GPU still not supported for folding on MacOS client?

[jmenard]

So why am I able to use my GPU on my iMAC with BOINC but not with this effort? All of the above does not make sense to me if BOINC does this routinely.

[Joe_H]

So why am I able to use my GPU on my iMAC with BOINC but not with this effort? All of the above does not make sense to me if BOINC does this routinely.

Because someone or group within the BOINC research network had the resources of time, money, etc. to do that. Just how many projects under BOINC are available to run on you Mac GPU under OS X, and how does that compare to the total number available through BOINC?

[jmenard]

I don't know the exact number and the FAQ for that on BOINC (at least the one I found) had not been updated since 2015, but there are others based on my anecdotal trial of other BOINC projects. I had been primarily running SETI on my iMAC's and MacBook's with GPU's for a few years. I realize work would need to occur, I was responding since the tone of the thread implied it was not possible since Apple was focused on metal API. Thanks for your response, hopefully someone tackles this at some point but I understand the issue of getting resources.

[seegem]

I personally hired a coder & engineer to enable Mac gpu compute for seti at home. It took a few months and I think cost about $10k (from what I recall). My understanding is that the effort would be greater given changes in Gpu hardware and OS X. I’m not a software engineer or I would have done it already

[Joe_H]

BOINC has many groups running projects through it, F@h is mainly 3 research groups located at three different locations - WUSTL, Temple and MSKCC. Altogether a few dozen people, and one paid software developer. There are a number of colleagues at other institutions who collaborate with them under the F@h Consortium around the world.

The COVID-19 response is resulting in some additional research groups joining and volunteer help in areas such as software, communication and web resources. What that may lead to in total remains to be seen, but there is work going on behind the scene on a number of different fronts.

[jmenard]

I personally hired a coder & engineer to enable Mac gpu compute for seti at home. It took a few months and I think cost about $10k (from what I recall). My understanding is that the effort would be greater given changes in Gpu hardware and OS X. I’m not a software engineer or I would have done it already

Thx

[seegem]

One of my greatest pleasures

[durval]

Hello @Joe_H, thanks for the great explanation (specially the "C" vs "G" part), now everything makes sense.

Too bad, I was hoping there were some "hidden" way for me to get my Mac GPUs here contributing to F@H -- but now I understand this is not the case

It would be great if the folder core for the Mac GPUs were to be made available sooner rather than later. I already volunteered to help with this (see here), please let me know if there's anything I can do to help it come along ASAP.

Cheers,
-- Durval.

[Joe_H]

Only "hidden" way at this point is booting a Mac into Linux or Windows. We will see if that changes.

[BjarneDMat]

I do think, that I'm 90% of the way to having GPU on MacOS

I've gone from :

Code: Select all

bjarne@MacPro 13:04:43 /Library/Application Support/FAHClient
$=> grep -A20 System logs/* | grep -v WU
logs/log-20200418-105137.txt:07:35:03:******************************* System ********************************
logs/log-20200418-105137.txt-07:35:03:        CPU: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X5690 @ 3.47GHz
logs/log-20200418-105137.txt-07:35:03:     CPU ID: GenuineIntel Family 6 Model 44 Stepping 2
logs/log-20200418-105137.txt-07:35:03:       CPUs: 24
logs/log-20200418-105137.txt-07:35:03:     Memory: 96.00GiB
logs/log-20200418-105137.txt-07:35:03:Free Memory: 88.35GiB
logs/log-20200418-105137.txt-07:35:03:    Threads: POSIX_THREADS
logs/log-20200418-105137.txt-07:35:03: OS Version: 10.15
logs/log-20200418-105137.txt-07:35:03:Has Battery: false
logs/log-20200418-105137.txt-07:35:03: On Battery: false
logs/log-20200418-105137.txt-07:35:03: UTC Offset: 2
logs/log-20200418-105137.txt-07:35:03:        PID: 146
logs/log-20200418-105137.txt-07:35:03:        CWD: /Library/Application Support/FAHClient
logs/log-20200418-105137.txt-07:35:03:         OS: Darwin 19.4.0 x86_64
logs/log-20200418-105137.txt-07:35:03:    OS Arch: AMD64
logs/log-20200418-105137.txt-07:35:03:       GPUs: 0
logs/log-20200418-105137.txt-07:35:03:       CUDA: Not detected: Failed to open dynamic library 'libcuda.dylib':
logs/log-20200418-105137.txt-07:35:03:             dlopen(libcuda.dylib, 1): image not found
logs/log-20200418-105137.txt-07:35:03:     OpenCL: Not detected: Failed to open dynamic library 'libOpenCL.dylib':
logs/log-20200418-105137.txt-07:35:03:             dlopen(libOpenCL.dylib, 1): image not found
logs/log-20200418-105137.txt-07:35:03:***********************************************************************

to :

Code: Select all

logs/log-20200418-110350.txt-10:51:39:       GPUs: 1
logs/log-20200418-110350.txt-10:51:39:      GPU 0: Bus:5 Slot:0 Func:0 AMD:4 Juniper [Radeon HD 5700 Series]
logs/log-20200418-110350.txt-10:51:39:       CUDA: Not detected: Failed to open dynamic library 'libcuda.dylib':
logs/log-20200418-110350.txt-10:51:39:             dlopen(libcuda.dylib, 1): image not found
logs/log-20200418-110350.txt-10:51:39:     OpenCL: Not detected: Failed to open dynamic library 'libOpenCL.dylib':
logs/log-20200418-110350.txt-10:51:39:             dlopen(libOpenCL.dylib, 1): image not found

I've gotten here by installing MacPorts and pocl.
So, now F@H can see the GPU !but! it still can't see libOpenCL.dylib installed at /opt/local/lib/libOpenCL.dylib.
I tried :

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root@MacPro 12:55:31 /Volumes/Bjarne/test/pocl-1.5/build
#=> ln -s /usr/local/lib/libOpenCL.2.5.0.dylib /usr/lib/libOpenCL.dylib 
ln: /usr/lib/libOpenCL.dylib: Read-only file system

so I'm running into the system protection issue !if! F@H is looking for libOpenCL.dylib in /usr/lib

[PantherX]

Welcome to the F@H Forum BjarneDMat,

Please note that the client can detect the GPU in macOS. The issue is that there's no FahCore that can run on the macOS which can use your GPU. Hence, the "workaround" is to boot into Windows or Linux where the correct FahCore can run on the OS.