Posts by Keith Myers

1) Message boards : Number crunching : Does this project support multiple tasks on a single GPU? (Message 3654) Posted 13 Feb 2024 by Keith Myers Post: I run disparate gpu projects on the same gpus all the time. If you set the gpu utlization for 0.5 gpu on all your gpu projects, then you will often see two different gpu projects tasks on the same card. You have to be aware that some projects run best at 1X utilization and some projects app don't like sharing a card with other apps. Depends on the projects and apps. You will have to experiment to find your best solution.
2) Message boards : News : Support for Intel GPUs (Message 3592) Posted 7 Oct 2023 by Keith Myers Post: Anybody just try marking the file immutable so that BOINC can't delete it and replace it with the stock file? Or does the app just fail every task after doing this? [Edit] Well I tried a few things. Marking the file immutable forces the client to immediately try to download the file again and replace it. Which it can't because it can't delete it. So it constantly has the file in permanent stuck download status. The tasks error out with a failed replacement download of the file. <core_client_version>7.19.0</core_client_version> <![CDATA[ <message> app_version download error: couldn't get input files: <file_xfer_error> <file_name>gpuLookupTable_v402.txt</file_name> <error_code>-197 (result aborted via GUI)</error_code> <error_message>user requested transfer abort</error_message> </file_xfer_error> </message> ]]> So I next tried a few parameters in cc_config.xml. <dont_check_file_sizes>1</dont_check_file_sizes> <unsigned_apps_ok>1</unsigned_apps_ok> This along with immutability did not work either as it causes every project to hang in updating communications. So I guess we are stuck with the default values unless you run an anonymous platform on an older client.
3) Message boards : Number crunching : Linux and AMD (Message 3530) Posted 6 Jul 2023 by Keith Myers Post: It is not universally the case now that AMD is faster than Nvidia. Only 1 or 2 projects in the past ever had AMD gpus as a preferred vendor and that was primarily at Milkyway for the older cards better FP64 performance which that project required. But now that project does not use gpus anymore. And for the latest generations of cards, from BOTH AMD and Nvidia, have been limiting more and more the FP64 and FP32 performance of their cards. Nvidia always limited their consumer card performance on purpose to steer the compute user towards their higher cost and higher margin professional cards. If you take a look at the Top 100 hosts list at most projects using gpus and you will find that Nvidia is at the top with AMD cards much lower down the lists. The highest performing AMD consumer card was the Radeon VII card with its faster and more abundant memory. But now, even a RTX 3080 Ti beats that card in performance if using the optimized Nvidia CUDA applications at projects. The fact that you can develop a purposely constructed CUDA application tailored specifically for Nvidia hardware gives you performance advantages. You don't have to rely on general-purpose OpenCL applications that don't use the hardware efficiently.
4) Message boards : Number crunching : Linux and AMD (Message 3528) Posted 6 Jul 2023 by Keith Myers Post: Sorry to hear you had the most common experience getting AMD gpus to compute. Nvidia has been doing compute since its beginning. AMD only in the last couple of years for their Enterprise cards have started developing for compute. Sadly, no development has been done for the consumer cards. They just haven't put the resources toward their consumer cards and fall back on what supposedly works for their Enterprise cards. Which are not the same. Too many flavors historically. Nothing in the drivers ties them all together. Drivers are a mish-mash workup for each generation family it seems. Nvidia has 10X the assets and 100X the market share in compute compared to AMD. I have always used Nvidia since the start of my BOINCing, never an issue with the drivers. Reading the constant flux of posts from AMD gpu owners always leaves me very appreciative of that fact.
5) Message boards : Number crunching : Linux and AMD (Message 3524) Posted 6 Jul 2023 by Keith Myers Post: Read the posts at Einstein and Milkyway about getting the newer AMD cards which includes your igpu to install the proper drivers with OpenCL support. You might try this: amdgpu-install_5.4.50403-1_all.deb amdgpu-install --opencl=rocr,legacy --vulkan=amdvlk,pro --accept-eula https://docs.amd.com/en/docs-5.4.3/deploy/linux/index.html