I have this computer, running Apple MacOSX, Snow Leopard 10.6.3 .

Model Name: iMac
Model Identifier: iMac11,1
Processor Name: Intel Core i7
Processor Speed: 2.8 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 4
L2 Cache (per core): 256 KB
L3 Cache: 8 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Processor Interconnect Speed: 4.8 GT/s


What I want to do is run Milkyway on only the graphics card and Einstein on the CPU's ( 4 real, 8 in hyper-threaded mode).

The graphics card is:

Chipset Model: ATI Radeon HD 4850
Type: GPU
Bus: PCIe
PCIe Lane Width: x16
VRAM (Total): 512 MB
Vendor: ATI (0x1002)
Device ID: 0x944a
Revision ID: 0x0000
ROM Revision: 113-B9110C-425
EFI Driver Version: 01.00.383
Displays:
iMac:
Resolution: 2560 x 1440
Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)

I have run a few tasks but I can't see any evidence that the GPU is being used.

How do I get Milkyway to run on the GPU?

The Boinc version I have is 6.10.56 .
WxWidgets 2.8.10 .

I get these messages on startup:

Sun 30 May 22:48:02 2010 Data directory: /Library/Application Support/BOINC Data
Sun 30 May 22:48:02 2010 Processor: 8 GenuineIntel Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80GHz [x86 Family 6 Model 30 Stepping 5]
Sun 30 May 22:48:02 2010 Processor features: FPU VME DE PSE TSC MSR PAE MCE CX8 APIC SEP MTRR PGE MCA CMOV PAT PSE36 CLFSH DS ACPI MMX FXSR SSE SSE2 SS HTT TM SSE3 MON DSCPL VMX SMX EST TM2 SSSE3 CX16 TPR PDCM SSE4.1 SSE4.2 POPCNT
Sun 30 May 22:48:02 2010 OS: Darwin: 10.3.0
Sun 30 May 22:48:02 2010 Memory: 4.00 GB physical, 579.98 GB virtual
Sun 30 May 22:48:02 2010 Disk: 931.19 GB total, 579.74 GB free
Sun 30 May 22:48:02 2010 Local time is UTC +1 hours
Sun 30 May 22:48:02 2010 No usable GPUs found
Sun 30 May 22:48:02 2010 Einstein@Home URL http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/; Computer ID 2176810; resource share 100
Sun 30 May 22:48:02 2010 Milkyway@home URL http://milkyway.cs.rpi.edu/milkyway/; Computer ID 182133; resource share 100
Sun 30 May 22:48:03 2010 Einstein@Home General prefs: from Einstein@Home (last modified 29-May-2010 22:03:54)
Sun 30 May 22:48:03 2010 Einstein@Home Computer location: home
Sun 30 May 22:48:03 2010 Einstein@Home General prefs: no separate prefs for home; using your defaults
Sun 30 May 22:48:03 2010 Reading preferences override file
Sun 30 May 22:48:03 2010 Preferences:
Sun 30 May 22:48:03 2010 max memory usage when active: 2048.00MB
Sun 30 May 22:48:03 2010 max memory usage when idle: 2048.00MB
Sun 30 May 22:48:03 2010 max disk usage: 5.00GB
Sun 30 May 22:48:03 2010 (to change preferences, visit the web site of an attached project, or select Preferences in the Manager)
Sun 30 May 22:48:03 2010 Not using a proxy
Sun 30 May 22:48:03 2010 Milkyway@home Starting de_new_test2_755475_1275254518_0
Sun 30 May 22:48:03 2010 Milkyway@home Starting task de_new_test2_755475_1275254518_0 using milkyway version 29

Regards


Alan

Go to your preferences and select - use GPU while computer in use (in mgr) and on the web site - select Use ATI GPU if present.

There is no brook drivers for OS X yet, the only way you would be able to use the GPU on Milkyway would be to boot into Windows and run it that way.

I think we might even have to wait until OpenCL matures completely.

---

Go to your preferences and select - use GPU while computer in use (in mgr) and on the web site - select Use ATI GPU if present.

I had done that and there is no, "Use ATI graphics card option". Can't set it to zero as I get an out of range error.

It is the, "Sun 30 May 22:48:02 2010 No usable GPUs found" that worries me.

Thank-you

Alan

There is no brook drivers for OS X yet, the only way you would be able to use the GPU on Milkyway would be to boot into Windows and run it that way.

I think we might even have to wait until OpenCL matures completely.

Do Milkyway or Boinc use the BrookGPU? The only project I know that uses that is Folding@home and not for Apple Mac.

I hate Windows, I did set-up a boot partition with the pre-release Windows 7 64 bit, and I retain a version of W7 under Vmware. But I only use it to unpack some content archives or installers that I can't do under MacOSX.

Seems a bit extreme to have to change operating system to run your community projects.

Thanks anyway for your reply.

Alan

I have added file cc_config.xml to the /Library/Application Support/BOINC Data ,folder:
<cc_config>
<log_flags>
<cpu_sched>1</cpu_sched>
<coproc_debug>1</coproc_debug>
</log_flags>
<options>
<client_version_check_url>
<use_all_gpus>
</options>
</cc_config>

Seems it thinks have a NVIDA not ATI.

Mon 31 May 10:32:10 2010 NVIDIA drivers present but no GPUs found
Mon 31 May 10:32:10 2010 No usable GPUs found

How can I make it check for ATI?

I have moved cuda out of the way in /usr/local

Now I get:

Mon 31 May 12:16:58 2010 No NVIDIA library found
Mon 31 May 12:16:58 2010 No usable GPUs found

Guess I need to point it towards OpenCL or ATI stream?

Alan

BROOK is the library that ATI uses for it's GPU's, like Nvida uses CUDA.

Milkyway had Cluster Physik/Gipsel make a ATI GPU app that crunched the work much faster.

After a lot of testing, Travis incorporated it into the project.

Right now the dream situation would be that ATI would release BROOK libraries for OS X, but I do not see that happening. The next solution is OpenCL, but it is still in the infant stage.

---

I have moved cuda out of the way in /usr/local

Now I get:

Mon 31 May 12:16:58 2010 No NVIDIA library found
Mon 31 May 12:16:58 2010 No usable GPUs found

Guess I need to point it towards OpenCL or ATI stream?

Alan

Alan,

For the Mac there is nothing for users with ATI cards from any project that I know of... if you have a CUDA card and do the work you can get work from Collatz (Pure GPU) and EaH (50/50) ... sadly the PG project that also had a CUDA app for the mac (though it made for lots of lag) completed and they have not ported another application to GPU for any platform ...

As usual, in many respects, the Mac world lags the Linux and Windows worlds ...

If I were to guess if there would be a project that will release a Mac application for GPUs (though likely CUDA at first) it would be DNETC ...

From the Boinc Download page:

Attach to projects with GPU applications

Projects with NVIDIA applications:
GPUgrid.net
SETI@home
Milkyway@home (Double precision GPU required)
AQUA@home (cuda offline)
Lattice
Collatz Conjecture
PrimeGrid (AP26)

Projects with ATI applications:
Collatz Conjecture
Milkyway@home (Double precision GPU required)
DNETC@Home
You're done! Soon you'll be racking up big credit numbers. Of course, you can attach to other projects too; BOINC will keep both your CPU and GPU busy.

I have seen posts from people with macs running ATI cards as coprocessors. It is just not working with Snow Leopard as far as I can tell.

PS I can run the Galaxies V2 simulation.

My RAC has plummeted from ~5000 to ~4000 since I have been trying to get ATI GPU going. I think I will upgrade Boinc and try once more. But if that does not work I will delete Aqua and Milkyway and return to just running Einstein. I will keep an eye on progress.

I remember it took me a while to get Einstein making optimised apps for mac.

Alan

From the Boinc Download page:

Attach to projects with GPU applications

Projects with NVIDIA applications:
GPUgrid.net
SETI@home
Milkyway@home (Double precision GPU required)
AQUA@home (cuda offline)
Lattice
Collatz Conjecture
PrimeGrid (AP26)

Projects with ATI applications:
Collatz Conjecture
Milkyway@home (Double precision GPU required)
DNETC@Home
You're done! Soon you'll be racking up big credit numbers. Of course, you can attach to other projects too; BOINC will keep both your CPU and GPU busy.

I have seen posts from people with macs running ATI cards as coprocessors. It is just not working with Snow Leopard as far as I can tell.

I just double checked and none of the three projects listed in your message that has an ATI application has one for the Mac. These projects do have an ATI application for Windows, and in some cases also for Linux, but no one has an ATI application running on OS-X ... MW and Collatz can run on the Mac on the CPU side and there is the one CUDA application from Collatz that runs only on the GPU and the Einstein beta application that runs on the CPU and GPU ... AND THAT IS IT ...

Developers target Windows first, Linux second and the Mac third ... DENETC at the moment is windows only (ATI, CUDA, and CPU) ... likely the next applications will be made available on Linux and only later can we expect to see a Mac version...

The project with the widest applicability is Collatz... And I would look to them to be the first out with an application for the ATI cards on the Mac if anyone does it ... then likely MW ... but the limitation is that ATI has not released the right drivers yet for the Mac platform and until they do, nothing is going to happen ...

This probably isn't the best answer to this question, but given some of the funding you guys have generously given to the project (and a couple other sources), we've ordered a beast of a machine to compile CUDA/ATI + OS X/Linux/Windows.

Right now we don't have an OS X + ATI application, but once we get our new compilation machine we should have one pretty quickly.

Also, we have a few new people working with us this summer, as undergraduate researchers. And one of them is working on making a build system (in cmake) so we can have an easy cross-platform way to compile our application. Which will help us and the rest of you if you're interested working with our code.

In fact, I'm sending him a link to this message and hopefully he'll show his face in the forums for everyone :) Don't flame him too hard :P

---

From the Boinc Download page:

Attach to projects with GPU applications

Projects with NVIDIA applications:
GPUgrid.net
SETI@home
Milkyway@home (Double precision GPU required)
AQUA@home (cuda offline)
Lattice
Collatz Conjecture
PrimeGrid (AP26)

Projects with ATI applications:
Collatz Conjecture
Milkyway@home (Double precision GPU required)
DNETC@Home
You're done! Soon you'll be racking up big credit numbers. Of course, you can attach to other projects too; BOINC will keep both your CPU and GPU busy.

I have seen posts from people with macs running ATI cards as coprocessors. It is just not working with Snow Leopard as far as I can tell.

I just double checked and none of the three projects listed in your message that has an ATI application has one for the Mac. These projects do have an ATI application for Windows, and in some cases also for Linux, but no one has an ATI application running on OS-X ... MW and Collatz can run on the Mac on the CPU side and there is the one CUDA application from Collatz that runs only on the GPU and the Einstein beta application that runs on the CPU and GPU ... AND THAT IS IT ...

Developers target Windows first, Linux second and the Mac third ... DENETC at the moment is windows only (ATI, CUDA, and CPU) ... likely the next applications will be made available on Linux and only later can we expect to see a Mac version...

The project with the widest applicability is Collatz... And I would look to them to be the first out with an application for the ATI cards on the Mac if anyone does it ... then likely MW ... but the limitation is that ATI has not released the right drivers yet for the Mac platform and until they do, nothing is going to happen ...

It is not your fault. The BOINC download GPU projects listing is misleading, they should be more explicit about which operating systems and GPUs that are supported.

Good luck with the Mac ATI GPU project etc as your post.

Alan

PS

Hi Steven, Thanks for your reply. I will forward this on to the BOINC team. I suppose the kernel is strictly 10.3.0. They are using the wrong command.
They and a few projects and some hardware monitoring software like atMonitor ( gpu% ) don't detect ATI GPUs at least on my iMac 11,1 .

Regards

Alan

"Homo Sapiens with all its noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to others of it's species but to the humblest living creature, with his god-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system- with all these exalted powers- Homo Sapiens still bears in it's bodily frame the indelible stamp of its lowly origin." ...Charles Darwin

On 2 Jun 2010, at 20:31, devbugs@apple.com wrote:

Hi Alan,

This is a follow-up to Bug ID# 8050251.

Engineering has determined that this issue behaves as intended based on the following information:

uname -r reports the Darwin revision.
Tiger was 8.
Leopard is 9
Snowleopard is 10

Use 'sw_vers -productVersion' if you want 10.x versions for all releases.

Thank you for taking the time to notify us of this issue.

Best Regards,
Steven Andriella
Developer Bug Reporting Team
Apple Worldwide Developer Relations

WWDC 2010 • June 7-11 • Moscone West • San Francisco, CA
The center of the app universe.
http://developer.apple.com/wwdc/

-------------------------------------------------------
Bug ID #: 8050251
Bug Title: /usr/bin/uname -r does not identify Snow Leopard.
-------------------------------------------------------
<GMT02-Jun-2010 01:11:27GMT>
Summary:

Steps to Reproduce:

In Terminal:

uname -r

Expected Results:

10.6.3

Actual Results:

10.3.0

Regression:

Affects all Macs judging from the computers running OS X at various Boinc distributed computing projects.

Notes:

Boinc uses this to resolve the operating system version but perhaps they should use another way? http://boinc.berkeley.edu/

Best way to identify GPU might be /usr/sbin/system_profiler but the output is long and will need to be awked or something.

Developers target Windows first, Linux second and the Mac third ... DENETC at the moment is windows only (ATI, CUDA, and CPU) ... likely the next applications will be made available on Linux and only later can we expect to see a Mac version...

Well, I'll unquestionably be making things work on Linux and OS X first where things actually work. I've been battling to get anything to even build on Windows for the past 3 days. It's quite painful.

Developers target Windows first, Linux second and the Mac third ... DENETC at the moment is windows only (ATI, CUDA, and CPU) ... likely the next applications will be made available on Linux and only later can we expect to see a Mac version...

Well, I'll unquestionably be making things work on Linux and OS X first where things actually work. I've been battling to get anything to even build on Windows for the past 3 days. It's quite painful.

Yes I know and I have to work with the crap in my job. W7 not so bad though, only computer chess game I can beat at highest level.

Found this paper at Aqua, OpenCL runs only slightly slower than Cuda. And support is available for all OSs; ATI, NVIDIA and other GPUs, though admittedly at an early stage.

http://arxiv.org/abs/1005.2581