Folding Forum

Hey,

I am a new user, I just installed F@H yesterday. I am running Windows XP Professional, SP2 on an AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4000+, 2.10GHz and the only problem I have is that when I go to Task Manager it shows that F@H uses about 50%, which, I think, it means that it uses only one processor (I configured the CPU usage percent to about 98%). How do I configure it to use both processors?...sorry for being such a beginner

Run two copies of the uniprocessor client (one for each core). Each one should be installed in aseperate folder/directory and configured to have different machineID's.

The classic FAH client uses a single CPU Core. You have a choice of running two classic clients or switching to the SMP client.

The SMP client is beta and you'll experience more problems than the classic clients and you'll earn points faster.

To run two classic clients, install them in different directories and configure the MachineIDs so that they're different from each other. For more information, see the Wiki or just ask here.

For most people, the 98% setting should probably remain at 100%, but that's not important.

Hi
Intel CPU:s with hyper threading seems to behave exactly the same way.
I need to run two instances of F@H to get the Windows XP task manager to show 100%.
It has always worked perfectly and I have never noticed any performance degradation that I have been able to link to F@H when gaming. I use the classical F@H console client(as a service) on one Pentium 4 630 (2 MB cache, 3.0 Ghz and 800 Mhz FSB) and one Athlon XP 2800+ (2.083 Ghz)

On Core 2, however, this doesn´t always seem to be the case. A friend of mine had to shut down one of the clients because his Core 2 Duo got so terribly slow. As far as I can remember I installed his clients exactly the same way as I did on my Pentium 4 and It´s the same operating system.

Strange...

Have anyone else here encountered tha same problem? If so, did you find a solution?

Best regards

Erik Walfridsson, Sweden

I did not recomend the SMP client because of the 4000+ X2 is going to have difficulty finishing all WUI's on time. I know, because I used to have an 4600+ X2 and it couldn't always complete on time ...

I'd think it would be just the opposite.

Your P4 only has one physical core, so even though your OS is telling you FAH is only using 50% of the CPU, it's lying to you. Running two clients is discouraged on that platform. There's only one FPU so most of the time one copy of FAH is waiting for the same resources that the other copy is using, slowing both WUs to about half speed. The Core2Duo has two physical processors, so both WUs can run at the same time.

Was your friend running two copies of the classic FAH client, or was he running other (beta) clients? Does his computer have limited RAM?

codysluder wrote:I'd think it would be just the opposite.

Your P4 only has one physical core, so even though your OS is telling you FAH is only using 50% of the CPU, it's lying to you. Running two clients is discouraged on that platform. There's only one FPU so most of the time one copy of FAH is waiting for the same resources that the other copy is using, slowing both WUs to about half speed.

Interesting. ..and very, very stupid of Microsoft. How is the user then supposed know when the CPU is is used for real and when it is not? They never stop surprising you...

Was your friend running two copies of the classic FAH client, or was he running other (beta) clients? Does his computer have limited RAM?

no, betas, no limits.
I built the machine for him but I have still already forgotten the rest of the specs.

Thank you very much for your help! I ran 2 copies of the uniprocessor client on my Dual Core and configured them to have different Machine IDs. It works great! My other computer has an Intel Quad core and I run Vista on it. I plan to run the SMP client on that one soon. Thank you again and happy folding!

ewal wrote:

codysluder wrote:I'd think it would be just the opposite.

Your P4 only has one physical core, so even though your OS is telling you FAH is only using 50% of the CPU, it's lying to you. Running two clients is discouraged on that platform. There's only one FPU so most of the time one copy of FAH is waiting for the same resources that the other copy is using, slowing both WUs to about half speed.

Interesting. ..and very, very stupid of Microsoft. How is the user then supposed know when the CPU is is used for real and when it is not? They never stop surprising you...

Actually that's Intel. They make the processor present a second core, Windows can't do anything about that. If you go into the BIOS and disable HyperThreading, then you will see just the one physical core that your computer has. Because the second core is constructed out of unused resources on the physical core, if the physical core is fully loaded then the second core will always be at 0%, hence the dodgy reading. I'm no fan of M$ but for once it is not their fault...

Ok

Sorry Microsoft

How will my computer's performance(over all) be affected if I disable hyper threading?

ewal wrote:How will my computer's performance(over all) be affected if I disable hyper threading?

If the computer only has one thing to do at a time, there will be no change. Since FAH is running all of the time and whatever else you want to do is sporadic, you will probably be able to notice some difference. A single FAH client with nothing else running will run at the same speed with HT turned on (and using 50% of the virtual processors) or with HT turned off (and using 100% of the processor). The only problem is that people believe that 50% and 100% means something when it really doesn't. They decide that they need two copies of FAH to use the other virtual processor, not realizing that in the end, there's still only one real processor so the two clients compete with each other.

For the sake of the science, it's better to run one client per real cpu. For me and some others who have HT, I leave HT on, run one FAH client, and ignore task manager. I think that HT does help a little with the non-FAH applications but you should evaluate that for yourself.