no....not under warrenty.....:(

but time for a 600 watter......was a 465 watt ps....hope to be back up and running, on satarday

Ok, had 2 Lunatic cuda work units running on my 460. When I went to bed after some hours of 3d games, I looked at the task list. There were around 50 completed cuda tasks awaiting report, but most were "computation error" with total times of less than a minute. Is this the cuda apps colliding with the 3d game? If so, why doesn't the cuda app back off instead of crashing or having errors? Or, better yet, slowing down or pausing until more cuda-space frees up when the big 3d app quits?

Checking this morning, the overnight work had no cuda errors at all -- there are 11 cudas and 1 normal awaiting report.

Are the errors a common issue when regular 3d apps are also running?

---

use something like
<exclusive_gpu_app>Diver Jimmy.exe</exclusive_gpu_app>
in cc_config.xml (replace with the .exe of the game/3dapp) or manually suspend GPU when e.g. watching movies.

From my experience the apps don't like things like resolution switches, sometimes all tasks after the switch erorring out.
Also your 3d app might be pulling memory from the CUDA app. iirc memory checks are done at the start of a task only.

better be on the safe side and make sure you are not crunching on the GPU when you are heavily using it otherwise.

---

Carola
-------
I'm multilingual - I can misunderstand people in several languages!

use something like
<exclusive_gpu_app>Diver Jimmy.exe</exclusive_gpu_app>
in cc_config.xml (replace with the .exe of the game/3dapp) or manually suspend GPU when e.g. watching movies.

From my experience the apps don't like things like resolution switches, sometimes all tasks after the switch erorring out.
Also your 3d app might be pulling memory from the CUDA app. iirc memory checks are done at the start of a task only.

better be on the safe side and make sure you are not crunching on the GPU when you are heavily using it otherwise.

Never had that issue on any of my cards. If I'm using something intensive on the card obviously Seti@Home gets turned off due to performance reasons in the game I'm playing. However watching videos, youtube, or playing little 2D games has never been an issue. Of course it varies from application to application some get along with it better than others.

---

Traveling through space at ~67,000mph!

Most likely, the problem you had is running out of graphics memory. I had that problem when I was using an 8600GT with 500mb of VRAM as both my main card for monitor and for seti. What was happening is that the winblowz 3D user interface (aqua? aero? I always forget the name) was using up a little over 200mb of RAM by itself, which didn't leave sufficient room for a seti cuda unit to run as well. As soon as I turned off the win 3D effects, I got no more errors.

The tricky part is that it didn't say or give any indication that it was out of memory, it just gave me a message like "error on line 101"...which I presume was how far the GPU made it into the program before it ran out of memory.

Anyway, I'd suggest that you don't play any 3D games while you're running seti on the GPU, because you're very likely going to have errors. Just go up into the menus at the top of the boinc manager and suspend the GPU while you play the game. Sure, it'll hurt your RAC a bit, but at least you won't be erroring out a bunch of units, which isn't good for anyone (you, seti, or me). :)

I even shut seti GPU down when I'm watching videos with dxva acceleration, because small portions of the videos go into vmem, which would cause errors. Now that I've moved up to cards with at least 1gb of vram, I haven't had any of the error issues, but it's still better to be safe than sorry, imo.

Good luck crunching.

Oh, btw, I bought three gtx 460s this week (galaxy 768mb and 2 msi HAWX with 1gb and a big overclock on the GPU/MEM). I am blown away by these things. They're cheap, but they're soooooooooooooooooooooo fast. The three of them crunching away, and then my 5870 eating up astropulse tasks when I can get 'em has really increased my output. I had over 50k cobblestones yesterday (the entire amount I've done since Nov 2002 is only 1.6 million, but I am 3rd on my signup date...for now).

Still, if there is anyone out there who is looking for some amazing crunchers with a ton of bang for your buck, look no further than the 460. Once the 560 comes out, the price of the 460s will drop even further and they will be an absolute STEAL. Running 2 in 1 computer, crunching 4 units at a time and I'm loving it. Even with a mild overclock, temps are at 52C. Just incredible, incredible, incredible little workhorses!

Most likely, the problem you had is running out of graphics memory. I had that problem when I was using an 8600GT with 500mb of VRAM as both my main card for monitor and for seti. What was happening is that the winblowz 3D user interface (aqua? aero? I always forget the name) was using up a little over 200mb of RAM by itself, which didn't leave sufficient room for a seti cuda unit to run as well. As soon as I turned off the win 3D effects, I got no more errors.

The tricky part is that it didn't say or give any indication that it was out of memory, it just gave me a message like "error on line 101"...which I presume was how far the GPU made it into the program before it ran out of memory.

Anyway, I'd suggest that you don't play any 3D games while you're running seti on the GPU, because you're very likely going to have errors. Just go up into the menus at the top of the boinc manager and suspend the GPU while you play the game. Sure, it'll hurt your RAC a bit, but at least you won't be erroring out a bunch of units, which isn't good for anyone (you, seti, or me). :)

I even shut seti GPU down when I'm watching videos with dxva acceleration, because small portions of the videos go into vmem, which would cause errors. Now that I've moved up to cards with at least 1gb of vram, I haven't had any of the error issues, but it's still better to be safe than sorry, imo.

Good luck crunching.

Oh, btw, I bought three gtx 460s this week (galaxy 768mb and 2 msi HAWX with 1gb and a big overclock on the GPU/MEM). I am blown away by these things. They're cheap, but they're soooooooooooooooooooooo fast. The three of them crunching away, and then my 5870 eating up astropulse tasks when I can get 'em has really increased my output. I had over 50k cobblestones yesterday (the entire amount I've done since Nov 2002 is only 1.6 million, but I am 3rd on my signup date...for now).

Still, if there is anyone out there who is looking for some amazing crunchers with a ton of bang for your buck, look no further than the 460. Once the 560 comes out, the price of the 460s will drop even further and they will be an absolute STEAL. Running 2 in 1 computer, crunching 4 units at a time and I'm loving it. Even with a mild overclock, temps are at 52C. Just incredible, incredible, incredible little workhorses!

Wow Aero was using 200mb of memory? On Windows 7 it uses about 50MB or less. Crazy were you on Vista? My GTX 480 rarely gets anywhere near close, even when gaming, of running out of ram on the gpu. GTA 4 is the closest it gets using up a little over a GB of ram, everything else uses at max 600-800MB.

I've never had a WU error due to playing games, most games use up more than 25% cpu placing BOINC into suspend until the usage drops. So essentially it's only crunching during map loads or other low usage times. Doesn't really help the RAC but doesn't hurt it any either.

Those 460's are monsters, if I had it to do again I think I would have went with two of those instead of my GTX 480, however I do really really enjoy 32x AA /16AF in games without a hint of slow down on one card, and handles anything I've ever thrown at it without issue. ;)

---

Traveling through space at ~67,000mph!

Most likely, the problem you had is running out of graphics memory. I had that problem when I was using an 8600GT with 500mb of VRAM as both my main card for monitor and for seti. What was happening is that the winblowz 3D user interface (aqua? aero? I always forget the name) was using up a little over 200mb of RAM by itself, which didn't leave sufficient room for a seti cuda unit to run as well. As soon as I turned off the win 3D effects, I got no more errors.

The tricky part is that it didn't say or give any indication that it was out of memory, it just gave me a message like "error on line 101"...which I presume was how far the GPU made it into the program before it ran out of memory.

Anyway, I'd suggest that you don't play any 3D games while you're running seti on the GPU, because you're very likely going to have errors. Just go up into the menus at the top of the boinc manager and suspend the GPU while you play the game. Sure, it'll hurt your RAC a bit, but at least you won't be erroring out a bunch of units, which isn't good for anyone (you, seti, or me). :)

I even shut seti GPU down when I'm watching videos with dxva acceleration, because small portions of the videos go into vmem, which would cause errors. Now that I've moved up to cards with at least 1gb of vram, I haven't had any of the error issues, but it's still better to be safe than sorry, imo.

Good luck crunching.

Oh, btw, I bought three gtx 460s this week (galaxy 768mb and 2 msi HAWX with 1gb and a big overclock on the GPU/MEM). I am blown away by these things. They're cheap, but they're soooooooooooooooooooooo fast. The three of them crunching away, and then my 5870 eating up astropulse tasks when I can get 'em has really increased my output. I had over 50k cobblestones yesterday (the entire amount I've done since Nov 2002 is only 1.6 million, but I am 3rd on my signup date...for now).

Still, if there is anyone out there who is looking for some amazing crunchers with a ton of bang for your buck, look no further than the 460. Once the 560 comes out, the price of the 460s will drop even further and they will be an absolute STEAL. Running 2 in 1 computer, crunching 4 units at a time and I'm loving it. Even with a mild overclock, temps are at 52C. Just incredible, incredible, incredible little workhorses!

Wow Aero was using 200mb of memory? On Windows 7 it uses about 50MB or less. Crazy were you on Vista? My GTX 480 rarely gets anywhere near close, even when gaming, of running out of ram on the gpu. GTA 4 is the closest it gets using up a little over a GB of ram, everything else uses at max 600-800MB.

I've never had a WU error due to playing games, most games use up more than 25% cpu placing BOINC into suspend until the usage drops. So essentially it's only crunching during map loads or other low usage times. Doesn't really help the RAC but doesn't hurt it any either.

Those 460's are monsters, if I had it to do again I think I would have went with two of those instead of my GTX 480, however I do really really enjoy 32x AA /16AF in games without a hint of slow down on one card, and handles anything I've ever thrown at it without issue. ;)

Win 7. That was with all the effects turned on. It went down to about 35-40mb when I turned aero off. I can't imagine how it used that much either, but it did.

I have a 5870 for gaming, which is more than adequate for what little gaming I do. The 5870 screams on the astropulse units too. So much so that when the price drops, I'm gonna buy one for each computer so that I won't have to use the CPUs to do astropulse units. Or I may go the 6950 to 6970 route, perhaps, since they're upgradeable via bios flash. Either way, I love having the speed there when the occasional astropulse unit pops up on the screen.

---

-baron_iv
Proud member of:
GPU Users Group

Win 7. That was with all the effects turned on. It went down to about 35-40mb when I turned aero off. I can't imagine how it used that much either, but it did.

I have a 5870 for gaming, which is more than adequate for what little gaming I do. The 5870 screams on the astropulse units too. So much so that when the price drops, I'm gonna buy one for each computer so that I won't have to use the CPUs to do astropulse units. Or I may go the 6950 to 6970 route, perhaps, since they're upgradeable via bios flash. Either way, I love having the speed there when the occasional astropulse unit pops up on the screen.

How much faster is your 5870 etc. on astropulse units? I think my machine always crunches them on the cpu but I could be wrong, I just know they take 6-8 hours but it's all for the cause. Prices varying, I've been thinking about picking up another card to stick into my cruncher, not sure if I want to go the full 480 route or something smaller to use as a physx card for gaming. Probably go smaller and pick out a 450 or 460.

---

Traveling through space at ~67,000mph!

use something like
<exclusive_gpu_app>Diver Jimmy.exe</exclusive_gpu_app>
in cc_config.xml (replace with the .exe of the game/3dapp) or manually suspend GPU when e.g. watching movies.

From my experience the apps don't like things like resolution switches, sometimes all tasks after the switch erorring out.
Also your 3d app might be pulling memory from the CUDA app. iirc memory checks are done at the start of a task only.

better be on the safe side and make sure you are not crunching on the GPU when you are heavily using it otherwise.

There is no file named cc_config.xml on my computer.

---

use something like
<exclusive_gpu_app>Diver Jimmy.exe</exclusive_gpu_app>
in cc_config.xml (replace with the .exe of the game/3dapp) or manually suspend GPU when e.g. watching movies.

From my experience the apps don't like things like resolution switches, sometimes all tasks after the switch erorring out.
Also your 3d app might be pulling memory from the CUDA app. iirc memory checks are done at the start of a task only.

better be on the safe side and make sure you are not crunching on the GPU when you are heavily using it otherwise.

There is no file named cc_config.xml on my computer.

That's because you have to make it yourself, Boinc doesn't come with it,

See Client configuration

and

How do I configure my client using the cc_config.xml file?

Claggy

Thank you! exclusive_gpu_app is just what I was looking for.

<cc_config>
   <log_flags>
   </log_flags>
   <options>
      <exclusive_gpu_app>cityofheroes.exe</exclusive_gpu_app>
   </options>
</cc_config>

ETA: I note the BB code tag doesn't preserve formatting, making it relatively worthless :( http://www.bbcode.org/examples/?id=15

---

Thank you! exclusive_gpu_app is just what I was looking for.

<cc_config>
   <log_flags>
   </log_flags>
   <options>
      <exclusive_gpu_app>cityofheroes.exe</exclusive_gpu_app>
   </options>
</cc_config>

ETA: I note the BB code tag doesn't preserve formatting, making it relatively worthless :( http://www.bbcode.org/examples/?id=15

Use PRE instead of CODE... (see the Quote)

Helli

---

A loooong time ago: First Credits after SETI@home Restart

Win 7. That was with all the effects turned on. It went down to about 35-40mb when I turned aero off. I can't imagine how it used that much either, but it did.

I have a 5870 for gaming, which is more than adequate for what little gaming I do. The 5870 screams on the astropulse units too. So much so that when the price drops, I'm gonna buy one for each computer so that I won't have to use the CPUs to do astropulse units. Or I may go the 6950 to 6970 route, perhaps, since they're upgradeable via bios flash. Either way, I love having the speed there when the occasional astropulse unit pops up on the screen.

How much faster is your 5870 etc. on astropulse units? I think my machine always crunches them on the cpu but I could be wrong, I just know they take 6-8 hours but it's all for the cause. Prices varying, I've been thinking about picking up another card to stick into my cruncher, not sure if I want to go the full 480 route or something smaller to use as a physx card for gaming. Probably go smaller and pick out a 450 or 460.

be careful if you get a Physx card for a GTX 480, the Physx card will have to have AT LEAST half as many CUDA cores as your 480 in order to see an improvement in FPS. I have read some articles concerning the matter, and indeed if your Physx card has less than half the CUDA cores of your main card then you will see NO BENEFIT from that Physx card.

---

be careful if you get a Physx card for a GTX 480, the Physx card will have to have AT LEAST half as many CUDA cores as your 480 in order to see an improvement in FPS. I have read some articles concerning the matter, and indeed if your Physx card has less than half the CUDA cores of your main card then you will see NO BENEFIT from that Physx card.

I'm sure things will change in the future, but I've yet to see an FPS increase using a cuda card at all that made a significant difference. Used a 460 with my 480 at one time as a phsyx card and saw a 3-5 fps increase in metro 2033. It could be due to my resolution I suppose at 1680x1050 but I'm not sure.

---

Traveling through space at ~67,000mph!

be careful if you get a Physx card for a GTX 480, the Physx card will have to have AT LEAST half as many CUDA cores as your 480 in order to see an improvement in FPS. I have read some articles concerning the matter, and indeed if your Physx card has less than half the CUDA cores of your main card then you will see NO BENEFIT from that Physx card.

I'm sure things will change in the future, but I've yet to see an FPS increase using a cuda card at all that made a significant difference. Used a 460 with my 480 at one time as a phsyx card and saw a 3-5 fps increase in metro 2033. It could be due to my resolution I suppose at 1680x1050 but I'm not sure.

Oh lord, that's the difference. Your 480 has plenty of power at that resolution. It's actually bored! haha, i'm guessing at 2560x1600 it would make a noticeable difference!

---

Oh lord, that's the difference. Your 480 has plenty of power at that resolution. It's actually bored! haha, i'm guessing at 2560x1600 it would make a noticeable difference!

Indeed, I assumed it was the resolution so I took the other card out and got rid of it lol. Wish I had some 27" or 30" monitors to test the 'ole rig out on some higher resolution. It may show a noticeable improvement then. However if I ever get the inkling to pick up a third monitor I would love to run my games in 5040x1050, hummmm FSX would be nice then.

---

Traveling through space at ~67,000mph!

Thank you! exclusive_gpu_app is just what I was looking for.

<cc_config>
   <log_flags>
   </log_flags>
   <options>
      <exclusive_gpu_app>cityofheroes.exe</exclusive_gpu_app>
   </options>
</cc_config>

I may take this back. It only sort of works. For some reason, it's turned the cudas back on. Perhaps because, although the 3d game is running, it's been backgrounded/iconized for a little while?


In the task list, I see a "*32" after the game.exe name. That isn't added to the name in the process list, such that I need to add it in the config file, do I?

I'm certain I've seen it pause the cuda when playing earlier. I even started, stopped, and restarted the game to confirm it worked.

What's going on here? Is it buggy?

---

Some games have Front-end .exe started by shortcut and used to set options
but when you press [Play] the Front-end starts another .exe and quits.

Check to see are there other .EXEs (not only cityofheroes.exe) in the game directory
and add <exclusive_gpu_app>XXXXXXXXXX.exe</exclusive_gpu_app> for them also.

---

 


- ALF - "Find out what you don't do well ..... then don't do it!" :)
 

This cc_config option for exclusive GPU application works, but does turn CUDA calculations on after some time with no particular reason. I experienced this while playing Civilization IV(it has no stub .EXE starter). Same for "Snooze GPU" command. Also, it turns off all the GPUs.
If u have more than one GPU(or even just one) and u want to turn on/off only one of them(presumably first one, GPU0, for playing games or something) you can consider using this:
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=62127
I have newer, more flexible version, which I'll publish tonight.

---

Some games have Front-end .exe started by shortcut and used to set options
but when you press [Play] the Front-end starts another .exe and quits.

Check to see are there other .EXEs (not only cityofheroes.exe) in the game directory
and add <exclusive_gpu_app>XXXXXXXXXX.exe</exclusive_gpu_app> for them also.

Yep, I'm aware of the front end loaders/updaters/etc. In this case, I had already confirmed the actual executable name.

As I said, I even tested it by noting the cudas were running, starting the game (and going fully into gameplay), alt-tabbing back, seeing they were paused, then quitting the game, and seeing them resume.

Something funky is going on. I thought maybe there was some lag going on -- another thread somewhere mentions detecting the other app running is dependent on said app doing something, I didn't quite understand.


Anyone knows the guts of Windows 7 and modern graphics cards? If the app is not in the foreground, and iconized as well (not showing in the background), does Windows 7 "pull rank" on it, pausing it from using the GPU?

Maybe something in SETI then sees the GPU is free of the app, so to speak, and resumes. And maybe it doesn't detect going back to fullscreen in the app properly?


A possible test scenario:

1. Confirm, using the steps I listed above, that going into the game app suspends the cuda properly, and that quitting the app resumes it.

2. Then go to the game, alt-tab back out, such that the game is not seen in the background, i.e. you see full desktop behind any windows, not the game.

3. Wait a bit. Test: Does the cuda stuff resume? I think so.

4. Test 2: Now alt-tab back into the game. It is fullscreen and the foreground app. Mouse-click on the desktop on the second monitor (you will need 2 for this). This should put the game app in the background, but not iconize it. In other words, you could drag a Windows window over it and see active 3d game rendering behind.


Ya, that's more what I'm thinking at that point, if I were to investigate it. What does the BOINC SETI/cuda chain of control do when you alt-tab out of a 3D game, iconizing it, vs. clicking on the desktop, putting it in the background but not iconizing it.



And never forget the real problem -- the cuda chokes with errors, reporting dozens back to SETI, rather than handle the shared use gracefully. Fixing that should be the ultimate goal, though perhaps not at a priority. It is user-friendly and intuitive. One setting, on by default: Use GPU as much as possible, except when it would interfere with games, but use it even with games as long as it's not too bad. Don't put the onus on the user to have to enable and disable stuff suboptimally. This helps people not get frustrated, which you don't want for a commercial enterprise, much less a voluntary one.

This cc_config option for exclusive GPU application works, but does turn CUDA calculations on after some time with no particular reason. I experienced this while playing Civilization IV(it has no stub .EXE starter). Same for "Snooze GPU" command. Also, it turns off all the GPUs.
If u have more than one GPU(or even just one) and u want to turn on/off only one of them(presumably first one, GPU0, for playing games or something) you can consider using this:
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=62127
I have newer, more flexible version, which I'll publish tonight.

I only have one GPU (I assume, someone who knows the GTX 460 should know. I don't think it has built-in SLI, like some supercards do.)

---