Hey there.

Im looking to optimise my littel PC for Seti, its a I7-4790K with a GTX-1080 and 32GB.
When installing Lunatics what CPU type should be the best, SSE4.1 or AVX?
And what would be the best to use with a 1080?

Im told that Ive need to make a app_config.xml and have boinc run two tasks at the same time on the GPU.
And a mb*SoG.txt with some settings (a very long line).

So my guess would be that the 1080 should run SoG, but Im not sure about the CPU. And if Ive chose wrong, who do one change from AVX to SSE4.1 or vise-versa? Uninstall and reinstall or?

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AVX for the CPU and SoG for the 1080. ;-)

Cheers.

Thanks - so now I've just have to find out how to change from SSE4.1 to AVX !

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Just rerun the installer again to correct that. ;-)

Someone else will have to help you with app_config.xml and cmdline settings for the SoG app though.

Cheers.

If I remember right, there is no SSE4 app, it just installs SSSE3. So I'd use AVX.

EDIT: IN the seti@home project directory ...

For app_config.xml (a plain TXT file - use Notepad)
This should work well:

<app_config>

	<app>
	<name>setiathome_v8</name>
	<gpu_versions>
		<gpu_usage>0.5</gpu_usage>
		<cpu_usage>1.0</cpu_usage>
	</gpu_versions>
	</app>

	<app>
	<name>astropulse_v7</name>
	<gpu_versions>
		<gpu_usage>0.5</gpu_usage>
		<cpu_usage>0.5</cpu_usage>
	</gpu_versions>
	</app>

</app_config>

You don't have to restart BOINC for this, just read the config files.

Done the app_config.xml, with more or less the same numbers.

and done mb*SoG.txt with this:

-sbs 256 -spike_fft_thresh 4096 -tune 1 64 1 4 -oclfft_tune_gr 256 -oclfft_tune_lr 16 -oclfft_tune_wg 256 -oclfft_tune_ls 512 -oclfft_tune_bn 64 -oclfft_tune_cw 64 -hp -cpu_lock -high_perf

Not impressed, ~430 gflops on a 1080 - my 780 get more that that...- so have to figure out what all that means and tune it to my GTX...

Michael.

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Done the app_config.xml, with more or less the same numbers.

and done mb*SoG.txt with this:

-sbs 256 -spike_fft_thresh 4096 -tune 1 64 1 4 -oclfft_tune_gr 256 -oclfft_tune_lr 16 -oclfft_tune_wg 256 -oclfft_tune_ls 512 -oclfft_tune_bn 64 -oclfft_tune_cw 64 -hp -cpu_lock -high_perf

Not impressed, ~430 gflops on a 1080 - my 780 get more that that...- so have to figure out what all that means and tune it to my GTX...

Michael.

Change to -sbs 1024 -period_iterations_num 10 -spike_fft_thresh 4096 -tune 1 64 1 4 -oclfft_tune_gr 256 -oclfft_tune_lr 16 -oclfft_tune_wg 256 -oclfft_tune_ls 512 -oclfft_tune_bn 64 -oclfft_tune_cw 64 -hp -cpu_lock -high_perf

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With each crime and every kindness we birth our future.

One have told me to drop the cpu_lock, but will wait and see where it ends up.
Day 5 on that PC on my own account and its still climping in RAC.

What would you think is a good RAC on a PC like this?
EVGA GTX 1080 Hydrocopper FTW.
I7-4790K @ 4.6gHz no HT

Running 4 tasks on the GTX, and 50/100% the CPU (half the cores at full load).

Michael.

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It wasn't me that told you to drop it but I've never had any good experience with using it. Yes it improves the time on 1 work unit while sacrificing the crunching time of the others on the same GPU

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It wasn't me that told you to drop it but I've never had any good experience with using it. Yes it improves the time on 1 work unit while sacrificing the crunching time of the others on the same GPU

That`s correct Zalster.

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With each crime and every kindness we birth our future.

It wasn't me that told you to drop it but I've never had any good experience with using it. Yes it improves the time on 1 work unit while sacrificing the crunching time of the others on the same GPU

Oops...I was wondering why the discrepancy in my run times. Thanks for posting that tip. I wonder if using -cpu_lock_fixed_cpu N would make a noticeable difference?

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It wasn't me that told you to drop it but I've never had any good experience with using it. Yes it improves the time on 1 work unit while sacrificing the crunching time of the others on the same GPU

Oops...I was wondering why the discrepancy in my run times. Thanks for posting that tip. I wonder if using -cpu_lock_fixed_cpu N would make a noticeable difference?

Not really.
Once it was an option because -cpu_lock didn`t work as intended.
Now it does, so no difference.
Only if you run just one instance on GPU you can bind it to a specific cpu core.

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With each crime and every kindness we birth our future.

One have told me to drop the cpu_lock, but will wait and see where it ends up.
Day 5 on that PC on my own account and its still climping in RAC.

What would you think is a good RAC on a PC like this?
EVGA GTX 1080 Hydrocopper FTW.
I7-4790K @ 4.6gHz no HT

Running 4 tasks on the GTX, and 50/100% the CPU (half the cores at full load).

Michael.

With this PC you will get a RAC close to 40.000 running 24/7

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So drop GPU_lock??

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So drop GPU_lock??

Only if you run just one instance on GPU you can bind it to a specific cpu core.

Since you're running multiple WUs on the GPU, it may be worthwhile.

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Grant
Darwin NT

So drop GPU_lock??

It depends on how much CPU cores are available/free.
In most cases -cpu_lock helps.

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With each crime and every kindness we birth our future.

So drop GPU_lock??

Try it with and without. Monitor the times as they crunch and see what the times do. Make sure the work units are similiar...ie the names of the work units, especially the non BLC ones. I've found some 08 work units are faster than others, so try to get a sample of different dates and write them down, then compare the times of work units from the same tape without the cpu lock and see what the times look like. If there is a significant amount of difference in the time to complete then don't use it.

Most of this is trial and error, you have to test it out on your system and see what works best

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So first thing is to wait, and let the RAC get stable :)
Next thing is to fiddle with CPU_Lock, and find out what the avg WU-time is then - or do my RAC go up, or down ?

But dam this thing is a long time to get the RAC stabile on...

Michael.

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So first thing is to wait, and let the RAC get stable :)

Nope.
It will take (depending on outages etc) a couple of months for RAC to get to it's usual levels.

As Zalster said, check the run times of similar WUs against each other with the different settings to see what does (or doesn't) help.

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Grant
Darwin NT

Well with 1-2 days of seti-server downtime every week, its not a easy task to messure it by RAC your right.

Oki Im on it now, Ill hope.

Thanks for all the help.

Michael.

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