Folks,

I'm running:
Windows XP SP3
Nvidia Drivers 182.50
BOINC 6.6.23

In the startup, It says:
Cuda Device: GEForce 9400 GT (driver version 18250, CUDA version 1.1, 128MB, est. 3GFLOPS)

But this 9400GT has 512MB RAM and windows confirms that it has 512MB in the control panel.

Of course, since 128 < 256, CUDA will not run because of this.

Has anyone else seen this?

--Mark

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--miw

BOINC doesn't detect what card you have, it uses the information that the driver says you have. So this is a driver issue, in my opinion. Try a different driver.

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Yes. You may well be right. However, I've tried many of the driver versions starting right back at about 181.20 and get the same result. There was an earlier version of BOINC that did not check video card memory and CUDA ran fine with that.

I'd still be keen to know if anyone else has had issue with BOINC getting an incorrect reading of the RAM from the video card, regardless of where the source of the problem is. If nobody else has seen it, then I would actually suspect some issue with the particular brand of 9400GT that I have.... (I thnk it is Gainward, but am not sure. Looking at the card gives no clue and I threw the box out ages ago.)

Note that the driver correctly (or otherwise?) reports 512MB to windows.

--Mark

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--miw

I just checked your computers list, and see that the computer in question reports that it's using driver 1684957559.

Now, I am not sure what driver version that is, but it could well be your problem. If going by the last numbers is the thing to do here as well, it's 175.59, which is under the minimum required 177.35 for Seti CUDA to work correctly. But I am not sure if going by the last numbers is the thing to do here.

Your other system shows driver version 18250, which easily translates to 182.50 ... so what's different between these systems?

Are you using Gainward's driver, or nVidia's driver?

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The difference between the systems was probably that the GeForce 9400 system hadn't reported a SETI unit since it was on driver version 168.49. It shows 182.50 now, since I just forced a report.

Strangely enough, that card did CUDA just fine on version 168.49 back on an older version of BOINC that did not check the amount of memory on the card. (Even though it ostensibly was unsupported.)

I'd still be interested to hear if anyone has had a problem with BOINC not reporting the right amount of memory for a CUDA card.

Edit: The old driver was the one that came with the card most likely. the latest comes from nvidia. Not that it matters. The card is obviously a reference card, to the point that it does not have any card vendor branding on it.

--Mark

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--miw

BOINC has always checked how much memory was on the card, but only with the latest versions does it also check the driver version, that it meets the minimum of 17500 (although 175.15 gives problems).

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Try using the drivers from the nvidia partner who made it... ie. evga/bfg/xfx etc.

I have run into a case where their drivers were slightly different than nvidia drivers.

~Bob

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