Good Sunday Morning MOT

Keith is on vacation so no stats posting. I am capturing the numbers for his return.

My feeble attempt to answer dkt's questions:

1) on each of your device profiles there is a place to check. The Text is as follows:
If my computer can process work on my graphics card, then please send me work to run on my graphics card for the projects that I have selected above.
If you check that box and you have selected HCC above, then that means you want HCC GPU work. The above is necessary but not sufficient. Next, go to "My Grid" and select "Beta Testing" and make sure that you have clicked the appropriate "Participate" box for the profile running on the computer on which you want to run the betas.

2) http://www.nvidia.com/page/support.html and click on "Download Drivers"

3) I don't know if it will work with your Lenovo Laptop. I would give odds that it will not though.
4) There are different drivers for the different cards. There are lots of graphics cards (GPUs - some on the motherboard) that are not deemed to be capable enough to be worth the trouble. I am guessing that your Lenovo is in that category.
NVIDIA cards require Compute Capability of 1.2 and higher (http://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-gpus) and that have at least driver version 19713.
5) Yes..sorta. The GPU WU runs primarily on the GPU but it does require some CPU time. So it steals some time from the other tasks on the machine. Typically less than half a core (based on what I have read hereabouts and my very minimal experience).
6) BOINC or one of its subsystems figures this out for you. If you have everything turned on, then BOINC will poke about in your system and decide whether or not to request GPU work from the project (In this case WCG).

As to your other comments. I have long been prejudiced towards NVIDIA cards due to a couple of instances of their usability years back. It has pretty much been a "no-brainer" for me. But, like so many things in life, occasionally one has to step back and take a fresh look at things; they have a habit of changing.

Now video cards and the GPU on them were intended to process graphics information for display. Then some ingenious sole (actually many) decided that there had to be a way to use these things for other purposes since they were so very capable. GPU Computing was born and has a life of its own apart from the processing of graphics for high-end graphics processes and gaming.

So while one brand or architecture or driver set may be better for graphics or a certain type of graphics, others may be better for number crunching or a certain type of number crunching.

I recently bought a EVGA NVIDIA GTX580 for use here. As it turns out, that may not have been the best decision and frankly I am more than a little disappointed with this community (Including the WCG itself) for not providing better information that would have given me the guidance that would have precluded that > $450 purchase. I know there are issues with them giving too much advice relative to brands but I did ask some of the people that should have and surely did know in private but they declined comment. Additionally I asked publically and got no response from some and got condescending obfuscation from others.

Note these enlightning comments from skgiven and hypernova:


Note nanoprobes comment:
One of the most reasoned/helpful comments I remember is one by skgiven:

So there you go. Not sure why all this has to be so confusing but that is how it is for now. To be fair, once we get out of the beta phase, I suspect all this info will get much more readily available. And despite my reluctance to be fair, I have one other comment. This whole GPU world is very confusing. there are so many choices and that menu of choices changes at a bewildering pace. And there are advocates of one brand/architecture whose enthusiasm borders or religious fervor. So, some of my disappointment may have been caused by others, while not being quite as confused as I was, were still confused and waiting for the next of the enumerable shoes to fall.

Now after all this, I said in a post a couple of days ago, that while I am not the last person on the planet to ask about video cards, I am pretty close to last. With that in mind, I would certainly appreciate/welcome corrections to any and all of the above by anyone that knows better. (And that is a lot of people).

Everyone Have a Great day...seriously.

Thank you very much RT and darth_vader for all of the information. The reason I asked in the first place is that I bought an EVGA card for one of my systems and, since I have been seeing a lot of interest GPU processing, I wanted to see if I am headed in the right direction to do additional processing. As I have read above, the processors (and probably memory as well) are headed to the 22nm technology to improve processing power and additional capabilities. I have decided to wait at least 6 months for Intel and AMD to establish the capability they want to provide.

I also want to consider whether or not it makes sense to put additional processors on the same motherboard. For instance, will Windows and BOINC provide support for running additional processes at the same time? What do the new i7's provide in capability - not just the number of cores, but the number of paths for each core? When I was working at IBM, the direction being taken was to use an MP environment going from 32 processors to 128 or more. I do not expect to see such a thing for PCs, but it was around 1980 (30 years ago) when PCs were first being used and look at where we are today.

dkt

PS: I just noticed that daily averages have been added to the signature display. I have to ask what period of time is being covered for the averaging? My averages for WCG are quite a bit lower.

Good Morning( belatedly) MOT

Tornados all about but we were in the clear. Hope YellowAV can say the same.

Everyone Have a Great Day

TRUTH FINDERS NETWORK
A word From Sons And Daughters Of Liberty
by Truth Finders Network on 03/21/12

My Dear Fellow Patriots, These past couple of weeks have been nothing short of incredible. I sit behind my computer screen, watching things unfold before my eyes, in sheer awe of the dedication displayed by some of our members. In our just-over-three-week existence, we've grown from a handful of my Facebook friends, to over 780 members, a website with forums (coming soon), and a radio station, acquired by sheer force of will, and countless hours of hard work by two of our greatest members, Kellie and Troy. Due to their endless crusade, their tireless endeavor to assist this movement, helping us to get on our feet and at the same time, go way beyond that; We have ourselves not just a radio show, but a radio STATION, the goal of which, is to reach as many people as humanly possible. In my own pursuit to find a means to contribute to this movement, I have decided to start this blog, which, to my delight, was already conveniently established in connection with my main email address. After some dusting off, visual tweaks, and a deep breath much like the multitude of others I have taken in these several weeks past, I put my fingers to the keyboard and commenced in the writing of this journal. I must say, fellow Patriots, that We The People are standing at a fork in the road. We have two very clear choices. We can take the Blue pill of slavery, the pill which would most assuredly condemn us to a life under absolute despotism, where our children and our children's children will curse the day we decided not to act; or we can take the Red pill, a pill which would lead to probably pain, hardships, but ultimately, the wonderfully sweet taste of Freedom. It is your choice, my dear fellow Patriots: Take the Blue pill, and the story ends, you will go back to sleep and enjoy a life of perpetual ignorant bliss. Take the Red pill, and the story just beings. As my favorite founding father, Samuel Adams, once said: "If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen." Let not our posterity curse our name, oh Sons and Daughters of Liberty, and let us march into battle, arm in arm, towards the shining light of Liberty. Forever In Liberty, -J http://www.truthfindersnetwork.com/JUNK-PAGE.html

Everything is politics! This will as you say and has so far been an interesting year! Economy on my neck of the woods seems to be improving hopefully it is in yours! Go Baylor Bears!!! Did not go there but happy for my fellow Texans!!!