Folding Forum

Posted: **Mon Sep 26, 2011 7:32 pm**

I have been trying to maximize the performance on the little computer I have available. I recently installed the SMP and GPU clients, but I haven't been seeing a big boost in performance. I'm wondering if I maybe am doing the wrong thing for my set up, or if I just have to wait and some huge WU will finish in a few days or something. Perhaps I have set stuff up wrong.

Any advice would be appreciated.

I'm running Windows 7 64-bit on and Intel Core i7. My GPU is an ATI Radeon HD 5450. I also have a PS3 folding most of the time which sorta confounds the stat tracking. I'm pretty sure both the smp and gpu are working, since my cpu usage is 100%, and gpu is around 94%-99%.

I'm running the SMP as a service and the gpu as a client.

Also, can someone tell me where the gpu log file should be or how to find it. I can access it through the icon in the task bar, but if I search my system for files with that name, I find only the SMP log file. I was thinking of writing a little gadget that would tell me the progress of my WU's by looking at the log files.

Posted: **Mon Sep 26, 2011 8:47 pm**

Try getting a passkey. It will help qualify you for bonus points which you can get for the SMP client for completing work units very quickly. http://folding.stanford.edu/English/FAQ-passkey
On my machine the GPU log file can be found at C:\Users\Jesse\AppData\Roaming\Folding@home-gpu
You can hover your mouse over the GPU icon and it should show you your progress.
I monitor my clients using HFM.net http://code.google.com/p/hfm-net/

Posted: **Mon Sep 26, 2011 9:09 pm**

I do have a passkey, forgot to mention that. And thanks for the log file location info.

Posted: **Tue Sep 27, 2011 2:46 am**

Something definitely seems broken w/ my SMP. Log file seems to indicate that nothing has happened in almost 12 hours. Maybe longer since I don't really know the day.

[05:09:59] Completed 680000 out of 2000000 steps (34%)
[10:48:13] Completed 700000 out of 2000000 steps (35%)
[16:21:39] Completed 720000 out of 2000000 steps (36%)
[21:56:04] Completed 740000 out of 2000000 steps (37%)

Posted: **Tue Sep 27, 2011 3:13 am**

Geneocide wrote:Something definitely seems broken w/ my SMP. Log file seems to indicate that nothing has happened in almost 12 hours. Maybe longer since I don't really know the day.

[05:09:59] Completed 680000 out of 2000000 steps (34%)
[10:48:13] Completed 700000 out of 2000000 steps (35%)
[16:21:39] Completed 720000 out of 2000000 steps (36%)
[21:56:04] Completed 740000 out of 2000000 steps (37%)

Wow that's getting kind of ridiculous!
I know ATI GPUs use CPU, that might be part of the problem. But that would drop the TPF only down by like 25%...
Are all of your CPU cores being used? You can check by getting to Task Manager via Control+Shift+Escape (handy shortcut btw)
On mine for instance, I see that Fah_CoreA3.exe is using 97% of my CPU, and I see that all four CPU cores are being fully utilized.
If something is going weird on the SMP the problem should appear in Task Manager

EDIT: if you post as much of your log as you can (please use Code tags) then we can see what project you are working on. Some projects take a long time to complete even on pretty fast machines, but to my knowledge none should be moving along THAT slow!

Posted: **Tue Sep 27, 2011 3:33 am**

Yeah, CPU usage at 100%. The FahCore_11 from my gpu is using about 12% of that... but I agree... something else must be going on. Also, my PS3 doesn't seem to be able to connect to the FaH server to send in it's completed WU, so maybe that's related. My internet seems fine otherwise, and I'm not doing anything so intensive that it wouldn't be able to get through. *shrug*

Code: Select all


--- Opening Log file [September 24 20:55:49 UTC] 


# Windows SMP Console Edition #################################################
###############################################################################

                       Folding@Home Client Version 6.34

                          http://folding.stanford.edu

###############################################################################
###############################################################################

Launch directory: C:\Users\Gene\FAH
Service: C:\Users\Gene\FAH\fah6.exe
Arguments: -svcstart -d C:\Users\Gene\FAH -smp 

Launched as a service.
Entered C:\Users\Gene\FAH to do work.

[20:55:49] - Ask before connecting: No
[20:55:49] - User name: Geneocide (Team 57391)
[20:55:49] - User ID: 2BA45DEF1B44685D
[20:55:49] - Machine ID: 1
[20:55:49] 
[20:55:49] Loaded queue successfully.
[20:55:49] 
[20:55:49] + Processing work unit
[20:55:49] Core required: FahCore_a3.exe
[20:55:49] Core found.
[20:55:49] Working on queue slot 05 [September 24 20:55:49 UTC]
[20:55:49] + Working ...
[20:55:50] 
[20:55:50] *------------------------------*
[20:55:50] Folding@Home Gromacs SMP Core
[20:55:50] Version 2.27 (Dec. 15, 2010)
[20:55:50] 
[20:55:50] Preparing to commence simulation
[20:55:50] - Looking at optimizations...
[20:55:50] - Files status OK
[20:55:50] - Expanded 774436 -> 1460256 (decompressed 188.5 percent)
[20:55:50] Called DecompressByteArray: compressed_data_size=774436 data_size=1460256, decompressed_data_size=1460256 diff=0
[20:55:50] - Digital signature verified
[20:55:50] 
[20:55:50] Project: 10126 (Run 35, Clone 1, Gen 3)
[20:55:50] 
[20:55:50] Assembly optimizations on if available.
[20:55:50] Entering M.D.
[20:55:56] Using Gromacs checkpoints
[20:55:56] Mapping NT from 8 to 8 
[20:55:57] Resuming from checkpoint
[20:55:57] Verified work/wudata_05.log
[20:55:57] Verified work/wudata_05.trr
[20:55:57] Verified work/wudata_05.xtc
[20:55:57] Verified work/wudata_05.edr
[20:55:57] Completed 545580 out of 2000000 steps  (27%)
[23:16:33] Completed 560000 out of 2000000 steps  (28%)
[01:35:15] Completed 580000 out of 2000000 steps  (29%)
[06:50:58] Completed 600000 out of 2000000 steps  (30%)
[12:19:01] Completed 620000 out of 2000000 steps  (31%)
[18:10:28] Completed 640000 out of 2000000 steps  (32%)
[23:34:35] Completed 660000 out of 2000000 steps  (33%)
[05:09:59] Completed 680000 out of 2000000 steps  (34%)
[10:48:13] Completed 700000 out of 2000000 steps  (35%)
[16:21:39] Completed 720000 out of 2000000 steps  (36%)
[21:56:04] Completed 740000 out of 2000000 steps  (37%)

Posted: **Tue Sep 27, 2011 4:42 am**

Geneocide wrote:Yeah, CPU usage at 100%. The FahCore_11 from my gpu is using about 12% of that... but I agree... something else must be going on. Also, my PS3 doesn't seem to be able to connect to the FaH server to send in it's completed WU, so maybe that's related. My internet seems fine otherwise, and I'm not doing anything so intensive that it wouldn't be able to get through. *shrug*

Well according to this thread viewtopic.php?f=3&t=19686 the PS3 server is having some issues at the moment but they are getting on it, but it probably isn't related to the SMP issue.
How many CPU cores does your computer actually have? You can check through the View=>CPU History menu thing in Task Manager when your looking at the CPU graphs.
I'm getting a little puzzled at the moment...

EDIT: well I just looked up Project 10126 on this page http://fah-web.stanford.edu/psummary.html and turns out the WU has 29043 atoms, has a preferred deadline of 5.57 days, and a final deadline of 9.29 days. Its base credit is 1208.00 points, although you'll probably get more than that since you have a passkey. The description of the project is here: http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/fah ... ed?p=10126 So you're probably not going to make it in time. There's something that's causing your CPU to not have enough power for the WU I think. Something else must be using it perhaps, I'm not entirely sure. i7 can have a variety of different core counts I think, and I think hyperthreading comes in there somehow, but I'm not entirely positive.

Posted: **Tue Sep 27, 2011 5:12 am**

well, I recently made it to 38%, so it's still doing something. Probably won't make it, though, you're right, if it keeps going at this rate. The CPU usage history thing indicates I have 8 cores.

Posted: **Tue Sep 27, 2011 5:31 am**

Geneocide wrote:well, I recently made it to 38%, so it's still doing something. Probably won't make it, though, you're right, if it keeps going at this rate. The CPU usage history thing indicates I have 8 cores.

All right. Well you may only have 4 physical cores, as each may be interpreted as 2 because of Intel's hyperthreading. In any case, 4 physical cores should be plenty for the smp. I'm all out of ideas, so perhaps someone else can help you. In the meantime, I'd try the -smp 4 switch instead and see if that does anything useful.

Best of luck.

Posted: **Tue Sep 27, 2011 5:58 am**

Yeah, pretty sure you're correct about the 4 physical cores thing. Thx.

Posted: **Tue Sep 27, 2011 6:07 am**

-smp 4 will only slow it down.

Either another program is stealing CPU cycles, or the CPUs are too hot, and are throttling to keep the CPUs cooler. Could be other things, but that's the first to check.

What model i7? What GHz are you running that i7 at?

Just to test, shut down the GPU client. How does the speed on the SMP client change?

Posted: **Tue Sep 27, 2011 6:15 am**

Core i7 860 @ 2.8 GHz. The cores were running at about 78 - 79 C before. Now that I'm going with smp 4 they're average about 75 C. The CPU usage is down to about 70% average (I'm guessing 50% SMP, 12% GPU, 8% other processes), but I did just tick up to 39% pretty quickly. Something strange is going on.

I'm going to bed for now, but I'll try other things for anyone willing to help out tomorrow. Thanks.

Posted: **Tue Sep 27, 2011 10:36 am**

In the past, SMP has been very sensitive to load imbalance. AFAIK, the SMP threads need to sync every now and then, and in case of imbalance, faster threads will spinwait for the slowest one. Spinwaiting keeps the CPU 100% busy, but nothing useful gets done. I like the fleet analogy for SMP - a fleet moves only as fast as its slowest ship. If the GPU client happens to slow down one particular thread severely, it slows down the whole SMP.

Due to HyperThreading, smp -4 + GPU should be a good compromise. Since there are 8 logical CPUs but only 4 floating point units, smp -4 performance is reasonably close to -smp 8 (maybe only 25% drop) because FAH is mostly about floating point performance anyway. However, smp -4 leaves you with 4 logical CPUs to run other stuff. The GPU client, on the other hand, should be extremely integer heavy on the CPU side because all the heavy floating point work required by FAH is done on the GPU.

Hyperthreading enables you to run these two very different types of code mostly in parallel because they stress different parts of your CPU. Not quite the same as having 8 completely independent real CPU cores with dedicated resources for each, but it may get pretty close in specific cases like this. People who optimize fiercely for PPD / Watt ratio have pretty much abandoned GPU folding these days it seems, because of SMP/bigadv Quick Return Bonuses.

On the other hand, if you want to maximize PPD, -smp 4 + GPU should do the trick. In the past, certain people have fine-tuned SMP+GPU rather extensively, see topic.php?f=59&t=17881&hilit=WoodBuryMan for example. But keep in mind, tips like these can get dated pretty quickly, absolute maximum PPD is an elusive moving target.

Posted: **Tue Sep 27, 2011 11:57 am**

Assuming you get it running correctly, the 25% slower SMP TPF with HT turned off causes a 48% reduction in SMP ppd, which would be somewhere around -3500 ppd on the 860 @ 2.8. That is close to what the ATi card will produce on the v6 client. A waste of electricity in my book. On the other hand, the ATi card will make a lot more ppd on core_16, available only on the v7 client, ATM. The SMP slot will be more productive on 6 threads than on 4.

Posted: **Tue Sep 27, 2011 4:46 pm**

So... I should either

1. Run smp -6 and the gpu
2. Run smp (default) and turn off the gpu
3. Run smp -6 and the gpu v7

Is that correct? I suppose 3 would be superior to 1. So it's really just down to 3 and 2.

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