GPU utilization factor of BRP apps DANGEROUS!
17 Oct 2012 23:12:02 UTC
Topic 196575
(moderation:
[I searched forums for "GPU utilization factor of BRP apps DANGEROUS!" with 0 results]
Preferences for this project:
"GPU utilization factor of BRP apps
DANGEROUS! Only touch this if you are absolutely sure of what you are doing!
Wrong setting might even damage your computer! Use solely on your own risk!
Min: 0.0 / Max: 1.0 / Default: 1.0"
I understand I have a card that is not really a great candidate for GPU usage for EINSTEIN@HOME but it was sitting in a chest of drawers unused.)
(HIS) AMD Radeon 1G 6850 basically similar too; AMD Radeon 6850 [bad, I know!)
ATI: Catalyst 12.8 driver installed for GNU/Linux
Machine:
GenuineIntel
Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2320 CPU @ 3.00GHz [Family 6 Model 42 Stepping 7]
(4 processors)
OS: Linux
3.2.0-3-amd64 (updated)
BOINC client: boinc-client (7.0.27+dfsg-5)
[I contacted the Developer amd he said to not use latest client from http://boinc.berkeley.edu/download.php as the *.deb for my Debian system will perform BEST from the Debian development tree. [I am sorry I didn't save his reply to quote!]
Package was installed via apt-get install boinc-client, etc.
So, should I change anything? I am sure I have had SOME computational acceleration and the maching ONLY is in use for E@H.
Regards,
~ hermit60
PS First post, so let me know what I have failed to add that may help!
GPU utilization factor of BRP apps DANGEROUS!
)
Neither of your hosts detect a GPU, so changing the utilisation factor is pointless at the moment,
Claggy
RE: Neither of your hosts
)
Thank you, sir!
RE: RE: Neither of your
)
I am going to check on:
fglrx-driver
amd-opencl-icd
Probably best to DISABLE that error in boinc-client, for now. :)
RE: [I searched forums for
)
Don't use the ordinary search box - click the "advanced search" link underneath it. Make sure you search all forums and you set the maximum time allowed - 1 year. By doing that with the search string "gpu utilization factor", I got about 60 hits and easily found the original announcement of the feature by Bernd.
I don't know why you think that card is particularly 'bad'. Once you get the card recognised by BOINC it should be able to crunch just fine.
Is that a pre-compiled driver and is it suitable for your platform and are you sure that driver is actually loaded and being used? I've just built a new linux box with a HD7770 and I found a script that will download the driver sources from AMD and then build a driver against the appropriate kernel header files for the precise kernel that I'm using. The script does everything, including making sure a full build system (gcc, make, etc) and the appropriate kernel header files are all present and up-to-date before downloading the latest driver sources. All I had to do was invoke the script and then reboot the system once it had finished. When BOINC was restarted, it properly detected the 7770 and proceeded to download BRP4 tasks. It's been crunching away quite nicely.
I decided to play with the new 12.2 openSUSE and found the script on one of the openSUSE forums. It's the first time I've tried openSUSE - it's quite a bit more polished (and bloated!!!) than what I'm used to. I chose it because I needed to be able to run a very recent BOINC for the ATI/AMD OpenCL support. OpenSUSE was the first one I found where I could run the 7.0.31 client without missing library issues.
Any particular reason you're running an AMD optimised kernel on Intel? Just seems a bit strange.
The latest package on openSUSE was the final 6.12.x (6.12.43 I think). I installed that package to get all the dependencies but I don't run that. I grabbed 7.0.31 from boinc.berkeley.edu and installed that in a BOINC folder under my home directory. I tested the client executable for missing libraries with ldd and apart from a grumble or two about version numbers, there was no showstopper. There was something missing for the manager so I decided to use the 6.12.43 manager. I installed both manager and client in /usr/local/bin and run them under my own (unprivileged) username.
You can't have had any 'acceleration' as BOINC isn't detecting your GPU. The most likely reason is that you are not using an appropriate driver. Once you rectify that, you should be fine.
Cheers,
Gary.
RE: (HIS) AMD Radeon 1G
)
When you do get it working, and working correctly, you're looking at a RAC of 10K+ only on this very bad GPU... Or at least, my HD 6850 2GB --running only 1 task at a time-- manages to get 10,500+ RAC peaks. I only run Einstein on my GPU with one CPU free for it, the other 3 CPU cores are used up by Seti.
RE: RE: Intel(R) Core(TM)
)
AMD64 aka x86_64, see wikipedia here