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Posts by therealjcool

1) Message boards : Number crunching : Milkyway going crazy... LOL (Message 44707)
Posted 5 Dec 2010 by therealjcool
Post:
Thanks :)
Sorry for the long delay, I was on the road at lot lately. Anyway, I was able to fix the issues with MilkyWay. What I did was

1) Install latest 10.11 Catalyst with APP
2) Upgrade to BOINC 6.12.8

Not sure which of these did it, but it looks like it's working now, running 1 MW WU per GPU :) Thanks for your input guys!

2) Message boards : Number crunching : Milkyway going crazy... LOL (Message 43909)
Posted 17 Nov 2010 by therealjcool
Post:
Are you running IE9 Beta? If you are set it to "dont use gpu" - its clashes like crazy with various things, especially the MW/WCG combination, with exactly those symptoms. Its a known Beta issue and MS advise setting to no gpu use for now in IE9 options/config.

If not .... back to the drawing board ....

Regards
Zy


IE9? Hell no.. I never use IE, and certainly installed no IE9 beta (unless WIn7 did that autoamtically). Thanks for the suggestion though :)

@kashi: I am using the standard Cat. 10.10 I think. Will search for that extended one and try again, thanks.

@Jack: I've got a custom waterchiller built specifically for this rig. Basically I can choose the water temperature I want to run at. This screenshot was taken with a water temperature of about 20C (EK FC blocks are awesome) :)

Since you asked, here:s a pic of that rig:



Edit: Maybe I should try the latest BOINC Beta client? See if that will recognize everything properly?
3) Message boards : Number crunching : Milkyway going crazy... LOL (Message 43897)
Posted 17 Nov 2010 by therealjcool
Post:
It seems my MW@Home as gone crazy. It's showing to run a total of 92 tasks simultaneously (!) on my 2 HD5870 GPUs, which makes for a total of 116 running BOINC tasks with my 24 CPU-Tasks on WCG. Crazy.. how can I fix this? I already tried re-setting the project to no avail.

Win7 Ult x64, Cat. 10.10, Dual HD5870, BOINC 6.10.58, running the optimized ATI_0.23_x64 client.

4) Message boards : Number crunching : ATI Radeon HD5970 performance on boinc (Message 35858)
Posted 20 Jan 2010 by therealjcool
Post:
For those running on stock cooling, and do not want to overclock, I would advise using MSI Afterburner to undervolt their cards to minimum voltage (1,0V). All cards should be able to handle that at stock speeds, and it will save you approx. 50W as well as cause the stock cooler to not ramp up all the time (better on the ears) :)
5) Message boards : Number crunching : Some feedback on Milkyway GPU crunching with various GPUs (Message 32245)
Posted 10 Oct 2009 by therealjcool
Post:
Ok, using the b-1 command along with 3 WU setting on 0.20b seems to be hammring the GPU pretty good:



Still, I don't like uneven numbers (after all, 0.33*3 is oly 0.99 so I am wasting 0.01 GPUs, no?) so I'm gonna try running 4 concurrently next.

6) Message boards : Number crunching : Some feedback on Milkyway GPU crunching with various GPUs (Message 32210)
Posted 9 Oct 2009 by therealjcool
Post:
Err, okay. I will try 0.20b again with that parameter (whatever that does) when I get home (in about 12 hours).
7) Message boards : Number crunching : Longer WUs for GPUs? (Message 32209)
Posted 9 Oct 2009 by therealjcool
Post:


BTW: MW acknowledges a maximum of 8 cores, so it hands out not more than 48 WUs at a time. The issues arising from this and possible solutions are currently being discussed in thread "Problem with tiny cache in MW" .. though I guess it's a tough read.

MrS


Wow, then they are really far behind. My Quad 8347HE Opteron is from 2007 (> 2 year old HW) and it has 16 cores (4 x 4)...

8) Message boards : Number crunching : Longer WUs for GPUs? (Message 32197)
Posted 9 Oct 2009 by therealjcool
Post:
Sorry for double posting, but I think I got it as good as it gets on the 5870 now... using 0.20 ATI Win64 (NOT 0.20b) with the app_info set to 0.33 GPUs (no other parameters changed)



Now on to optimizing the other rigs, lol ^^
9) Message boards : Number crunching : Longer WUs for GPUs? (Message 32196)
Posted 9 Oct 2009 by therealjcool
Post:
Ok, did what you guys suggested and running 3 WUs simultaneously now with 0.20b.

I'm getting a steady 90% load without any drops, so that is o-k. However I don't see more than 90% GPU usage, which is a general problem of 0.20b for me. No matter how many WUs I crunch concurrently or what p/w parameters I use, it won't go over 90%. Only way is to pause the CPU applications, which is not an option obviously.

I don't see that problem with 0.20 so I'm just gonna revert back for now.

Edit:

A 8 core machine or 4 core with HT will have less of a problem but we don't have those, so we can't test.


Well the machine I'm running the 5870 on is a Gulftown Hexacore with HT, so it has 12 Threads - still I only get 48 WUs for that machine, or roughly 16 minutes of GPU work buffer. So much for the quota system working properly, lol.

I guess I could put it in the Dual Gainestown rig (16 threads) instead if that helps with the crappy quota system...

Does it _ever_ assign more than 48 WUs per system? Doesn't seem to.
10) Message boards : Number crunching : Some feedback on Milkyway GPU crunching with various GPUs (Message 32190)
Posted 9 Oct 2009 by therealjcool
Post:
Just reverted back to 0.20 because 0.20b only gives me ~90% GPU load (no matter what w or p settings I try or how many WUs I run concurrently) while 0.20 gives me 98-99% at least.

Only way to get to 99% on 0.20b is pause the CPU WUs, which is not an option of course.

Ninja Edit: Running 2 WUs on 0.20 works way better. I am now seeing GPU usage between 85 and 99%, no more dropdowns to 50%.

But something is definitely off with 0.20b (for me, at least)
11) Message boards : Number crunching : Longer WUs for GPUs? (Message 32188)
Posted 9 Oct 2009 by therealjcool
Post:
0.20b versions are here: http://www.file-upload.net/download-1931227/Milkyway_0.20b_ATI.zip.html

Ok, so I am getting mixed results with running 2 WUs concurrently. It seems to work for some time, but it looks like the program is trying to "auto-sync" the WUs after a while. I paused one deliberately as to get the 2 WUs to not finish together, and for a few minutes this works, after that, it goes back to syncing the WUs and I get worse performance than with only 1 WU running :(

12) Message boards : Number crunching : Some feedback on Milkyway GPU crunching with various GPUs (Message 32187)
Posted 9 Oct 2009 by therealjcool
Post:
Where in Germany do you live, by the way? Ich bin aus Stuttgart ;)

At the opposite edge of Germany, in the northeast instead of the southwest. To be more specific: Rostock.


Ok, I just updated the 5870 rig to 0.20b and set it to 0,5 GPUs - now it's crunching 2 WUs simultaneously without the drops to 50%.
BUT: I only see ~90% GPU load instead of the 99% I had previously. I will try setting w0.9 to see if this improves the load

BTW, hast Du ICQ oder so? Wenn ja kannst mich ja mal anschreiben, 170279477 ;)
13) Message boards : Number crunching : Longer WUs for GPUs? (Message 32175)
Posted 9 Oct 2009 by therealjcool
Post:
Nice, thanks. I will update to 0.20b tomorrow/later today and also activate 2 WUs per GPU and see where that lands me.

I am already seeing close to 0 CPU time on the GPU WUs though, so that's definitely a plus.
14) Message boards : Number crunching : Some feedback on Milkyway GPU crunching with various GPUs (Message 32173)
Posted 9 Oct 2009 by therealjcool
Post:
Ah, okay. I don't even have the 0.20b yet, time for an update already I guess ;)

Yes, I was using the n parameter because that was in the readme of the one I downloaded a few days back. Explains why it wouldn't work ;)

Where in Germany do you live, by the way? Ich bin aus Stuttgart ;)
15) Message boards : Number crunching : Problem with tiny cache in MW (Message 32169)
Posted 8 Oct 2009 by therealjcool
Post:
Errr.. just to make sure I got this straight - if the Servers or my internet connection go down, I will run out of work in 20-40 minutes depending on the machine?

Wow.. that is an extremely short timespan. I run all my crunchers 24/7, and all the CPUs have at least 3 days of WCG work queued up, most have 5 or 7 days... I couldn't stand the thought of them ever idling.

Since I'm used to my ATI GPUs idling, I won't mind as much, I guess :D
16) Message boards : Number crunching : Some feedback on Milkyway GPU crunching with various GPUs (Message 32166)
Posted 8 Oct 2009 by therealjcool
Post:
Yes, I got a few Gulftowns running already, real crunching monsters they are ;)
No Larrabee here - yet ;)

And you're right, I just checked the results page and it said 19,6-19,8s per WU on the 5870.

I tried running 2 WUs on one GPU with the appropriate commandline argument on a HD4870 yesterday, but it still wouldn't do 2 WUs at the same time, so I figured it doesn't work... but maybe I was doing something wrong, gonna try again tomorrow (1:30am here)
17) Message boards : Number crunching : Longer WUs for GPUs? (Message 32161)
Posted 8 Oct 2009 by therealjcool
Post:
I already mentioned it here, but I do feel the need to separately address this point so we can have a proper discussion about this:

WU runtimes on high end GPUs are way too short, causing everyone who runs high end GPUs to lose quite some performance. This is due to the time it takes for a new WU to be started, after the previous WU is finished. On an HD4870, this is alredy quite significant, however, it gets raised to a whole new level when running an HD5800 series card (which will probably become pretty popular these coming months).

To give you an idea of what I'm talking about, have a look at this graph:



Every 21 seconds, the GPU drops down while a new WU is loaded into memory or whatever.

Anybody else seeing this issue?
18) Message boards : Number crunching : HD5870 (Message 32160)
Posted 8 Oct 2009 by therealjcool
Post:
Just got an HD5870 as well. It takes on average 21s to complete a WU using the optimized 0.20 Win x64 client app. I am running 900Mhz Core @ 1,075V VGPU (stock on these cards is usually 1,16V). A small overclock in combination with undervolting the card makes for an even more efficient cruncher, also the stock cooler won't go past ~40% or so, being easier on the ears.

To adjust the VGPU on your 5850/5870 card, simply use MSI Afterburner - a very neat tool for changing clockrates and voltage that should work on any reference design HD5800 series card (as of now, all cards are still reference design).
19) Message boards : Number crunching : Some feedback on Milkyway GPU crunching with various GPUs (Message 32158)
Posted 8 Oct 2009 by therealjcool
Post:
20 minutes sounds like an optimised cpu app. See this host.


Naw, just an unreleased CPU ;)

Bah Humbug...

The better thing to do is to not compare projects at all, but there are still tons of people who cling tenaciously to this broken credit system and the pipedream that "parity" can be salvaged out of this wreck...

However, per "The Bible of BOINC Cross Project Parity" located here, Milkyway is currently paying less than SETI, just not as much less than SETI as WCG is...if one believes in such silly charts...given that the same silly chart says that WCG is paying out slightly more than Rosetta, but Rosetta is closer to parity with SETI than WCG is (it should show that Rosetta is even lower compared to SETI, but yet it shows higher)...

Ah, the Follies of Fall are upon us... Credit parity... Postings of graphs that backfire.... What ever will be next...?


You are probably right, best to simply ignore the effed up Credit system since I/we can't change it anyways. It just never really occured to me that there are differences that huge between the projects.

By the way, I just installed my HD5870. Running 900 Core @ 1,1V (so slightly undervolted), it's doing the WUs in 21s average. 53 credits every 21s.. I'm gonna need a LONG time to get used to that lol.
20) Message boards : Number crunching : Some feedback on Milkyway GPU crunching with various GPUs (Message 32127)
Posted 8 Oct 2009 by therealjcool
Post:

I think you missed the point. You need to compare a stock cpu app against other projects stock cpu app.

It just so happens that a volunteer has now optimised that stock app and compiled it for use on gpu....that is the beauty of a project that opens up it source code for optimisation by the project volunteers. Those projects who don't or can't do suffer, but they will just have to rely on the folks who do gpu crunching to put their cpu's to use those projects. What the heck, the loss of a couple thousand credits per day by doing work for MalariaControl on the cpu is no biggy when your doing 150k+.....


I did.. one WU gives 53 BOINC credits right? I crunched one in the stock app.. it took 20 minutes or so, running on 1 thread of my Gulftown CPU @ 4Ghz. So if that is 53 credits per every 20 minutes, you'll get approx. 159 BOINC credits / hours per CPU per core/thread, right?

Well, on the average WCG project, you get like 100 BOINC credits for a 4h runtime WU (on the same CPU). And then along comes the qorum and cuts it down some, so you're effectively getting 75 credits or so for a 4h WU.

So we're looking at 636 vs. 75 credits for the stock CPU runtime. Means that milkyway claims (on average) 850% higher than WCG, WITHOUT the optimized apps. See where this is going :D

Now I really don't care about getting the most points (or I wouldn't run WCG, obviously), I just think it would be nice if inter-BOINC projects would try to be at least halfway comparable to each other.


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