 1343 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Then, my next question for you mitrichr is which GPU project outside WCG are you interested in? You will find a larger positive response from fellow crunchers here if you lean towards bio-sciences. However, there are many who will help you regardless which you choose. Since you have high end cards, your options are more open for choice. For example: Milkyway requires dual precision cards, GPUGrid.net only really uses middle to high end nVidia cards with support for AMD/ATI in the works, POEM currently has ATI/AMD support but working on nVidia whereas PrimeGrid has support for both depending on what projects you choose. I think MOO! has the lightest requirements, but they support AMD/ATI better. Both MOO! and Collatz awards ATI/AMD cards more points then nVidia. Donate@home is recently new and has had a lot of contraversy surrounding it which I wont debate or give judgement on here. It supports GPUGrid.net and uses both nVidia and AMD/ATI, but is a testing ground for OpenCL (or at least ATI/AMD anyways) work to be used at GPUGrid.net and also a Bitcoin operation.
----------------------------------------Edit: I also forgot DistrRTgen uses nVidia as well, but they too tend to have a very negative response in the BOINC communities. Cracking security codes make a lot of people squeamish. [Edit 1 times, last edit by Coleslaw at Feb 20, 2012 3:26:30 PM] |
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Richard Mitnick
Veteran Cruncher USA Joined: Feb 28, 2007 Post Count: 583 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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mikey159b -
----------------------------------------I just checked MilkyWay on a current i7 machine, it has many WU's for that project ready to start. In fact, when I got that machine, a laptop, with no thought of GPU crunching, I was all of a sudden getting three times the normal BOINC credits. I discovered that it was running GPU on MilkyWay. I learned how to get that stopped and did so because there are no provisions on that laptop for the kind of heat GPU crunching can create. Thanks for your input. |
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Richard Mitnick
Veteran Cruncher USA Joined: Feb 28, 2007 Post Count: 583 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Coleslaw-
----------------------------------------You know, on all of my machines I run all of WCG. That is a lot of Biology. But, across the rest of BOINC, I am running a lot of things like Rosetta, Docking, etc. One of the reasons I want so much capacity is to be able to not be limited. I also run both LHC projects, Mersenne, eOn, CAS@home, SETI, etc. If you count the individual projects at WCG each on its own, I am running 24 projects across seven machines, not each project on every machines. I just realized, you can see what I run in my BOINCStats bloc below. I really appreciate your specificity regarding the projects, it will help me as I will need to find out as much as possible about what projects do or do not work with nVidia. ---------------------------------------- [Edit 1 times, last edit by mitrichr at Feb 21, 2012 10:08:23 AM] |
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Ingleside
Veteran Cruncher Norway Joined: Nov 19, 2005 Post Count: 974 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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Of the GPU-projects there's also SETI@home and Einstein@home. SETI@home works for both Nvidia and Amd-cards as long as you download optimized applications, while haven't looked on Einstein@home resently so not sure if it's still Nvidia-only or if they've finished alpha-testing the Amd-application or not...
---------------------------------------- "I make so many mistakes. But then just think of all the mistakes I don't make, although I might." |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Mersenne? Read this and wonder what else in duplicating hobby horses are on BOINC: http://boinc.berkeley.edu/dev/forum_thread.php?id=7086
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mikey
Veteran Cruncher Joined: May 10, 2009 Post Count: 826 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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I really appreciate your specificity regarding the projects, it will help me as I will need to find out as much as possible about what projects do or do not work with nVidia. PrimeGrid is also more friendly to Nvidia cards. PrimeGrid has half a dozen maybe samlelr projects within it, some cpu and some gpu and some can do either, although NOT at the same time. |
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