SMP and VirtualBox 3

Moderators: Site Moderators, FAHC Science Team

brentpresley
Posts: 19
Joined: Sun Jun 15, 2008 12:05 am
Hardware configuration: Too many to list.
Location: Dallas, TX
Contact:

FAH on VirtualBox.

Post by brentpresley »

Has anyone gotten this to work inside a VM? Virtualbox 3.0.2 supports up to 32 cores in the guest OS, but our team has had ZERO luck with core stability on the following distros installed inside VB: Ubuntu 9.04, Debian (rev?), Redhat, Slackware, and CentOS.
toTOW
Site Moderator
Posts: 6349
Joined: Sun Dec 02, 2007 10:38 am
Location: Bordeaux, France
Contact:

FAH on VirtualBox.

Post by toTOW »

I have the same poor results with VirtualBox : it's awfully slow (compared to VMWare VMs, even to install or to load Linux), and SMP client isn't able to run on the VB's VMs :(

You should read this thread for instance : viewtopic.php?f=16&t=10449
Image

Folding@Home beta tester since 2002. Folding Forum moderator since July 2008.
bruce
Posts: 20824
Joined: Thu Nov 29, 2007 10:13 pm
Location: So. Cal.

Re: Frame Times on -bigadv Units

Post by bruce »

Last I heard, Virtualbox didn't work with -smp 4 so it's pretty likely that a future upgrade will be required.
ParrLeyne
Posts: 40
Joined: Sun Dec 14, 2008 10:59 pm
Location: Toronto, Canada

Re: Frame Times on -bigadv Units

Post by ParrLeyne »

bruce wrote:Last I heard, Virtualbox didn't work with -smp 4 so it's pretty likely that a future upgrade will be required.
I downloaded the latest VirtualBox kit this weekend and tried to run my Ubuntu 8.04 VM with 4 VM CPUs (on my XP 64 running Phenom II x4 810) and had nothing but problems :e( ;

- The VM would hang after about an hour
- The clock in the VM would slow down
- FAH died after about 30 minutes, the first time I tried to run the VM -- I didn't think to note the error msg
brentpresley
Posts: 19
Joined: Sun Jun 15, 2008 12:05 am
Hardware configuration: Too many to list.
Location: Dallas, TX
Contact:

Re: Frame Times on -bigadv Units

Post by brentpresley »

toTOW wrote:I have the same poor results with VirtualBox : it's awfully slow (compared to VMWare VMs, even to install or to load Linux), and SMP client isn't able to run on the VB's VMs :(

You should read this thread for instance : viewtopic.php?f=16&t=10449
Already read it, and the info in there is no longer applicable (at least on the 2 machines I tried).

VB 3.0.2 has corrected the slow SMP issues of VB 3.0.0, and I can fold using Notfred's distro just fine with frame times within 1% of the VMWare setup I was previously using.

It's possible there are still some issues w/ VB preventing bigadv to work properly, but SMP -8 or 2 x SMP -4 work just fine withing VB if using Notfred's VM or CD ISO.

bruce wrote:Last I heard, Virtualbox didn't work with -smp 4 so it's pretty likely that a future upgrade will be required.

Are you talking about a problem with the SMP client crashing? Or are you referring to the number of cores available to the guest OS (i.e. the client). The 2nd has been upgraded, and VB now allows more core access than any other VM setup.
bruce
Posts: 20824
Joined: Thu Nov 29, 2007 10:13 pm
Location: So. Cal.

Re: Frame Times on -bigadv Units

Post by bruce »

brentpresley wrote:
bruce wrote:Last I heard, Virtualbox didn't work with -smp 4 so it's pretty likely that a future upgrade will be required.
Are you talking about a problem with the SMP client crashing? Or are you referring to the number of cores available to the guest OS (i.e. the client). The 2nd has been upgraded, and VB now allows more core access than any other VM setup.
I was talking about SMP crashing, but that information may also be obsolete since VB seems to be fixing problems rather rapidly.
brentpresley
Posts: 19
Joined: Sun Jun 15, 2008 12:05 am
Hardware configuration: Too many to list.
Location: Dallas, TX
Contact:

Re: Frame Times on -bigadv Units

Post by brentpresley »

SMP crashes for me in Ubuntu, but not in Notfred's modified Slackware distro.

From my perspective, it looks like some things have been fixed, but there are still some issues to be resolved.


Sigh, guess I'm going to have to try that eval of VMware vSphere after all (PITA to install).
DanGe
Posts: 118
Joined: Sat Nov 08, 2008 2:46 am
Hardware configuration: 2018 Mac Mini / MacOS Catalina
MSI Radeon RX Vega 56 (eGPU via Sonnet Breakaway Box 550)
3.2 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i7
Location: California, United States

Re: SMP and VirtualBox 3

Post by DanGe »

I tried Ubuntu 9.04 Desktop with the SMP client in VBox 3.0.2 today. But after about 10 minutes, close to the time it would progress 1%, the VM would simply freeze, though the VM window itself was still working. I noticed that the VM's CPU usage in task manager dropped from 88-95% to 25% (I have a quad-core).

But apparently Notfred's folding VM works in VBox? How is the PPD in 4 processors? Roughly double the PPD earned in one VMware with 2 processors?
Post Reply