Welcome to the GPUGrid section!

[123bob]

This section is for the newly formed Xtreme GPUGrid Team. Thanks to Riptide and Jupiter for setting it up for us. At the time I write this, we have 18 members.

We have been scattering threads all over the forum since we did not have our own place, now we do. Use this section for all things GPUGrid.

Here is our current roster of team members.




Hello to all of you. I crunch pretty heavily for the Help Cure Cancer (HCC) project at Xtreme WCG. That is CPU only at this time. If WCG gets CUDA running on the HCC project at WCG, I want to be ready. Not to say I will leave here, but I will put appropriate cards in my dedicated crunchers for this and WCG. (I'm running old PCI Virge cards in my dedicated crunchers, all of which can support at least one GTX 200 class card.)

The projects at GPUGrid appear to be worthwhile, and are somewhat still in their infancy. So yes, their are some issues with anything new, but it appears to be settling into something that works.

I went over and joined up at GPUGrid to try to get a feel for how this CUDA stuff worked. Lo and behold I could not run it on my once mighty 8800GTX. I only had an 8600 GTS to work with and that proved to be too slow to realistically run these projects. I was having to abort WUs since they would not completed on time.

I'm currently running only one GTX 260-216 card. It is chewing through work units pretty good. I can even do light gaming (Battlefield) while I crunch. I would expect 9800 GTXs to do OK on this too.

So, with that, Post away on what you are seeing. I'm seeing my 260 put up a rough average of 9500 BOINC points a day. A good quad on CPU crunching at WCG roughly does around 2500. Quite a difference in points!!

Regards,
Bob

[Angmaar]

I would crunch for this on my 9600gt but I don't want to waste a cpu core. Are there any solutions?

[123bob]

I know they have been working on getting the reported CPU utilization down since, as I understand it, the CPU is only feeding data to the GPU. If this will mean that the host CPU can also crunch a CPU work unit while it is hosting the GPU WU, I don't know. I know now that the GPU WU fully occupies the host CPU and will not/ can not allow the core to also process a traditional WU.

There are multiple threads over at GPUGrid's forum. I have not really had the time to sort out what the current state of affairs is. BOINC is moving through software revisions quickly, with apparent improvements in CPU utilization for CUDA apps. I'm waiting a bit to see where this stabilizes at and then will load the "blessed" version.

Right now it really comes down to personal choices. In my case, for the cost of one core in one of my rigs, I have a GTX260-216 cranking out tons of points. Much more than a full standard quad could do. For my case, I have 63 other cores crunching away on the HCC WCG project so one core is not too much.

It comes down to projects too. Right now I'm providing those points to projects that I do not understand as well as I understand the goal of the cancer project at WCG. For now, I'm taking it on faith that the GPUGrid projects will provide humanity with something worthwhile. Your decision may vary depending on your crunching goals, and all here on this team should respect that.

This is also part of why this section exists. To ask those who may know more about it to explain it, in a forum outside of the GPUGrid project forum. We can talk philosophy here, why we do this, and something known as the "cruncher addiction", like we have at the WCG forum....

In the WCG section, we have found on occaision that we can get to the heart of an issue (or a good work around) on the team faster than using the project forum. We have found that our Xtreme WCG forum is full of extremely (or Xtremely..) knowledgeable folks on all things about the project, computers, BOINC, and a host of other stuff. We share that knowledge to the greater good of the team and all who care to read. We then report over at the project forum what we have found in order to help other teams and crunchers, as well as the project technicians and scientists.

Regards,
Bob

[emuexport]

Awesome to finally have a section for GPU-Grid.

I have put my 4200+ back onto GPU Grid with an 8600GTS but not sure how it is going as I haven't looked at it for two days. I have a 4870X2 just waiting to crunch for GPUGrid but no CUDA so no go!

[123bob]

Awesome to finally have a section for GPU-Grid.

I have put my 4200+ back onto GPU Grid with an 8600GTS but not sure how it is going as I haven't looked at it for two days. I have a 4870X2 just waiting to crunch for GPUGrid but no CUDA so no go!

Welcome over to this section. We are all in the same place here, and "pie" is available to anyone.....

Watch that 8600. When it looks like it's ready to finish a WU, look at the next ones that are queued. If you don't think they will make it, abort them. You'll get fresh ones and your card will crunch the next in line. You'll need to "micro-manage" the 8600 like this in order to get some valid WUs into the system.

I have asked for some more sophistication on the GPUGrid pages to give cards like the 8600 class smaller WUs to work on. So far this is in flux. Everyone, particularly the research folks are trying to get a handle on this beast.

If it ultimately annoys you to do this, feel free to wait it out until they get smarter, or you have at least a 9000 series card.

Birth pains of a new techology for us....Welcome to the "hairless father's club" (This is a side reference to those Lamaze fathers out there. Man, I won't do that again...) And realize, this is not to exclude the ladies who would like to join the crunching process.......just don't pull on my hair....

Regards,
Bob

[123bob]

Update to this thread. Now, with version 6.6.9, and probably some of the earlier betas, it no longer burns a full core to crunch the GPU. It uses about 10% of the core, and the core will crunch another WU while it serves the GPU.

For example, if you have a quad and a single GPU running GPUGrid, you will see 4 CPU WUs crunching away, as well as one GPUGrid WU crunching... Five active WUs....

Bob

[Duh]

guys sorry ( I didnt take the time to read the whole thread, dont slap me ) for the silly question but would I be contributing to WCG if I use my gpu (scarce) power to crunch?

[Angmaar]

guys sorry ( I didnt take the time to read the whole thread, dont slap me ) for the silly question but would I be contributing to WCG if I use my gpu (scarce) power to crunch?

Its a different project so it doesn't add to your wcg score.

[skycrane]

with the newest version of Boinc and the 181.xx drivers, it uses less than 10 min of total cpu time to crunch a wu. you can usualy get through 2 a day with a 88gs.

[[XC] Hicks121]

Ok, I have a gtx260-216. What is gpu grid? Vista or xp better?

[Naja002]

Ok, I have a gtx260-216. What is gpu grid? Vista or xp better?

Hey Buddy, not seeing you on the list yet. Go here: Join with your Nvidia graphics card Scroll down a tad and watch the video. Yes, sign up for XS.

I THINK they fixed the XP 1-core issue, but I could be wrong. I use vista 64, so I don't really keep up with XP stuff. 64 is always more productive anyway. If you have vista 64--then just run that.

If you need more help just let me know....

For Windows 32 bit and Windows 64 bit . VERY IMPORTANT, on Windows Vista it is required to deselect 'protected mode' in the advanced tab during installation!

[Martijn]

Is it already possible to disable GPUs that are in the same system? My 280 runs it fine, but the 8600GT powering my other displays starts lagging like hell...

[Naja002]

If the cards are in the same system then as far as I know...the answer is: no.

IIRC, it is something they are working on.....

[[XC] Hicks121]

Hey Buddy, not seeing you on the list yet. Go here: Join with your Nvidia graphics card Scroll down a tad and watch the video. Yes, sign up for XS.

I THINK they fixed the XP 1-core issue, but I could be wrong. I use vista 64, so I don't really keep up with XP stuff. 64 is always more productive anyway. If you have vista 64--then just run that.

If you need more help just let me know....

ok, this weekend im installing vista x64. If i run into issues, ill let ya know brother...thx

Hicks

[Naja002]

ok, this weekend im installing vista x64. If i run into issues, ill let ya know brother...thx

Hicks

Just be sure to keep this part in mind when you install Boinc:

For Windows 32 bit and Windows 64 bit . VERY IMPORTANT, on Windows Vista it is required to deselect 'protected mode' in the advanced tab during installation!

[Martijn]

If the cards are in the same system then as far as I know...the answer is: no.

IIRC, it is something they are working on.....

Great, I'll keep an eye open

[Thund3rb1rd]

+1 more to return work
those are some huge WUs for my puny cards tho LOL
edit: has anyone gotten a g80 chip card to take on WUs? my 8600gt (g84) fussed a little bit, but eventually started working....my 8800gts however (so far) is not taking on any WUs...

[[XC] riptide]

G80 cards not supported.

[Naja002]

GPU FAQ: Overview of cards that run Cuda 2.0 compiled applications

[skycrane]

Yall watch out, the SKY !! is about to reighn to the #1 spot

lets get some competition going....

[[XC] Hicks121]

Got it going!! sheesh!

[emuexport]

Unfortunately I dont have any GPUs that are compatible so I will join as soon as possible. When/If ATI can do CUDA I have a WCd 4870X2 that will go on it!

In the mean time have fun guys!

[skycrane]

hey emuexport, just to let you know, Milkyway@home supports ATI and the 4870 are the top gpu card. if i remember correctly, the single one gets upwards of 50k points a day

so if your up for it, come join the team

[Marvin_The_Martian]

Unfortunately I dont have any GPUs that are compatible so I will join as soon as possible. When/If ATI can do CUDA I have a WCd 4870X2 that will go on it!

In the mean time have fun guys!

The guy who was working on making a cuda emulator which would run cuda apps on cal/brook stopped development on it awhile back, so it's not going to happen.

There are many project which utilise the gpu, and they are growing fast

Glad to see this section here, hope you'll kick some gpugrid but with the xs community. Think you could compete on a very high level since the number of participants is still relatively low compared to the potential XS has in this field.

Good luck to you all