Re: smp vs gpu2 in terms of scientific benefit
Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 4:56 am
Ok, lots of questions. I will try to answer them all.crodgers wrote:I have not used VMware yet, but I understand the concept - virtual machine = software running an environment that you load another OS into and use just like another PC - all running within your existing PC. Do you have links to some instructions that show how to set it up on an intel quad core running Vista - from scratch? What linux are you running in VM? Umbuntu? RH? SLES? Did you use a pre-configured VM package with VM player? Or build it yourself? If I can get more throughput from my existing box (without burning up the house), I would be game.
You mentioned that the SMP under Vista does not get nearly the amount of ppd as 2 X VM linux. If I switch to the 2 X VM linux setup,
* will the machine run hotter than SMP Vista?
* can I still try to run a GPU client - or will that just take away from the VM clients?
* if I want to try a GPU client, could it run in the VM as well?
* can I still run windows tasks periodically (rip a CD, check out forums like this, etc)?
* is it difficult to shut off the VM clients when the PC needs to be rebooted (Vista updates, hurricane, etc)?
I use vmware on a regular basis, so I set this up myself. Basically I just took the boot cd from the Debian Lenny distribution and did a server install (no XWindows, etc). If I had to do it again, I would look into using notfred's distro (search for 'notfred vmware' on google). He has both cd image based and vmware vmx distro's just for this.Your machine will run hotter as the CPU will now be running much closer to 100%.
Yes, you can run the GPU client - in fact you need to run it at just a little higher priority so that it gets the CPU it needs. I usually lower the priority on the vmware engines so they run at the lowest priority.
Yes, you can still use your machine and it doesn't appear to impact much - of course I do this on a dedicated machine, so I don't use the machine for much other than folding.
I installed the linux smp clients using 'finstall' (check the 3rd party tools). It sets up the client to start on boot and shutdown when you turn off the machine. If I need to reboot vista, I just login to linux and shutdown each VM (which nicely shuts the client down). Once Vista is up and talking, I restart vmware and it starts crunching again.
I currently start vmware by hand after a reboot, but once I finish playing with it, I will try to make it even more autonomous.
Another cool feature is I use VNC to remotely monitor the machine (there is no monitor on it). VMware also supports using VNC to connect to the virtual machines. This means I can connect to the main vista machine, or any of the virtual machines with VNC if I want to check on anything.
So far it is averaging something over 10k ppd.
Rick..