Folding again

[100%VG]

Hello,

I hadn't folded in quite a while, and when I started again the other day, things were different, though I hadn't made any changes to the PC. I am using v7.3.2. This is a Win7 PC that currently still has IE10, but it worked before. I'm using an older PC with a Dual Core Athlon 7750 2.8GHz, 4GB RAM, and nVidia GeForce GTS 250.

First, I don't see the Summary Information of the WU/Projects anymore. Has this changed?

Second, I used to be able to fold one CPU WU and one GPU WU at the same time, but when I tried again yesterday, the GPU got to 99.9% complete of a rather small WU and stayed there for hours. Trying to fix this, I installed v7.4.4, but wasn't used to the interface, so I went back to v7.3.2. It still didn't work right, and was actually worse, as the GPU WU never loaded and ran. So I did a full uninstall, cleaned the Registry of all fah entries, and cleaned the hard drive of all fah entries, then installed v7.3.2 again fresh, entering my username, team, and passkey again.

The CPU is running a WU that will take the better part of a day, so I don't know if it will finish to 100%, submit it, and get another, but the GPU will say READY, then have me wait a different amount of minutes each time. Now it says to wait 1 hour and 9 minutes, and the wait time isn't changing much at all. This video card has two DVI outputs, and I tried both on my monitor to see if freeing the other one would make a difference. I didn't. It is still not getting and running a WU.

Any guidance would be appreciated,

Craig

PS: If I move the speed from Full to Medium, the GPU says "waiting for idle."

[bruce]

Welcome back, 100%VG.

GPU work is not ordered by priority nor can one block of work interrupt another. This means that FAH cannot "use only unused resources" like it can for CPUs. Depending on the speed of your GPU, you may notice some screen lag. (Your foreground programs may or may not seem slower when the GPU is folding.)

To minimize this problem. the Minimum slider setting folds with the GPU only when the computer is "idle" (when a screensaver would be running, if you had one). You're welcome to choose either Medium or Full depending onu how you feel about foreground performance vs. overall FAH-GPU performance. The developers figured folding with your GPU overnight was better than irritating people who happen to have slow GPUs.

[100%VG]

I don't care about performance in using this PC for myself. All it does is fah, so I set the slider to FULL. The PS was just to supply info. It is a dedicated fah PC. This PC used to work with one GPU WU and one CPU WU at the same time (2 different WUs). Why do you think it won't do a GPU WU now?

When the fah screensaver comes on, it doesn't show any work being done, on the CPU or the GPU. I didn't use the fah screensaver before, but I let it install and I run it now.

[bruce]

For a dedicated FAH machine, full is the right setting.

The client has been split into three parts, a background processing task and two versions of a user interface: One aimed at folks who understand FAH and may want to tweak for best performance and another for those whose interest is less focused on FAH. The information about the current WU is displayed in the latter (or you can look it up on-line). The two interface programs can be used interchangeably so you may want to switch between them (or use neither, since you can configure one copy of FAHControl to monitor all machines on your LAN.)

[Joe_H]

Your GTS-250 card is only partially supported for GPU folding these days. The projects using Core_11 which were the primary assignments for that era card ended last August when the WS hosting them failed.

Some pre-Fermi cards can successfully process WU's from projects using Core_15, but not all can. If you want to try to see if your card can, you will need to use the beta flag and set the max-packet-size to small. See this topic for more information - viewtopic.php?f=66&t=26646. You will need to monitor your system to see if your GPU can do these projects.

How long Core_15 work will be available is unknown. The core was announced as being end of life at least a year ago, these projects are the last ones started that used that folding core.

[100%VG]

Sounds like I shouldn't really concern myself with GPU WUs anymore, as I cannot afford to upgrade, but is it suggested that I upgrade to v7.4.4? I don't think I see the two interfaces mentioned. This is what I see in v7.3.2. When two WUs were running before, there were two Project tabs.

[bruce]

In the column "Folding Slot" there are two interfaces: One G92 GPU and one dual-core CPU. Two WUs are NOT running; only one. Your CPU is running SMP project 9009 and your GPU is has not downloaded any WUs yet.

There should be a project description on the bottom of the screen. I'll see if I can find out why it doesn't display this description.

[jcoffland]

You should upgrade to v7.4.4. Project descriptions are no longer supported for some of the older clients.

[100%VG]

I'll get 7.4.4 installed again.

I wonder if someone would be so kind as to tell me if either of these video cards will support GPU WUs under Win7 64, and if so, which one would do best.

nVidia GeForce 6 Series (6800 I think) P260 with 256MB RAM
nVidia Quadro FX 570
nVidia Quadro FX 3700

I'd like to use the first one in that Dedicated PC, if it will work, though I know the other two are better. The other two are in their own PCs.

Oh, WU 9009 completed and submitted, and I am on WU 6393 now. I checked and I got credit for 9009, too!

[Joe_H]

The GeForce 6 card, no.

I think the FX 570 is a generation too early to support the level of CUDA processing needed for Core_15, and definitely unable to handle newer cores.

The FX 3700 is also based on a G92 GPU chip as is used in your GTS 250. So it will run into the same limitations.

[100%VG]

Your GTS-250 card is only partially supported for GPU folding these days. The projects using Core_11 which were the primary assignments for that era card ended last August when the WS hosting them failed.

Some pre-Fermi cards can successfully process WU's from projects using Core_15, but not all can. If you want to try to see if your card can, you will need to use the beta flag and set the max-packet-size to small. See this topic for more information - viewtopic.php?f=66&t=26646. You will need to monitor your system to see if your GPU can do these projects.

How long Core_15 work will be available is unknown. The core was announced as being end of life at least a year ago, these projects are the last ones started that used that folding core.

If I wanted to try this "beta flag" thing, do I need v7.4.4 for that? I need some guidance with this. I looked at FAHControl briefly, and didn't see it. I didn't see instructions in the link above, either, but I may have missed it. I have a Sidebar Gadget that will inform me of GPU Temp with an alarm.

[bruce]

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=10364

[Joe_H]

From "The Software" link at the top of the forum page, there is a Configuration Guide. That gives directions for using FAHControl to add options such as max-packet-size.

[100%VG]

I installed v7.4.4. So what is it that I'm supposed to do? Add this to FAHControl in the Expert tab? . . .

client-type = beta

Right now, in the left pane, it says:

open-web-control true

Verbosity is set to 3. I don't see where to set max-packet-size to small.

I'm not going to apply to be a beta tester just yet. I want to see if I can get and complete GPU WUs with the nVidia GTS 250. Should it not work, the changes should be easy enough to reverse if I get good instructions.

[100%VG]

From "The Software" link at the top of the forum page, there is a Configuration Guide. That gives directions for using FAHControl to add options such as max-packet-size.

Just saw this. Maybe what I need is in there. Thanks. I'll let you know.