Part use GPU for computation

Questions and Answers : GPU applications : Part use GPU for computation
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Message 2016716 - Posted: 26 Oct 2019, 14:03:25 UTC

I have a pretty high spec PC with an EVGA Titan X GPU card which works fine at 100%. I can't seem to find a setting to set the GPU card to only use, for example, 80% of GPU power so I can still watch videos etc whilst BOINC is running

Any help much appreciated
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Message 2016722 - Posted: 26 Oct 2019, 14:31:20 UTC

The GPU applications are designed to use as much of the GPU as required. This is "aided and abetted" by the fact that when doing computational work on GPUs their own internal system is designed to give the computation work a significant priority over graphics.
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Message 2016756 - Posted: 26 Oct 2019, 20:34:56 UTC - in response to Message 2016716.  

I have a pretty high spec PC with an EVGA Titan X GPU card which works fine at 100%. I can't seem to find a setting to set the GPU card to only use, for example, 80% of GPU power so I can still watch videos etc whilst BOINC is running

Any help much appreciated

You can use any of the typical aftermarket gpu tuning applications like Afterburner or EVGA PrecisionX to limit the TDP of a card. You can also simply use the Nvidia Control Panel and change the power settings to Adaptive instead of Prefer Maximum performance. You can also use the nvidia-smi utility to set the power limits of the card. This is what I do for my GTX 1080Ti
nvidia-smi -i 0 -pl 200

You can find nvidia-smi in the C:\Program Files\NVIDIA Corporation\NVSMI directory.

https://medium.com/@TaneSavoya/step-to-step-guide-how-to-mine-with-nvidia-gpus-in-windows-10-more-quiet-cooler-and-energy-bf3b63f40919

https://cryptomining-blog.com/tag/nvidia-smi/
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Message 2016838 - Posted: 27 Oct 2019, 7:12:05 UTC

Those only affect the power drawn by the card, normally by "playing" with the clocks - which is not what Ricardo is asking for - he wants to "split" the GPU into two parts, one dedicated to crunching and the other to watching videos etc.
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Message 2016864 - Posted: 27 Oct 2019, 15:16:02 UTC - in response to Message 2016838.  

No power limiting does not "play with the clocks" At least not directly. Power limiting sets the internal registers of the card to a lower TDP plan which can indirectly affect the clocks by limiting boost clock algorithms.

I agree, what the OP is asking is impossible. You can switch the card between crunching and video watching but you can't do both at the same time without performance impacts on both activities.
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Message 2016881 - Posted: 27 Oct 2019, 18:33:11 UTC - in response to Message 2016864.  

I agree, what the OP is asking is impossible.

Well not impossible impossible but merely not possible with the present science applications.

AFAIK it's possible to tell the GPU to use part of its shaders under OpenCL 2.1 but that requires that BOINC and all OpenCL GPU applications are made OpenCL 2.1 compliant, a thing I don't see happen due to the man-hours needed for that. Besides, the easier method is to use the built-in Intel GPU for video playback.
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Questions and Answers : GPU applications : Part use GPU for computation


 
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