Have upgraded my GPU to a Fatboy - now what?

[frazelle09]

Have upgraded our PCLinuxOS Ryzan 7 system to a Fatboy GPU with 8 GB. Should i change the settings in FAHControl? If so, to what should i change them?

Have a beautiful evening and be happy!

[nada391]

don't know what you mean "fatboy" but presumably one of those newer BIG gpu with 2.5+ space requirement...

now what have needed on computer here was to create two different "groups" , one for CPU, another to GPU;
this would ensure that the computer would continuously receive work;

don't know why this is so, but if let with standard settings, all CPU and GPU in one default setting, then soon the projects / WU would stall.

https://ibb.co/6RC0bLww
https://ibb.co/39DrFzn8

[frazelle09]

Thanks for replying nada391! Wow, it took a while. So, i solved this problem by upgrading to 8.4 version of Folding by following ChatGPT's instructions to create a FAH-portable folder which contains everything i need for my various PCLinuxOS computers (except to change the config.xml script) which do not use systemd. It is now running successfully on our main compu (which has the hand-me-down XFX Fatboy 590 gpu).

Waiting on first WL - yupiii !!!

Have a beautiful day and be happy!

[Joe_H]

Fatboy is shorthand for the XFX RX 590 Fatboy card they sold. It took 3 slots and used improved cooling to run at a slightly higher clock rate and boost compared to standard RX 590 cards.

As for settings, it is the OP's choice whether to also do CPU folding at the same time. Since they posted in the v7 sub-forum and mention FAHControl, the images supplied will not help as they are for the v8 client. If CPU folding I would recommend not setting the number of threads higher than 2 less than the max. CPU folding may work better if the number of threads are limited to the actual number of physical CPU cores, or half the total threads available on the Ryzen 7.

Also, drivers for Linux for this older card may require using an older kernel and older drivers that still include OpenCL support. AMD ended full support for Polaris based GPUs on Linux in 2023.

[frazelle09]

Joe_H - thanks for posting! And so quickly! We created the FAHControl bec. that's what Chat indicated. It's only used to house the config.xml. According to the new webpage we have> linux-b450-aorus-m v8.4.9 showing. So, maybe the config.xml file goes in another subdirectory. If so, do you know which one?

Have a great day and be happy!

P.S. Maybe we should move this part of the thread to the 8.x side...

[Joe_H]

v7 and v8 use the same directory location for the support files such as logs, the folding cores, and the configuration. Offhand it has been a while since I ran a Linux client, but the default location was /var/lib/fahclient.

[calxalot]

I’m always surprised when people choose ChatGPT hallucinations over reading the guide linked to on the download page.

That’s not to say the guide is good enough.
Experienced folks have said the existing documentation is confusing.

[calxalot]

I do agree that v7 is probably the better choice if you’re wanting to put fah on a usb stick.

v8 will do things like dump work if it detects the hardware id for the computer has changed. This is deliberate. You would need to browse the issues on github to know why.

If you want to run the v8 client on a machine that lacks systemd, you need to build the client yourself.

v8 mostly uses config.xml to import v7 settings on first run. And to pre-configure the account-token on headless installs.

[frazelle09]

It's working just fine so far. It looked like it recognized the GPU but for some reason it's not using it.

Well, i've been using ChatGPT for several months now for this and that and the other and outside of dropping back to version 4.x or something i really haven't had any problem with it. It's been able to solve like 8 or 9 our of 10 of my problems, so - one happy camper!

Have a radiant afternoon and be happy!

[Joe_H]

Is the F@h client recognizing the RX 590 as "supported"? Check the log file to see if it says unsupported or no OpenCL detected. Either will keep the client from downloading WUs and processing them on the GPU.

As best as I can tell, there is an entry in the GPUs.txt file as one PCI ID covering several different cards:

Code: Select all

0x1002:0x67df:1:4:Ellesmere XT [RX 470/480/570/580/590]

But it is also possible there is a separate PCI ID for the XFX RX 590 version.

The other issue is OpenCL support. As I posted earlier, AMD discontinued full support for the card 2 years ago. The basic support for use as a video card remains, but ROCm 4.5 and later removed OpenCL support for Polaris based cards on Linux. You also would need to use an older Linux kernel, recent versions also do not have support for Polaris and the older OpenCL support libraries. People have successfully installed the older versions, but it is not easy and has failed for others.

[frazelle09]

Thanks again for replying, Joe_H.

i see {"vendor": 4098, "device": 26591, "type": 1, "species": 4, "description": "Ellesmere XT [RX 470/480/570/580/590]"}, in the gpu.json file...

i also noticed that under the Settings page of the website the box labeled Enabled for the Ellesmere was not selected. We selected it ... Will something happen. Only time will tell...

Have a beautiful evening.

[muziqaz]

If you are able to select it and it is not greyed out, then it is supported. However at the moment there is no work for it available. This might change soon enough

[Joe_H]

Difference between the .txt file used by v7 and the .json file is that the hexadecimal numbers for the device IDs in the GPUs.txt file are converted to decimal for the .json version.

[nada391]

would also be interested in building client for non-system-d linux;

have tried with these instruction here

https://github.com/FoldingAtHome/fah-client-bastet

(simple omitting installing reqirement "libsystemd-dev" )

but after compile, it still would require "systemctl".

[calxalot]

You need to build on a machine that does not have systemd at all.

Creating the package will be pointless, because it will assume systemctl exists.