maxFAH ( installer/manager/monitor for windows )

[4ndr3w]

*messaged erased*

[kiore]

Sorry when I said "get this working" I meant so that people like me can use it..
Can see it is working, but as I am a total noob re multi client folding, am dreaming of it being ready for me to use when I finish my new computer (maybe this weekend) and I install the first 2 of the 4x 9800GT's I intend it to run.
Not sure I'm up to beta testing it though.
kiore.

[MtM]

5 days, sorry for the delay. Links in first post

[kiore]

Watching this with interest.
kiore

[weedacres]

Running XP Pro 32, SP3. Tried to install and after the 3 "I Agree"'s get a message:

Could not load file or assembly '\CUDA.NET, Version 2.1.0 0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=Null' or one of it's dependencies. The system cannot fine the file specified.

[MtM]

Running XP Pro 32, SP3. Tried to install and after the 3 "I Agree"'s get a message:

Could not load file or assembly '\CUDA.NET, Version 2.1.0 0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=Null' or one of it's dependencies. The system cannot fine the file specified.

I thought I fixed this, seems I should have checked better. As workaround, download the maxFah.exe drop in from the link in post 1, and also the file http://www.mtm78.nl/binaries/dll.zip ( unzip offcourse in the same location ).

Then it will work, I'm not sure now if it will copy the dll's to the right position after installation ( cuda.net is used on every start of the program to get gpu info ). I'll put up an better self extracting installer in a second as well.

Edit: the sfx installer now includes the dll's.

[weedacres]

I thought I fixed this, seems I should have checked better. As workaround, download the maxFah.exe drop in from the link in post 1, and also the file http://www.mtm78.nl/binaries/dll.zip ( unzip offcourse in the same location ).

Then it will work, I'm not sure now if it will copy the dll's to the right position after installation ( cuda.net is used on every start of the program to get gpu info ). I'll put up an better self extracting installer in a second as well.

Edit: the sfx installer now includes the dll's.

That works.

Observations:
I see no way to just use the monitor function without going through the install clients portion, if that makes sense. I aborted at this point as I don't need more clients running on this machine. Can this tool be used for monitoring only and if so, monitor across a network?

I also noticed heavy cpu usage. maxFAH is taking 23% of an oc'd Q6600 while sitting with one of the client install screens up.

Edit: I didn't see your edit so missed the updated sfx.

[MtM]

I thought I fixed this, seems I should have checked better. As workaround, download the maxFah.exe drop in from the link in post 1, and also the file http://www.mtm78.nl/binaries/dll.zip ( unzip offcourse in the same location ).

Then it will work, I'm not sure now if it will copy the dll's to the right position after installation ( cuda.net is used on every start of the program to get gpu info ). I'll put up an better self extracting installer in a second as well.

Edit: the sfx installer now includes the dll's.

That works.

Observations:
I see no way to just use the monitor function without going through the install clients portion, if that makes sense. I aborted at this point as I don't need more clients running on this machine. Can this tool be used for monitoring only and if so, monitor across a network?

I also noticed heavy cpu usage. maxFAH is taking 23% of an oc'd Q6600 while sitting with one of the client install screens up.

Edit: I didn't see your edit so missed the updated sfx.

I considerd allowing existing installs to be read in but I abandond that. It could be done, but currently it only allows client to be installed through the installer function and then manage/monitor them. Reason mainly is that it's both an installer as an manager/monitor, the other main reason is that it's built entirely around console clients and people *might* mistake that requirement. Also, the installer assures the clients to be the latest ( if my hosted file containing the url's is up to date that is ). Another issue is that the installer assigns machineID's incrementally, to account for existing installs I would have to read each clients configuration to exclude the already in use id's, again it could be done but not presently.

It could be a tool for monitoring only in the future, and in the future network functions will be added to also monitor clients from linux machines and macosx machines. But presently that's not touched upon.

The installer is the oldest part of the code base, and for the confiuration form launched from the installer ( the form in which you can set options like username/team number, large wu's ect ) that is called with a doevents loop. This will saturate a core, but since it's not ment to be installed with running clients I didn't feel it was that problematic. The configuration form when called from the monitor is independant, and does not require the wait loop ( so it uses no cpu time ). I can add an event handler to the installer if it's really problematic but a doevents loop should not cause lag in other applications ( fwiw this is an personal observation, it's not 100% true ).

Also, the monitoring code itself is real time, and event driven. When a client is processing a work unit, cpu usage is minimal and comparable with other monitors which use timer based intervals. Only when a client moves to another queue slot cpu usage will spike somewhat to above levels one would see with other monitors, reason is it is writing all frame info to a file, and monitoring the clients almost continuesly to check for status. This behaviour is intended, it checks for when a project is uploaded, and for when a client is unable to start a new work unit ( and it should report any irregular behaviour to the donor but that's not 100% finished ). The increased cpu usage at that time is not waisted, unlike other monitors this application will be able to report all information from your clients behaviour. The complete list of wu's, when they where downloaded/started, the time it took for each frame to be completed, client information ( version, core version, settings ) and some hardware information related to the client. This will enable me to display this to the user alone, and in future builds there will be an option to allow uploading of performance info to a website where people can look up info based on hardware and clients.

It's still a work in progress, there are some points which will be made more efficient in the future but I was not dissapointed when running this through perfmon compared to a very popular tool to monitor clients which does not offer any of the other advanced options my application does give to the user.

[kiore]

OK have tried to down load but now get a message that it does not recognize my cpu then when I try again get "Could not connect to web based setup information, application forced to quit".

I know I have had problems updating my MSI K9A2 bios to recognize my Phenom II 940, reads it as "unknown Phenom quad core" could that be the problem why maxFAH doesn't recognize my system? Will try and update bios again and try again.
kiore.

[MtM]

It does rely on windows for cpu information, if windows reports four cores however it shouldn't give an error about the cpu now being recognised. (edit: seems I didn't add the switch properly, you have .net 3.5 installed but either not sp3 or the hotfix enabling wmi to query cpu information correctly. Download the installer again and it should work with your current bios as well that is if windows does have the correct number of cores in registry ( and please don't tell me taskman also shows only one core, as that would make almost any program fail which do not use cpuid to get the cpu capabilities )) .

The could not connect message is strange, could have been an isp issue as the site used to store the information is hosted by my isp, not on an home server. It shouldn't be unavailable unless the whole site is down and from my account that hasn't happend before ( but who knows, not saying it won't ).

[kiore]

Whoops, for some reason System Properties says "AMD Processor model unknown" and that I for some reason have only SP2, so looks like a problem at my end, rather than your stuff. Still some teething problems on this new system (my first build).
kiore.

[MtM]

The new code ( with the fixed switch ) should work regardless, if your registry has this key -> hkey_local_machine\HARDWARE\DESCRIPTION\System\CentralProcessor\ and the correct number of cores listed there ( the registry list logical cores, not physical but for a phenom that doesn't matter as doesn't have HT. for an I7 it will list 8 cores instead of 4 but for windows clients the gain from 4 cores one client to 8 cores two client is negliable in return times so I didn't feel like only allowing one smp client on it ).

[kiore]

OK retried install now getting somewhere download occurred, then smp failed "couldn't find files" .
Tried the 2x GPU's all went well till end where I get message "maxFAH has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience" Haven't sent report, should I?

This is looking promising, but still haven't quite got there yet.
I wonder if I contributed to this by having my old GPU client on pause work, because it quit that client.
Have SP3 now, have administrator password, maxFAH is recognizing it as quad core, have maxFAH start icon on desktop.

What's my next move?

kiore.

[MtM]

It would help if you could tell me the exact error message ( screenshot ). I can look up where the message is triggerd and on what condition.

Did the 'maxFah encounterd.. could not continue' occur during configuration of the gpu clients ( as in with the gui )?

Edit: yes the existing and paused client could certainly caused the issue, as maxFah treis to assign machineID's on initial config dynamicly, the config form would have gotten output from the console about a machineID already in use and it will not handle that gracefully. Remember maxFah is ment to install clients on a clean system? Just like Increase is ment to install clients on it's own, not control prior clients.

Edit: next move? Depends. Can start maxfah, and enter the configuration screen for the client on which the installer failed and try again. If it doesn't work, there is no uninstall function yet, so just delete the whole folder you installer it in and run the installer again without running clients.

[MtM]

*messaged erased*

Sorry 4ndr3w haven't putten much attention to the gui last past days, the thing I would like most though is for the icons to be a litle nicer. If you want to have a go at that post/pm me and I'll send you the icons I use now.