Folding Forum

Hi everyone, I'm new to the forum but I've been folding since 2013 on HD7950 (with many interrruptions). I've joined the forum because I'm very stubborn and I don't know anything about programming but there's one thing I would like to know. When I fold with HD7950 with the latest drivers, the "FahCore_21" uses only 0.5-1% of the cpu (i7-3770) on "full", but my brand new gtx 1060 (3gb version, 373.06 drivers) uses 10-11% of it. I've read here that you always need one core for every gpu installed but it slows down too much the entire rig and even using firefox becomes frustrating. Gtx drains less watts and makes more ppd, sure, but I feel like I've wasted money because on 7950 at full folding power, my pc is fast and runs flawless (I need it for my work). Will nvidia improve this "one cpu core for gpu" thing?

The "one cpu core for one gpu" thing isn't an NV thing, it's a folding thing; because of how folding works, 1 core needs to be dedicated to the gpu to supply the needed information to the gpu.
As for your usages, I am at a loss as to how you see a slow down with only 11% of a 1060 being used (or even why it's that low when set on "full") unless it's an issue with your motherboard not being able to handle the hardware you have attached to it.

I know why this happends but dont know a solution for it have seen the same happening on my gtx 1060 but it depends on the work unit in my case.

The cpu is being utilized 11procent for the data the gpu sends to the cpu. I think his gpu is being utilized for (almost) a 100 procent and thats what causes the lag.

My mobo is a p8z77-v lk, cpu is i7-3770 and gpu HD7950: at 100% of its power with folding@home there's no lag and the cpu doesn't suffer as you can see here:



Maybe ComputerGenie is right when he says motherboard is not able to handle gtx 1060? I forgot to mention that I completely disabled cpu folding

It's just the way nvidia implemented the driver. There is a full CPU thread dedicated to polling the GPU. The only issue that causes is that it means one thread needs to be dedicated to it, wasting resources that could otherwise be CPU folding.
However, that's unlikely to be causing the lag - that's down to GPUs being poor at multitasking - ie. drawing the screen and folding at the same time. One option is to connect the display to a different GPU to that folding, or turn off hardware acceleration in windows and your browsers, so they render using the CPU instead. Or, just fold using the GPU when idle.

rwh202 wrote:It's just the way nvidia implemented the driver

As I thought! For me this is not an improvement with sapphire radeon hd7950 I can fold at full power and use photoshop without any lag, with gtx 1060 it seems to be in slow motion

The only issue that causes is that it means one thread needs to be dedicated to it, wasting resources that could otherwise be CPU folding

Agreed! I want my cpu completely free! I'm too selfish Okay, I'll plug the screen to another hdmi, thanks guys

Glennmas wrote:The cpu is being utilized 11procent for the data the gpu sends to the cpu. I think his gpu is being utilized for (almost) a 100 procent and thats what causes the lag.

I had misread, thought it said gpu usage @ 11%.

Glennmas wrote:The cpu is being utilized 11procent for the data the gpu sends to the cpu. I think his gpu is being utilized for (almost) a 100 procent and thats what causes the lag.

I don't believe that.

It's an issue of the nVidia GPU not multitasking. When FAH sends a block of work ("kernel") to the GPU, that uses (almost) all of the GPU resources until the GPU finishes that block of work. If Photoshop or Windows or anything else asks for GPU resources to update the screen, that update cannot interrupt a block of work that's already being worked on so it waits.

You seem to be suggesting that AMD has worked out a way to multitask work from various kernels. That could be.

GPUs are aimed at the gamer market where the frame rate in specific games is the fundamental criteria for comparing top GPUs. Unfortunately neither FAH nor photoshop are on that list of games.

For Firefox, you can 'uncheck' the option to use hardware acceleration. This should stop the video lag with it.