Everything You Need To Know About World Community Grid/BOINC

[retro77]

My IT side says go back to the 32bit client, unless the 64bit client, without the GPU, can out perform your 32bit client with the GPU.

[D_A]

I know. But I have an ATI (RV670) GPU, and Milkyway@home supports RV670's. I had it running pretty damn well before I updated to the 64-bit client.

Are you running 32bit or 64bit drivers?

[Bobsama]

64-bit of course. The same as before. What was odd was swapping to .43_64 seemed to be what broke GPU side of it. I'm going to try reinstalling tomorrow.

And yes, the 64-bit client is worthwhile. It's about 10% more PPD than 32-bit, and I'm not sure that going back to the old version would restore GPU.

[Dahmer]

Odd part is though that even after installing the 64-bit client I'm seeing 32-bit processes...

[D_A]

Nope, that's normal. The work units are all 32bit. The 64bit client is just slightly more efficient with memory and process allocation.

[Musho]

Now that my rig is doing WCG now anyways, I started looking into utilizing my GPU (5870) as well. I decided to start using Milkyway@Home via BOINC, but a problem came up: It's automaticly using both the CPU and GPU client, causing my CPU to work for Milkyway@Home as well. I don't mind helping them out, but fighting diseases is far more important in my opinion, so I'd like Milkyway@Home only to use the GPU client. The question is: How? Thanks!

[Snow Crash]

Now that my rig is doing WCG now anyways, I started looking into utilizing my GPU (5870) as well. I decided to start using Milkyway@Home via BOINC, but a problem came up: It's automaticly using both the CPU and GPU client, causing my CPU to work for Milkyway@Home as well. I don't mind helping them out, but fighting diseases is far more important in my opinion, so I'd like Milkyway@Home only to use the GPU client. The question is: How? Thanks!

Go to the Milkway website, log on to your account, select Milkyway Preferences, Edit preferences, uncheck the CPU box.

[Musho]

Go to the Milkway website, log on to your account, select Milkyway Preferences, Edit preferences, uncheck the CPU box.

Thanks! That fixed it! Now let's continue curing those nasty diseases

[Bobsama]

Thanks! That fixed it! Now let's continue curing those nasty diseases

And if you don't care about poor performance with Aero, you can turn on the use GPU while in computer in use in BOINC, and enable it 24/7.

[D_A]

... or you could just turn aero off

[slaveondope]

Hi all,
Been looking around the forums and noticed the "Lets build a super computer" announcement and decided I wanted to get on board.

Ive been F@H on and off using the gpu's in my sig and just installed WCG today.
I followed some of the threads here and got it setup and joined the team.

So far the rig in sig is moving along at full load and Im about to get a few more rigs going as dedicated.
Those being a AthlonIIx4 620@3.4ghz, Athlon64x2 4450e, and a Athlon64 3200 @2.5ghz.

I guess my question is if there are any tips I should know to improve my output?
Does overclocking the cpu give any gains?
And is there any hardware that may not be up to the task?

I appreciate the input in advance.
Slave

[retro77]

Welcome slaveondope!

Just run the client
Overclocking helps
I'm running it on a netbook Intel Atom N270...

[D_A]

Hi all,
Been looking around the forums and noticed the "Lets build a super computer" announcement and decided I wanted to get on board.

Ive been F@H on and off using the gpu's in my sig and just installed WCG today.
I followed some of the threads here and got it setup and joined the team.

So far the rig in sig is moving along at full load and Im about to get a few more rigs going as dedicated.
Those being a AthlonIIx4 620@3.4ghz, Athlon64x2 4450e, and a Athlon64 3200 @2.5ghz.

I guess my question is if there are any tips I should know to improve my output?
Does overclocking the cpu give any gains?
And is there any hardware that may not be up to the task?

I appreciate the input in advance.
Slave

Anything from a PIII up can help. As for improving performance there's multiple threads (probably should consolidate them all ... again) on the topic. Just keep reading and you'll learn fast.

[Bobsama]

Figured it out. Before, it was installed as a Service. Apparently, running as a service in NT5 would have worked, but running it in NT6 doesn't. Alright. I'll lose a few ppd to running MW@h but oh well.

[Johnmark]

Trying to get Milkyway running the GPU only and letting the CPU crunch for WCG and having problems. MW is not getting any work? And I'm not sure what I should be doing with CPU setting?

Here are screen shots of milky way config. pages.





When I ask BOINC Manager to update MW, the log shows "not reporting or requesting any task

Any ideas are appreciated.

John

[Sam_oslo]

One question.

I had to clean install the OS, but my BIONIC and BIONIC Data-folders are on another drive and still in tact. Can I just reinstall the BIONIC-client on top of that, and what happens to my running/unfinished tasks?

[D_A]

There's a good chance it will just pick up where it left off.

[Sam_oslo]

There's a good chance it will just pick up where it left off.

Thx, it worked

Just installed it on top of the old one, and it piked up my old tasks , just like nothing has happed.

[Musho]

Trying to get Milkyway running the GPU only and letting the CPU crunch for WCG and having problems. MW is not getting any work? And I'm not sure what I should be doing with CPU setting?

Here are screen shots of milky way config. pages.

[IMG].http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u181/Jmarks_2007/MW_pref.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG].http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u181/Jmarks_2007/mwpreferences.jpg[/IMG]

When I ask BOINC Manager to update MW, the log shows "not reporting or requesting any task

Any ideas are appreciated.

John

I had the same problem at first. Turns out it's not using the GPUs when the computer is already in use. To fix that, in your BOINC client click "Advanced" and then "Preferences". Go to "Processor Usage" and tick the box saying "Use GPU while computer is in use". That fixed it for me. The windows UI is slightly laggy, but nothing serious and I'm able to use my PC for anything besides gaming just fine.

I also set "While processor usage is less than ... percent" to 0, so it's unrestricted. Should boost the PPD for the WCG project. I also set "Use at most ... % CPU time" to 100. Good luck!

Edit: What's the PPD goal for the 1-8 may week? The announcement says Movieman wants to try and beat 30k-40k P4s, but I'm unsure how much PPD that would equal.

[D_A]

At a guess ... 50 million. Quite doable if every member of the greater forum community threw one system on the project.

[Johnmark]

I had the same problem at first. Turns out it's not using the GPUs when the computer is already in use. To fix that, in your BOINC client click "Advanced" and then "Preferences". Go to "Processor Usage" and tick the box saying "Use GPU while computer is in use". That fixed it for me. The windows UI is slightly laggy, but nothing serious and I'm able to use my PC for anything besides gaming just fine.

I also set "While processor usage is less than ... percent" to 0, so it's unrestricted. Should boost the PPD for the WCG project. I also set "Use at most ... % CPU time" to 100. Good luck!

Edit: What's the PPD goal for the 1-8 may week? The announcement says Movieman wants to try and beat 30k-40k P4s, but I'm unsure how much PPD that would equal.

Thanks Musho,

I already did that and no go. I've since disconnected that project as I don't want to mess up things before the May1. I'll work on it later in May.

John

[Johnmark]

Got home from work today to find that not all work units all not all being sent out? Had 28 units sitting there waiting to be sent but yet BOINC Manager had sent just one, and that was minutes ago? It just left the finished units sitting there?
I was almost out of work so changed the amount of work to one day's worth and poof it sent out all the finished units and downloaded more? Is this normal ?

P.S. D A , how are you able to display your badges, and what is a "stone" which I heard referenced in another thread?

TIA

John

[Someguy1982]

@ Johnmark

For posting badges, Ive just been copying the image URL from the WCG website as I get them and pasting it into my sig. If you've been checking your stats on wcg website they will show up there as you earn them.

'Stones, unless I'm mistaken, usually refers to point milestones for WCG and BOINC. They are posted in this thread http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=189054. For example, tomorrow I'm going to be hitting my first million BOINC points. Not that I'm looking forward to it or anything...

[retro77]

I've noticed I've had to manually tell mine to report. Global issue?

[Someguy1982]

The work units? Usually it only contacts the scheduler to report tasks and get new ones a couple times a day if that's what you're asking. If you want to get BOINC to report WU's immediatly on its own, I have a tutorial on poppageeks' website. http://www.poppageek.com/howtos 3rd one down.