Posts by ausymark

21) Message boards : Number crunching : GPU FLOPS: Theory vs Reality (Message 1822164)
Posted 6 Oct 2016 by Profile ausymark
Post:
Hmmm, interesting.

Mine is showing the down-rated 14 compute units etc.

Ubuntu will be releasing version 16.10 within a couple weeks so I think I will wait till then, do the upgrade, and see what difference it makes. Also by then I should have enough usable data as a base-line to see the difference between the two setups.

I will post results here when done.

Thx for the heads up Tbar :)
22) Message boards : Number crunching : GPU FLOPS: Theory vs Reality (Message 1822007)
Posted 5 Oct 2016 by Profile ausymark
Post:
Hi Team

Just a little update.

After a week of seti crunching it seems like my new Sapphire AMD Radeon 480 - 8Gbs is crunching away at around twice the throughput of my old nVidia 570 gpu.

Naturally it will take a while for the final figure to stabilise but does make me wonder a little about the graphs showing the 570 being about 90% the performance of the 480.

It might be that my original setup was sub-optimal even though nothing else has changed software/hardware-wise. Anyway, just some feedback on my early experience.

Cheers

Mark
23) Message boards : Number crunching : GPU FLOPS: Theory vs Reality (Message 1820777)
Posted 30 Sep 2016 by Profile ausymark
Post:
opps, correction.....

the load on the cpu is 10 to 15 times less.....

total run times seem to be about the same but I am also using half the amount of electricity to do it.....

So will watch my RAC as time goes on to see what happens :)
24) Message boards : Number crunching : GPU FLOPS: Theory vs Reality (Message 1820768)
Posted 30 Sep 2016 by Profile ausymark
Post:
Just as an FYI....

Preliminary results show that the AMD 480 is chomping through work units between 10 to 15 times faster than my original dedicated nVidia 570 .... O.O

Will be interesting to see how things go over time. Note that I am also contributing to other projects and the AMD 480 is now the only card in my system (originally I had a 580 as my primary graphics card with a dedicated 570 for crunching.)
25) Message boards : Number crunching : GPU FLOPS: Theory vs Reality (Message 1820357)
Posted 29 Sep 2016 by Profile ausymark
Post:
Hi Shaggie76

I have just jumped onto the red team with a Sapphire Radeon RX 480. Currently crunching some work units on the GPU. Feel free to look through my stats in a couple days and you should have some more 480 data to play with ;)

Cheers

Mark
26) Message boards : Number crunching : Linux: any chance to let CPU in lowest power state? (Message 1583272)
Posted 8 Oct 2014 by Profile ausymark
Post:
There are two ways to do it.

Tell BOINC to use a percentage of your CPU cores with the "On Multiprocessor systems, use at most x% of the processors". So, assuming you arent hyperthreading, set this at say 50% to reduce your overall processor power demands by half. (If the cpu does do hyperthreading then the setting should be 25%)

The second is the "Use at most: % CPU time" that does something similarly to the above, just a different way.

Using these two should allow you to throttle down how much processing your cpu does, and hence power consumption.

On a side note: Having the CPU in its lowest power state would do minimal to no work - you really want something that has a light CPU load and just let the CPU decide the power state.

Cheers
27) Message boards : Number crunching : Question about GPU usage and optimized apps (Message 1560408)
Posted 22 Aug 2014 by Profile ausymark
Post:
go into/create the app_config.xml file in the boinc/projects/setiathome.berkeley.edu folder....

then put the following in it:

<app_config>
<app>
<name>setiathome_v7</name>
<gpu_versions>
<gpu_usage>0.5</gpu_usage>
<cpu_usage>.5</cpu_usage>
</gpu_versions>
</app>
<app>
<name>astropulse_v6</name>
<gpu_versions>
<gpu_usage>0.5</gpu_usage>
<cpu_usage>0.5</cpu_usage>
</gpu_versions>
</app>
</app_config>

Then save it and restart boinc-seti.

change the gpu_usages to 0.33 (to run 3 instances) or 0.25 (to run 4 instances.)

I would also change the cpu_usage figure to 0.75 when doing 3 instances, and 1.0 when running four instances - this allows 1 CPU core per seti job which is one of the main bottlenecks in keeping the GPU working as hard as possible.

I wouldnt go past 4 instances as I think that performance and output past this does not increase by any great margin.

Hope this helps.
28) Message boards : Number crunching : Linux vs Windows Performance (Message 1485294)
Posted 6 Mar 2014 by Profile ausymark
Post:
in BOINCS cc_config.xml file, look for the line:

<no_priority_change>0</no_priority_change>

and change the "0" to "1" so its:

<no_priority_change>1</no_priority_change>

Then save the file, stop the client apps and restart boinc.

This runs SETI, and other BOINC launched apps, at the same priority level as the BOINC client. Normally these apps run at the super nice level to cause the lowest system impact and not interfere with the user.

So if your system becomes sluggish change the setting back and restart BOINC and its clients.

I hope this helps :)
29) Message boards : Number crunching : SETI@Home not getting CPU work; only running on GPU (Message 1478136)
Posted 16 Feb 2014 by Profile ausymark
Post:
You may have to wait for the respective CPU work units to download too.

Do your Seti settings on the website say to use CPU work units?
30) Message boards : Number crunching : 7.2.39 Linux Boinc / Seti now only uses 1 out of my 2 GPU's (Message 1477970)
Posted 16 Feb 2014 by Profile ausymark
Post:
Hi Claggy

Thanks for that, it did the trick .... but now I am wondering how they were both working that way in the past... *scratches head* lol

I should add the main GPU is an nVidia GTX 580 (The main Video Card) and the second is an nVidia GTX 570 (Not driving a display). It may have just come down to the amount of usable ram on them both as the main one is running the display - though that is only a 300MB load, maybe its just enough now for it to decide that the second one is to be used and to ignore the first. Anyway all fixed now. Thanks again.

Cheers

Mark
31) Message boards : Number crunching : 7.2.39 Linux Boinc / Seti now only uses 1 out of my 2 GPU's (Message 1477963)
Posted 16 Feb 2014 by Profile ausymark
Post:
Hi Team

Upgraded to the latest BOINC, restarted, and its decided to use just the second of my two GPU's, where as before it was using both without manual intervention.

Here is part of the Event log:

Sun 16 Feb 2014 23:16:43 CST | | Starting BOINC client version 7.2.39 for x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
Sun 16 Feb 2014 23:16:43 CST | | log flags: file_xfer, sched_ops, task
Sun 16 Feb 2014 23:16:43 CST | | Libraries: libcurl/7.32.0 OpenSSL/1.0.1e zlib/1.2.8 libidn/1.28 librtmp/2.3
Sun 16 Feb 2014 23:16:43 CST | | Data directory: /home/mark/Apps/BOINC
Sun 16 Feb 2014 23:16:43 CST | | CUDA: NVIDIA GPU 0 (not used): GeForce GTX 580 (driver version unknown, CUDA version 5.5, compute capability 2.0, 1535MB, 654MB available, 1628 GFLOPS peak)
Sun 16 Feb 2014 23:16:43 CST | | CUDA: NVIDIA GPU 1: GeForce GTX 570 (driver version unknown, CUDA version 5.5, compute capability 2.0, 1280MB, 1218MB available, 1498 GFLOPS peak)
Sun 16 Feb 2014 23:16:43 CST | | OpenCL: NVIDIA GPU 0 (ignored by config): GeForce GTX 580 (driver version 319.32, device version OpenCL 1.1 CUDA, 1535MB, 654MB available, 1628 GFLOPS peak)
Sun 16 Feb 2014 23:16:43 CST | | OpenCL: NVIDIA GPU 1: GeForce GTX 570 (driver version 319.32, device version OpenCL 1.1 CUDA, 1280MB, 1218MB available, 1498 GFLOPS peak)
Sun 16 Feb 2014 23:16:43 CST | | Host name: zen
Sun 16 Feb 2014 23:16:43 CST | | Processor: 8 GenuineIntel Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2600K CPU @ 3.40GHz [Family 6 Model 42 Stepping 7]
Sun 16 Feb 2014 23:16:43 CST | | Processor features: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf eagerfpu pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx lahf_lm ida arat epb xsaveopt pln pts dtherm tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid
Sun 16 Feb 2014 23:16:43 CST | | OS: Linux: 3.11.0-15-generic
Sun 16 Feb 2014 23:16:43 CST | | Memory: 15.64 GB physical, 17.32 GB virtual
Sun 16 Feb 2014 23:16:43 CST | | Disk: 2.69 TB total, 848.12 GB free
Sun 16 Feb 2014 23:16:43 CST | | Local time is UTC +10 hours

Soooo any idea how to fix as well as how to change Boinc to follow its original behaviour in future versions?

Cheers

Mark
32) Message boards : Number crunching : BOINC produces about 70% of INVALID results (Message 1471432)
Posted 1 Feb 2014 by Profile ausymark
Post:
Using Ubuntu 13.10 here, on an over clocked PC. Here are some observations.

Make sure that your CPU and internals are being cooled well. SETI will stress your PC/Laptop more than pretty much anything out there. What I did to help this from Day 1 was putting a much better heatsink/fan on my Intel i7 2600K - which is overclocked.

Secondly (and two years later when the second video card went in) I replaced all but one of the case fans with higher air flow fans to ensure that cool air is going in and the hot (and I mean HOT) air is pumped out ASAP.

Now a laptop is going to be different from a heat perspective as you generally must make do with what you are supplied with, which means you need to throttle back how SETI is using your CPU.

Firstly, if its a CPU that uses Hyperthreading, i.e. 2 threads per core, then Ubuntu/Linux will see DOUBLE the cumber of usable cores (as it should be). However when it comes to SETI thats a disadvantage to throttling the CPU back unless you know what you are doing. Why? Because lets say you reduce the number of cores for SETI to use to just 50% - guess what - you are still using ALL YOUR CPU CORES! So you haven't throttled back the CPU at all O.O

So to reduce the cpu load go for 25% CPU usage. Linux actually shifts the usable cores around as well to make use of that cores turbo feature until the core gets hot, then shifts it to a cooler core and starts again. Now keep in mind that one hot core does not make for a hot CPU, and when they are being juggled every sever seconds it averages out the chip heat.

I have never cut CPU usage by using the "Use at most" feature simply due to my (untested) belief that it would be more process intensive leaving less processing for the computer overall and depending on the algorithm used by SETI (or whatever boinc project) may not work as well at reducing temps.

It could be power supply related, but, generally I think bad power supply usually results in hard computer lockups. So unless thats occurring too I doubt its power related.

If all else fails reduce number of CPU's to use to 13%, this will knock the CPU down to 1 core (assuming your CPU has 4 physical cores) and see how that goes. It should also keep CPU temps below 70c.

Hope the above helps a bit.

Cheers

Mark
33) Message boards : Number crunching : Help needed (Message 1471428)
Posted 1 Feb 2014 by Profile ausymark
Post:
Hi Bill G

I doubt its something in the bios, unless the system is overclocked, as generally all bios functions are taken over by the OS. Though if overclocking was failing then the system would likely be having other issues like lockups/blue screens of deaths, random minor software/hardware error messages etc.

Cheers

Mark
34) Message boards : Number crunching : Linux/NVIDIA/AP questions (Message 1471427)
Posted 1 Feb 2014 by Profile ausymark
Post:
Hi Guy

I think for a start you should just try using the standard the BOINC/Seti setup - which will get you most of what you are after under linux, ie crunching AP on gpu and Seti 7.x on your CPU.

Remove the app_info file as well (probably best just do do a fresh start in a blank directory of your "/home" directory. (I always run boinc/seti this way it bypasses any OS updates etc.

Remember that most of what is in the standard seti programs from seti these days are actually optimised code from the lunatics team. At this point Linux users (Im running Ubuntu here) cant process seti 7 work units on their gpu, but I believe that will change when the lunatics/seti team produce the next version of the client which is a major re-write of pretty much everything I believe lol.

BTW with your setup you should use one core free to feed the GPU leaving the other to crunch seti 7.x work units.

BTW on my setup it dont know what driver Im using either, yet, it does see what CUDA and OpenCL versions are available for crunching.

Just my 2c worth, and just be patient ;)

Cheers

Mark
35) Message boards : Number crunching : Rescheduling Hosts - Bad Practice (Message 1470236)
Posted 29 Jan 2014 by Profile ausymark
Post:
Hi Richard

I glanced over the link and see that its nowhere near as simple as I had assumed... I will have a good look at it tomorrow to see if I get any flashes of brilliance, or just zombie eyes lol

Cheers :)

Mark
36) Message boards : Number crunching : Rescheduling Hosts - Bad Practice (Message 1470206)
Posted 29 Jan 2014 by Profile ausymark
Post:
Hi Richard

Well thats the thing, we wouldnt need to calculate the flops at any instant as they are calculated when boinc first starts and runs the benchmarks on the PC. Then all one has to do is work out the % load that the seti program is having on the core(s), which Im guessing can be done fairly easily, and if not use the total core load, less precise but possibly still more accurate than what is currently being used. That load on the CPU to calculate the 'odometer'should be very minimal in the scheme of things these days. (Linux and Windows system monitors do that with negligible load.)

And to reduce manipulation of the system have BOINC run the benchmark program randomly again every 24 to 40 hours.

Perhaps im over simplifying it and dont know the complexities involved, but i guess the question is - would it be a more accurate system than what we currently have assuming it doesnt adversely affect affect crunching ability by more than half of one percent?

Cheers

Mark
37) Message boards : Number crunching : Will BOINC/ SETI run on a Beowulf Cluster ? (Message 1470201)
Posted 29 Jan 2014 by Profile ausymark
Post:
I think your main limitation will be how much power the beast sucks in and how much that will cost you.

As a comparison, not including my Intel i7 2600K, the two nVidia video cards I have in my single PC has just a tad over 3000 GFLOPS, so well over 40 times the expected processing power of your proposal. Its total power draw is under 500W, so in theory uses around 12kWh's of power per day if it was running 24 hours a day, or around $5 per day with Australian power prices.

My guess is that the power draw from your proposed system will be at least 1,000W (1kW). So you have double the power draw, which means on a performance per watt basis my rig suddenly becomes 80 to 100 times more powerful than yours.

(BTW Im not saying mines better than yours, just that there are likely better ways of achieving what you want.)

If on the other hand you have deep pockets, and you have room for several video cards on the cluster then that changes the efficiency of your proposal greatly. Just be prepared for a large electricity bill. ;)

Cheers

Mark
38) Message boards : Number crunching : Rescheduling Hosts - Bad Practice (Message 1470198)
Posted 29 Jan 2014 by Profile ausymark
Post:
To the developers, just a thought on how to handle credit calculation/allocation that should solve everyones issues - assuming its possible.

Here is my thought. When Boinc starts it knows the processing Power of the CPU and GPU's of its computer. There does not need to be any estimates of how long a work unit will take, what we do need is something like an Odometer within the seti apps(s) that calculates and tallies how much processing power is being used at that point on that work unit (calculated every second for example), then tallies up the total processing power used to fully process that work unit. (Hence my Odometer analogy - or even 'total trip fuel used' meter - whatever analogy works best for you)

Also by doing it this way fixes any issues we have of diminishing credits due to more efficient ways of processing the work units in software.

So for example, lets say we have a work unit that takes 3 seconds to complete and the processor can process at 600 MIPS per core, and we are using one core (for the sake of simplicity in the example).

Second SETI CPU Loading MIPS Total Mips
1 50% 300 300
2 100% 600 900
3 60 360 1260

Total Work Unit Processing: 1260 MI (Million Instructions)
Allocate Credits for 1260 MI (Whatever that conversion rate may be)

So thats my idea, it could be used for all BOINC projects. Thoughts?

Cheers

Mark
39) Message boards : Number crunching : Help needed (Message 1470157)
Posted 29 Jan 2014 by Profile ausymark
Post:
I would suggest you get an installable version of the OS that you are using, not an image. I have seen Windows XYZ often insist a driver X is for hardware Y just because of the image used and not having the OS installed fresh. My guess is you have the wrong driver for a piece of hardware - especially since you seem to have changed pretty much everything. Spend the $$ and get an installable version of your OS, or use Linux - its free afterall ;)

Cheers

Mark
40) Message boards : Number crunching : 780 not so impressive - yet (Message 1465983)
Posted 18 Jan 2014 by Profile ausymark
Post:
There is much to be said about having good case cooling compared to water cooling. I recently replaced my front and rear case fans from the standard 50cfm and 40cfm to high flow ones with rates of 80cfm and 95cfm respectively. This has reduced the internal temps by around 10c and reduced the 7 internal fan speeds by around 14% (they dont have to spin as hard as internal temps aren't as high).

I have an nVidia 580 and a nVidia 570 in the case, plus an overclocked intel i7 2600K with appropriate oversized air cooler on it. (that in itself can pump 90cfm of hot air inside the case)- so between all three working hard there is substantial heat build up.

Overall cost for the new fans was a 'massive' $35 AUD. So you don't necessarily have to go full water cooling to keep your system both performing well and reliably.

Just my 2c worth.


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