I just upgraded my PCs from boinc 6.4.5 to 6.10.18, and my ati drivers from 8.12 to 10.3 to allow me to use the default client instead of the anonymous one. GPU Usage on all PCs is now 90+%. While this is ok on my crunchers it makes for a very slow desktop on my 'general use'. Is there an equivalent to the anonymous 'cmdline w' parameter that works with the default client? I am aware of the 'use gpu while computer is in use' option, but it seems to be a very coarse-grained approach. And what's worse - if I have a MW WU at 99% and happen to nudge the mouse that WU goes back to 0%. So depending on my work habits I could have my 4870 running at over 90% usage for over 90% of the time but never complete a WU. Much better to have my 4870 crunching continuously, even if only at 70% usage - that at least would allow me to complete some WUs. And keep the 'use gpu' option for those who need 100% of their gpu for 'work', eg gamers.
A W-equivalent would be much smoother.

And while we're at it is there a way to have MW not use the cpu for crunching? Given the 100 fold speed difference between an i7 cpu and a 4870 it seems a waste to crunch MW on cpu when the cpu could be more gainfully employed crunching cpu-only projects.

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Cheers,

PeterV

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You can turn off your cpu at your account / MilkyWay@home preferences , from the home page.

The current version is really driving over the gpu, I didnt seen a smooth fix to this problem yet. But once, boinc turned off my gpu after my cpu went above 25%. Yes it sounds strange but it worked for me. But this option showed upp for me in boinc only 1 time. Then I got my boinc reinstalled, never seen this option again. (lol)

I checked my preferences page - it already has
Use CPU(enforced by 6.10+ clients) unticked.
??!
So why do I have 4 cpu cores crunching mw?
Thanks anyway.

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Cheers,

PeterV

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Hmmmm...

That's strange. I'm using 6.10.18 (XPP-64) on mine with CPU tasks disabled via web preference and it works as expected.

Only thing I can think of is to check and make sure you don't have it overridden locally.

I agree, the way BOINC handles the GPU resources leaves something to be desired for typical desktop use (all or nothing when in use). I suppose MW could implement the W command as a custom preference option, since commands get passed with the task to the host, but that's not an ideal situation either.

For the restart from scratch after suspend, what I do is just suspend the GPU projects I have running on the host when I want to use it. The only problem with that is then I have to remember to turn them back on when I'm done, but it beats heating the card up for nothing. ;-)

BTW, don't forget that you need a 'nursemaid' process running on the CPU for each GPU task you have running. If you look at them, I think you'll find the MW tasks you have running aren't burning up a whole lot of CPU time.

Alinator

Maybe just boinc slow to change, I'd try run out all task, or detach and attach and see what happen.

Add the <ncpus>0 option in your cc_config.xml (in BOINC application data path) if the server preferences do not work as expected (tested with BOINC 6.10.18):

<cc_config>
<log_flags>
</log_flags>
<options>
<ncpus>0</ncpus>
</options>
</cc_config>