How do I know if my GPU is being used
11 Mar 2015 23:46:26 UTC
Topic 198009
(moderation:
I am new to BOINC so I apologize if this was previously explained.
In the Einstein settings, I set it to:
- Use CPU: No
- Use Nvidia GPU: Yes
When I run Einstein, I run my System Monitor. To my surprise, it shows my dual core CPU being used (about 45% each). Other than Firefox and System Monitor, Einstein is the only running program.
Why is it using my CPU when I told it not to do so? More importantly, how can I make it stop using my CPU and start using my GPU? How can I verify that it is doing what I want?
My system:
- 64 bit Kubuntu 14.04
- AMD A6-7400k
- Nvidia GTS 250 (legacy)
- 4 gb ddr3 system ram
I appreciate your insight.
Thank you.
How do I know if my GPU is being used
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Check the BOINC manager, and see what kind of tasks are running. You will have some CPU being used as overhead for the GPU, handling I/O to the disk and whatnot; the exact value varies depending on the project. You can also use a third-party utility such as GPU-z to view the load percentage.
Click Here to see My Detailed BOINC Stats
On your user account page at
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On your user account page at this project web site, take a look at the task list.
When I looked shortly after you posted your question, none of the tasks sent to you were of GPU type. Now, however, you appear to have received five Parkes PMPS cuda32 jobs. The cuda32 substring tells you that these are specifically for nvidia GPU hardware.
You may find that these jobs take a while to run on your GTS 250 GPU. If you'd like to run them faster, you may wish to tick the box which allows beta-test applications to run, as that would get you (as of a few hours ago) 1.52 application to run the same job you are currently running on Rev 1.39 at a rather considerably faster rate.
Look at the status line in
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Look at the status line in the BOINC Manager (I'm running 7.4.42) with an AMD/ATI GPU. Those tasks that show "Running" are using only the CPU. Those tasks using the GPU show something like this: "Running (0.5 CPUs + 1 AMD/AIT GPU)".
One thing I found interesting is that if you configure BOINC to not use all of the CPU's, (I have an i7) with 8 cores, the GPU task will execute much faster.
For running the Binary Radio Pulsar Search (Parkes PMPS XT) 1.41 (PRB5-opencl-ati), if your computer is off running other BOINC tasks using all of the CPU's, along with trying to run one additional task on the GPU, the GPU task will take a LONG time. I went into the computing preferences and reduced the percent available on multiprocessor systems to 87.5%. That number seems to only apply to BOINC CPU tasks, not those running on the GPU. By doing that, I reduced the number of CPU tasks "Running" from 8 to 7, but it then provided some CPU processing that is needed for the GPU, and it runs MUCH faster.
I think the confuser was swapping out running tasks so frequently that in my case, the one GPU task would have required approximately 100 hours to complete because it could not get the resources it needed.
RE: One thing I found
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This project has had GPU tasks for a couple of years now, firstly for NVIDIA GPUs using CUDA and later for ATI/AMD GPUs using OpenCL. Right from the very start, GPU tasks required a degree of CPU support, but particularly when the OpenCL version was introduced. This was very heavily publicised at the time so that even quite casual users who followed the announcements when the apps were initially released would have been at least somewhat aware of the need for CPU support.
Over time, the apps have matured and the CPU involvement has diminished. This is particularly so quite recently with the release of a new Binary Radio Pulsar (BRP) app (as a beta test version) that shows a very significant further reduction in the amount of CPU support needed. You can also economise on CPU support by running more than one GPU task concurrently. For example, if you were to run two, what you would see in your BOINC Manager display would be (0.5 CPUs + 0.5 AMD GPUs) instead of what you listed in your message. The two concurrent GPU tasks would be consuming a full CPU and the full GPU and BOINC would automatically reserve the required CPU core without you having to do it yourself through a preference setting change. The disadvantage of doing it the way you have is that you have a core that can't be used for BOINC CPU tasks even if you are not running any GPU tasks at a given time.
Your computers are hidden so we can't see exactly what model of GPU you have, but even if it's not top of the range, it's quite likely it would really benefit (output-wise) from running more than 1 task concurrently. It would certainly also benefit further running the BRP6-beta 1.52 app rather than the standard 1.41 app that you mention which has none of the recent optimisations.
The announcements about all these changes are made in the more technical forums like Technical News, Cruncher's Corner and Problems and Bug Reports. You will find many threads dealing with people's experiences with GPU apps in those forums. The Cafe is not the best place for technical information.
If you would like further information or assistance in making your GPU perform better than it currently does, browse the technical forums. If you have specific questions, start a thread in Cruncher's Corner where you could expect lots of useful replies.
Cheers,
Gary.