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Category: Support
Forum: BOINC Agent Support
Thread: Windows not really a multi task OS |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 8
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Emilio Lopez
Cruncher Joined: Nov 23, 2005 Post Count: 18 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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I am wondering if there is a good computing preference that will speed up computation of tasks. As most of us know, Windows is not really a multitask OS, and even though your computer might have two, four or more cpu, Windows does one thing at a time. (unlike Linux or so i hear).
Therefore, running multiple tasks doesn't really speed up the processing time. Doing one task and doing quicker might just be as fast. Is there any thoughts on this? thank you, Computering for the good of Humanity |
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Coleslaw
Veteran Cruncher USA Joined: Mar 29, 2007 Post Count: 1343 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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Well, unless an app is designed for multi-threading (most projects are not especially here) then you would only see speed gains by (and I'm talking CPU-wise):
----------------------------------------1. Over clocking your CPU and later possibly even GPU when HCC finally goes full swing. 2. You disable Hyper Threading. 3. Some sciences (but not all) see a performance gain by going either Linux or Windows. You will find that not all science apps are created equal. Check the forums. This has been discussed. However, most find that enabling Hyper Threading to have an over all increase in output even though the individual work units may finish a little slower. You would need to drop into each science forum and do some reading or maybe check out some of the posts in the chat room forum. There have been discussions on this topic already.     [Edit 1 times, last edit by Coleslaw at Oct 10, 2012 12:19:38 AM] |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Hello Emilio Lopez,
----------------------------------------Therefore, running multiple tasks doesn't really speed up the processing time. Doing one task and doing quicker might just be as fast. Is there any thoughts on this? Ancient history. Windows 7 64-bit has long since evolved into a multi-tasking OS. It is surprisingly inefficient at a few things, which Linux does much better. In any case, the projects do not depend on the OS for most of their speed. The projects depend on the compilers and math subroutine libraries, where large differences sometimes show up. Currently the Linux 64 compilers tend to be in the lead, though this was not the case when WCG started up. Lawrence [Edit 1 times, last edit by Former Member at Oct 10, 2012 6:55:40 AM] |
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mikey
Veteran Cruncher Joined: May 10, 2009 Post Count: 821 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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I am wondering if there is a good computing preference that will speed up computation of tasks. As most of us know, Windows is not really a multitask OS, and even though your computer might have two, four or more cpu, Windows does one thing at a time. (unlike Linux or so i hear). Therefore, running multiple tasks doesn't really speed up the processing time. Doing one task and doing quicker might just be as fast. Is there any thoughts on this? thank you, Computering for the good of Humanity One more thing to consider...Boinc itself is NOT a multitasking program all by itself. It is designed to run on one, two or even a dozen or more cpu's all at the same time, but each cpu individually crunching its own workunit! SOME software Adobe Photoshop comes to mind, IS designed to take advantage of multiple cpu's, BUT Boinc IS NOT!! Boinc is NOT designed to work on multiple workunits at the same time on the same cpu, or group of cpu's. There IS a way some projects are using multiple gpu's to crunch a single workunit, but that is rare and not the 'norm' right now.   |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
That's news to me... BOINC not capable to run multithreaded CPU applications. It *is* and I've run them. In fact it's something WCG is considering in order to lower the memory footprint of large science applications. Picture 8 CSFW at 300MB a piece or 8 CEP2 at 1GB, or 1 running on whatever number of processors you allow BOINC to use, then finishing of course in like 1/8th of the time.
----------------------------------------Edit: BTW, when it's the turn of such multi-threaded projects to run [round-robin], they will preempt as many sciences tasks that are not multi-threaded. E.g. as I observed, 4 WCG tasks were pre-empted to run the 4 threaded project by itself, which then would resume when the multithreaded tasks was pre-empted. [Edit 1 times, last edit by Former Member at Oct 10, 2012 3:06:44 PM] |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
P.S. The multithreaded project I tested was Aqua:
AQUA@Home was the first BOINC project to provide multi-threaded applications. It was also the first project to deploy an OpenCL test application under BOINC. |
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mikey
Veteran Cruncher Joined: May 10, 2009 Post Count: 821 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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P.S. The multithreaded project I tested was Aqua: AQUA@Home was the first BOINC project to provide multi-threaded applications. It was also the first project to deploy an OpenCL test application under BOINC. Was that for cpu units or gpu units? I know Moo does multi-tasking of gpu units using multiple gpu's to work on one unit. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Since it suspended *all* WCG CPU units, you have the answer implicitly ;>) There's one or two more, just tested aqua 6 months ago or more to learn how that worked and develop an (informed) opinion while reading some discussions on the matter. One thought I had with that and injected in was the possibility to have less than all cores being used. Think Ingleside or someone else mentioned it was possible to control via the app_info.xml [IIRC]file how to set the core max use, but would have preferred an option on the relevant project device profiles. On device profiles and yet again the same repeating the same same gripes [yesterday], the Techs are all too aware that the device profiles need to be redesigned/restructured. Repeating does not add anything. WCG Knows, but it's of lower order priority. ATM it is what we work with and gets things done for 99% of the
----------------------------------------edit: strike crunchers, add volunteers [before people are confused by computers]. Like the "shrubbers" as alternate word to crunchers :P [Edit 2 times, last edit by Former Member at Oct 11, 2012 2:12:27 PM] |
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