ATI Client (beta) with updated (1.2.1) CAL DLLs

Biffa · 17 Nov 2008 at 00:03

From the Folding Forum thread here

VijayPande said:
Post by Vijay Pande on Tue Nov 11, 2008 4:30 pm

This is an open beta to test the new CAL DLLs and newer 4000 series cards (older cards, i.e. 36** card or below should not use this client). If this open beta looks good, we'll put it on the dowload page. Given the strong performance in closed beta testing, this move will likely come soon, unless somehow some new showstoppers come up.

The client supplied should work with all CAL capable ATI cards, please report if you find that a card isn't recognised (the client should accept any HD 4**0 card in addition to those previously supported). It will also work with NVIDIA cards, but the client is functionally identical to the current released version.

This client has a version number of 6.20r2beta and expires on 2nd March 2009 (it shouldn't stay in beta for this long however, as we are keen to get the updated CAL DLLs out to the masses sooner rather than later).

Systray Installer (XP or higher)
http://www.stanford.edu/group/pande.../[email protected]

Console zip file (XP/Server 2003)
http://www.stanford.edu/group/pandegroup/folding/release/Folding@home-Win32-GPU_XP-620r2beta.zip

Console zip file (Vista/Server 2008)
http://www.stanford.edu/group/pandegroup/folding/release/Folding@home-Win32-GPU_Vista-620r2beta.zip

I'm getting about a 50% ppd improvement, good stability and lower CPU useage on vista on my 4850. Still not 8800 performance but hey any increase is a good increase.

People in the thread report lower CPU usage on XP too which is great but some are having problems, not sure if they have tweaked it since then but I'm not seeing problems even though my card is Oc/ed.

YMMV of course.

muppetkiller · 17 Nov 2008 at 09:36

I have a Crossfire 4850 set up, which i don't use for folding. The way i see it is that the ATI cards are not up to folding at the moment, power to PPD is not worth it. But maybe this new client will change my mind, also the next ATI drivers are ment to give folding users a little boost. But with both these things going on it might bridge that gap between ATI & Nvidia.

Snapshot · 17 Nov 2008 at 09:46

Getting exactly the same 1924PPD on my 3850 under XP and 1728PPD on a 4670 which is a bit disappointing.

Biffa · 18 Nov 2008 at 01:51

Tips if having stability issues:

If using Vista Force Windows XP (SP2) compatability mode on fah_core11.exe and [email protected]
Use -forceasm in advanced tab (additional client parameters)

adi67 · 18 Nov 2008 at 08:45

Not sure what I may have missed, but after installing this client I'm getting the same PPD with my 4850 as previously...

muppetkiller · 18 Nov 2008 at 13:08

adi67 said:
Not sure what I may have missed, but after installing this client I'm getting the same PPD with my 4850 as previously...

What ppd do u get with a 4850?

adi67 · 18 Nov 2008 at 13:30

FahMon says 2959.20 on project 4742. Although it seems to be having trouble getting a new WU since last night.

4850 is at stock.

Biffa · 18 Nov 2008 at 14:04

Heh I was getting under 2K with mine.

Dougiebabe2003 · 20 Nov 2008 at 17:35

Just installed this and haven't really seen a huge increase in PPD but CPU usage is down from 100% of one core to around 50% which is quite welcome.

I only have one 4870 running F@H with the other 3 cores doing S@H so the extra bit of free CPU is nice!

From what I can see Fahmon has said that I have gone from 2690PPD with the old DLLS and .exe to around 2848PPD.

This is with my 4870 at 850MHZ core and 950MHZ Memory...

Doesn't seem to good but only just installed Fahmon so will give it a while.

Will report back if there is any change!

EDIT: This is on Vista x64 btw. It has also completed one WU in 4hrs 10 mins. I'm now looking at around 2950PPD...

Berserker, the client seems pretty stable for me with my 4870. In fact the O/C I have atm (850MHZ Core) isn't really stable in games but seems fine with F@H :confused:

P.S. I also seem to be working on projects 5733 which give 511 points per WU... are these good?

Berserker · 20 Nov 2008 at 22:41

So is it now worth trying to fold on my 3850, am I going to melt it by doing so, and is the client itself stable?

Snapshot · 21 Nov 2008 at 07:53

Seemed stable on my 3850 but still only gave around 1900PPD. It's pretty low down the PPD per watt chart that Biffa posted.

Berserker · 21 Nov 2008 at 12:07

I'll stick to Rosetta then.

Biffa · 23 Nov 2008 at 11:19

Do both. I do rosetta on the CPU and FAH on the GPU, 1900PPD is nothing to be sniffed at and helps the team

Is its Vista or XP? If Vista its a no brainer as the GPU client uses single digit % CPU use. IF XP then you are looking at about 50% of one CPU.

adi67 · 24 Nov 2008 at 10:54

I had to uninstall this beta to start receiving WU's again - no idea why. I've had a second go at running it and now, although it's running, I'm getting around 600 PPD less than before (according to FahMon, I've dropped from around 2.9k PPD to 2.3k PPD).

This is on a stock 4850 running on a Q6600 @ 7 x 400 with 4Gb RAM under Vista x64. The GPU client is assigned to 1 CPU core with the SMP client assigned to the remaining 3.

I'm guessing I'm doing something wrong, so any help to get my PPD back up would be appreciated, especially as I've temporarily lost the use of my Ubuntu box and the PPD that generates.

Biffa · 24 Nov 2008 at 11:10

Remember different Work units have different PPD's All I can suggest is make sure that you have the XP compatible flag on both the F@H application and the core client as well. Then check you have -forceasm on in the client advanced settings.

adi67 · 24 Nov 2008 at 12:37

Thanks for the tips. Yup, I remember that different WUs generate different PPD.

Tried your suggestions, no change...guess this is just the new status quo for now. Shame, though...