I don't think Sten-Arne's post was directed at you, Jim. Relax, nobody's on your behind.

I don't know where your coming from.. I just asked a question..Get off my behind! I'm a 20 year veteran of the US Air Force and currently have over 21 years with the the US Air Force as Civil Service. I'v donated more dollars to help other people AND contries than you know. Just read the question I put in and respond to that.

<< Jim >>

Jim, lots of us responded to your questions. If you have further questions, feel free to ask.

---

Janice

Ok, maybe I went off on him. Problem was his last comment about perspective, and all I was asking was a question about SETI. He needs to tone down his politics.. I'm just a tech guy...

<< Jim >>

---

Member
B-52 Stratofortress
Association
Retired Air Force

Ok, I have another question. I just put an Nvidia GTX 260 in my system. Although I have certainly increased my WU, when I check to see what's processing, it only shows processor using .56 and cuda using 1 "processor" ? Acording to the specs, I have 192 Cuda cores for the 260. Is this normal or can I adjust this somehow?

Thanks,

<< Jim >>

---

Member
B-52 Stratofortress
Association
Retired Air Force

Ok, maybe I went off on him. Problem was his last comment about perspective, and all I was asking was a question about SETI. He needs to tone down his politics.. I'm just a tech guy...

<< Jim >>

Ahh, I see now, you were taking off on Sten-Arne. The message you responded to was the one after his. I couldn't figure out why a joke about an unread message from outer space would bother you. Don't feel bad, we all get annoyed at Sten every now and again. He takes some getting used to.

---

PROUD MEMBER OF Team Starfire World BOINC

Ok, I have another question. I just put an Nvidia GTX 260 in my system. Although I have certainly increased my WU, when I check to see what's processing, it only shows processor using .56 and cuda using 1 "processor" ? Acording to the specs, I have 192 Cuda cores for the 260. Is this normal or can I adjust this somehow?

Thanks,

<< Jim >>

yes, one card=1 gpu. It will work across the cores in the GPU, and "feed" it through a portion of one CPU core.

It should fill up and start crunching away once the project comes back online, then you can see how well it is performing. My GT 220 is putting out about 2000 credits per day, yours should see substantially more. But I am afraid the patience thing is all we can do right now.

There are ways to increase the performance even further through the lunatics optimized applications, depending on the memory available running 2-3 tasks per graphics card at a time. Watch the heat levels if you start doing this.. as you will be giving your system a pretty good workout.

---

Janice

Ok, I have another question. I just put an Nvidia GTX 260 in my system. Although I have certainly increased my WU, when I check to see what's processing, it only shows processor using .56 and cuda using 1 "processor" ? Acording to the specs, I have 192 Cuda cores for the 260. Is this normal or can I adjust this somehow?

Thanks,

<< Jim >>

Ok, on this question, what it is telling you is that it is using .56% of your CPU to get your WU ready for the CUDA device and one CUDA device. As for adjusting it, you might try Lunatic's installer 0.37. With it you will cut down the processing time on the units you do on your CPU and it will also cut down on the % of CPU used to prime your GPUs. You can find it here.. http://lunatics.kwsn.net/index.php?module=Downloads;catd=9

Soft Spirit, the more than one WU on each GPU only works on the Fermi cards. it won't work on a 260.

---

PROUD MEMBER OF Team Starfire World BOINC

Thank you, I'll remember that. I'm new to the forem...he just tweak me the wrong way... I'll fogive him....

<< Jim >>

---

Member
B-52 Stratofortress
Association
Retired Air Force

You can't run more than one WU on a GTX 260, or rather yes you can, but it will mean it will take longer per WU.

Acording to the specs, I have 192 Cuda cores for the 260. Is this normal or can I adjust this somehow?

The CUDA application runs on the CPU which translates the task to something the GPU will understand, then transfer that to the GPU's memory, the GPU will crunch it, after which the CPU will offload the crunched data from the GPU's memory and write it to disk. Then that cycle starts again throughout the whole task, until the task is done.

Your GPU may have 192 internal processors, but it only has one GPU core. Those 192 internal processors will all crunch the task at the same time, which is why a GPU can crunch the numbers so fast. More hands make lighter work. Normally you run one task per CPU core and per GPU core.

Anyway, BOINC will show this in BOINC Manager as Running (1.00 CPU + 1 CUDA) (or something similar).

---

Thanks, what I meant was it was showing .56 usage of the CPU and using 1 GPU while processing the CUDA work unit. I have the following and it only process 1 CUDA unit, all 4 CPU's are utilized.

ASUS mother board
AM2+ processor at 2.8Ghz (4 cores)
Microsoft XP Prof. (all service packs) 32 bit (unfortunatuly, really needed the 64 bit to take advantage of all memory)
4GB RAM
Nvidia GTX 260 Graphics card

Anything I can do to "tweak" this?

Thanks,

<< Jim >>

---

Member
B-52 Stratofortress
Association
Retired Air Force

Ok, it's using .56% of one CPU to load the GPU after that it runs an MB on the rest of that CPU plus the other three CPUs. It will only run one GPU CUDA WU at a time but it will do it very quickly compared to the MBs on your CPU. About the only thing you can do to "tweak" it is to install the Lunatic's optimization package I linked to earlier. This will make your CPUs much more efficient and will reduce the percentage of CPU it uses to prime your GPU and will make it take less time doing it. It will also give you much better times on AP WUs. My little E-5400 dual will run an AP in almost half the time you run them.

One thing I meant to mention, you probably notice one of your CPUs running much slower than the other three. That's because the stock CUDA app uses so much of that core. The installer cuts that .56 down to .04 and it runs fine.

---

PROUD MEMBER OF Team Starfire World BOINC

Thanks Jord,

I'm new to this CUDA thing. Want to do as much processing for BOINC as I can, but didn't know how the Graphics card really interfaced with everything. I understand computers, been working with them since 1978 (TRS-80 model 1) and know about all the new stuff, I's just the graphics card utilization I haven't got a handle on yet..

<< Jim >>

---

Member
B-52 Stratofortress
Association
Retired Air Force

Thanks, what I meant was it was showing .56 usage of the CPU and using 1 GPU while processing the CUDA work unit. I have the following and it only process 1 CUDA unit, all 4 CPU's are utilized.

ASUS mother board
AM2+ processor at 2.8Ghz (4 cores)
Microsoft XP Prof. (all service packs) 32 bit (unfortunatuly, really needed the 64 bit to take advantage of all memory)
4GB RAM
Nvidia GTX 260 Graphics card

Anything I can do to "tweak" this?

Thanks,

<< Jim >>

The .56 CPU is just an estimate by the project's app_plan, and is only used in deciding whether it's OK to also run another pure CPU task. If you check actual CPU usage with Task manager, you'll find that the CPU is used for around 20 seconds at the beginning getting everything set up, then in short bursts thereafter as the GPU completes one set of operations and needs to be told what to do next. The average CPU usage for a WU being done by the CUDA application is likely to be more like 14% than 56%.

As to tweaking, many users are overclocking their GPUs to get some extra performance. Some of the card producers provide utilities to allow such tweaks as well as monitoring temperature and controlling fan speed, etc.

                                                                 Joe