See Vyper's thread and blog

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=63079

OK - so that says I have to run > 1 BOINC on the same physical machine to run cards that want to run different numbers of WUs at once. Yikes! It seems doable, from reading the blog, but awfully kludgy.

Can I put in a request to make changes to app_info such that one BOINC can share multiple types of cards for purposes of running not all the same number of WUs simultaneously? (Did that make sens, or iis it too early in the morning?)

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You can put in the request, certainly - it would go to the boinc_dev mailing list, ideally. It would involve not just changes to app_info, but substantial work on the BOINC client's internal scheduling engine (which is still only barely adequate for homogeneous GPUs, multi-threaded applications, and so on - even in the forthcoming v6.12.13), and probably to the server code and database as well.

I'm sure the question has been asked already, and the reply would have been something along the lines of "too much work involved for the relatively small number of users involved". Perhaps Jorden (Ageless) could be persuaded to add it to his new list of "enhancements frequently requested, and the developers' answers" - Frequently Requested Items which may have gotten rejected.

Some info for those of you interested:

As SETI is in another swoon now, I decided to check out my 2 GTX 460s vs. my GT 240s using Collatz' CUDA app.

............................GTX 460............GT 240
Collatz Mini WU.............~ 7 min............~ 35 min.
Collatz Standard WU.........~ 52 min...........~ 260 min.

These were at the default clocks for the cards, and single-threading the GTX 460s (although they used only about 150MB (of 768MB) for the calculation).

Based on running the standard Collatz CUDA app, I find that each GTX 460 is approximately worth 5 GT 240s in raw compute power. (Actually likely more, but I didn't try running > 1 WU at a time). And it doesn't use nearly 5x the power, either! (Both cards ran at about 90% GPU usage during the WUs).


PS: Tiger STILL has the GTX 460s for $89.99 (after rebates, limit 2)!

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I am running around 43 minutes per WU on my 460, of course only 28 minutes on the 5830.

Both are slightly overclocked.

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I am running around 43 minutes per WU on my 460, of course only 28 minutes on the 5830.

Both are slightly overclocked.

Mine are "GC" versions, whatever that means, and run at 700/1400/3696. Is that an OC? (It's the factory default).

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Mine is at 800/1600/1800
Core/Shader/Memory. I used MSI Afterburner.

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Mine is at 800/1600/2000

Core/Shader/Memory. It's a Factory O/C 1Gb 460,

Timings on mini_collatz are around 5½ minutes when HD5770 is also doing mini_collatz (also around 5½ minutes),
and a bit longer when HD5770 doing OpenCL AP,

Claggy

Arkayn, Claggy:

For now, I'm not interested in OC, but thanks for those numbers. Since EVGA Precision says they are using about 116MB to do the calculations (of 768), seems like I could run 2 WU easily at a time. (Using Collatz' opt. apps).

Have either of you tried that? And with what results?

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Slicker does not really recommend that you run 2 at a time as there is really no idle time.

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Slicker does not really recommend that you run 2 at a time as there is really no idle time.

You got me! What/who is "slicker"?

Unless you mean that because the GPU is running about 95%, there's no place for a second WU to overlap processing?

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Slicker does not really recommend that you run 2 at a time as there is really no idle time.

You got me! What/who is "slicker"?

Unless you mean that because the GPU is running about 95%, there's no place for a second WU to overlap processing?

Slicker is the Collatz project administrator/developer,

Collatz GPU apps run at high 90's, and start practically instantly, running two instances gains nothing,
better to play around with parameter settings instead,

Claggy

Clagg - I had run into some mention of the Collatz sysadmin being hostile to running > 1 WU at once, somewhere on the Cz message boards; I just didn't connect the dots, er, name with that mention.

OK, cool, then I guess my experiment is over.

At least I verified that the cards I bought work OK!
And I'll stay on Collatz until SETI cmes back - soon, I hope!

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Heads up! Newegg now has the HAF 932 for $119.95 with free shipping.

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