Folding Forum

My first WU finished last night (PST aka GMT-8). I'd clicked "Pause when done" so I could upgrade from GPU2 to GPU3. The upgrade seems to have been successful and GPU3 is chugging away on 582 p2750_N68H_AM03

How do I monitor GPU usage? Obviously, standard Windows tools, whether something as naive (but not unuseful) as taskmgr or more sophisticated like sysinternals' process explorer won't so much as touch the GPU.

I have an Nvidia GeForce GT 240M. Had to upgrade the driver for GPU3 - its new version is 258.96 (old version was 189.90).

I might note that FAHlog.txt tells me that my GPU3 client is still compiled with the 32-bit compile while my machine (hardware and OS) is 64-bit.

At this point, there is no advantage to changing to a 64 bit GPU client.

Aren't there some GPU tweaker tools out there that also show you the usage? Google it. Or check the 3rd Party Tools section of this forum to see if any are listed there.

EVGA Precision shows gpu core usage.

I'll check out EVGA Precision but for the moment GPU-Z seems to do the trick. I can't put up its link because there's a first-day prohibition on new users posting links which is understandable.

GPU is pegged at 98%. Is there some way of throttling GPU usage? I'm not having problems but it seems to me that a user (donor) would want to have some degree of control over this.

Yes, I suppose the 32-bit client doesn't matter because the CPU's role is far less than that of the GPU.

patfla wrote:...Is there some way of throttling GPU usage?...

There is, use this Nvidia Environment Variable; FAH_GPU_IDLE and use a value between 5 and 10 (More details) but there isn't any limit to it. The higher the value, the lower your PPD as it will take longer to finish the WU as there will be breaks in the WU processing.

Hi Adrien - so what you're saying is that you'd like one of the software monitoring tools modified to include dropped frames?

I may not be interpreting what you've said correctly. It would seem to me that dropped frames would meant that one was pushing on one's GPU (not CPU) too hard. Or is it a matter of the rate at which the CPU feeds frames to the GPU? There is of course the task of copying the work units from CPU to GPU memory and the pacing of these operations.

adriennbelly wrote:The easy way to check if it is worth pointing out is to add more detail to the windows and see if you drop frames. If they do not, you are CPU limited in the previous settings ,resolution. If they do, you push your GPU as fast as it can go. How do you know if you are limited, while sifting through the material just look at the performance charts fps, comment cards.

These statements may apply to the use of GPUs by gamers, but I'm not sure how it applies to GPUs being used for FAH. Are you sure you're in the right forum? What User Name do you use for your FAH points?