GPU crunching for SETI

br83taylor

br83taylor

br83taylor

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as the title says looks like SETI has entered the 21st Century at last.

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/beta/cuda.php

I give no comments on how this works, what you need to do or anything due to me not having the required hardware. just giving a head's up.
nvidia only at the moment i think. unless someone has got CUDA to work on ATI cards, seem to remember someone working on it, not sure what happened.
 
Interesting news, good find.

Seems simple enough to run. Anyone interested in giving this a whirl? I can't as I have an ATI card, though if results are good...
 
Not sure, but I imagine it should be ok as I think the optimised apps are simply uncluttered versions of the standard app. Try it and report back :D
 
Sod waiting till next week :p

Downloaded and running, but it is too early to say how much of an improvement there is. I think its faster, though with the different workunit sizes, it is hard to tell, but comparing it to one of my other machines the % does seem to be ticking by a bit quicker, I will have to see if my RAC for this machine increases...
Does anyone know of an app I can use to see how much of the processor I am using on my graphics card?
 
Glad to hear you're trying this edgedemon, good work! I'll see that your name is up in lights in tomorrow's news...

Unfortunately I don't know of any app that can figure out the GPU's CPU usage :(

Could you also check what the GPU temps are if you possibly can? I'm very interested in this and may seriously consider breaking with tradition by getting an Nvidia card if it's worth it, but if the temps are ridiculous then I may have to reconsider.
 
edgedemon said:
Does anyone know of an app I can use to see how much of the processor I am using on my graphics card?
Click to expand...

If you mean how can you check and see how much of your GPU you are using then RivaTuner SHOULD show you... I think.

It does on mine but i'm running an ATI card as well...

Sucks that they can't do it on ATI as well but I'm sure our day will come :D
 
hamesy said:
Anyone know if it will work with the optimised clients?
Click to expand...
You mean the optimised BOINC binaries? As long as it's at least the required version, then I don't see why not, but I also don't see the point as the optimisation does little besides affecting the benchmark scores (which I believe SETI doesn't use anyway).
 
TheTross said:
Unfortunately I don't know of any app that can figure out the GPU's CPU usage :(

Could you also check what the GPU temps are if you possibly can?
Click to expand...

GPUz will show you all these things. Get it here

BTW. Remember If you're encouraged to do it, your RAC will count for the Beta project, not the official one.
 
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I have just realised that. I hadn't attached to the BETA project :eek:

Now that I have, you can use the optimised binaries, and it is so fast its untrue. However, any credit earned is seperate to the main project and you will lose a CPU for each GPU, I have a 8800GT so lose 1 CPU. Temps are stable at around 60C on air and the fan kicks in occasionally, but its not an issue.
Im going to post some questions on the seti forums as there are some things I dont quite understand, the 'lost' CPU shows 0% usage and the GPU is showing between 7-10% usage, so there might be a bit of fine tuning required :D
In addition I have crunched 90 work units and Im not showing the credit I would expect, so need to find out about that.
I have a busy weekend so I will probably report back early next week with another update and hopefully some answers.
SETI have a long BETA period, but I cant wait for this to hit the regular client as it really is quick.

Note to TT - I know you are a way behind, but you just stay with that ATI card mate, your RAC whilst not much above me, will mean that you will catch me as I don't know how long I can keep all my machines as a few have been borged and will be found out eventually.

I also read somewhere that ATI have released their programming tools as part of the catalyst driver set, so I bet there will be an AMD client on its way soon..
 
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Hi,

This has sparked my interest and got me crunching again, performance is good although I was expecting it crunch on the cpu as well and why does it stall for so long on an Astropulse.


Is there a way to force Boinc manager to run the gpu client and Astropulse at the same time. it seems to be a waste to have both GPU's inactive for the whole time the Astropulse app is working


Cheers, Simon.
 
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Hi again,

More questions!

I have been messing around a bit and tried to get an optimised Astropulse client running with some success although the manually entered App_info file then compromised the existing enhanced 6.05 cuda client. After reverting back the system is now running 1 Astropulse along with two GPU cuda clients which is good news but I still have potentially 1 core left unused (Quad core + two GTX260) is there any way I can configure preferences or Boinc to run two Astropulse concurrently?

This would perhaps give the current ideal of two cores controlling the two gpu's running the 6.05 client and two Astropulse on the remaining cores, unless at some point in the future the gpu and X86 clients can process concurrently.

Cheers, Simon.
 
Hi,

It seems I spoke too soon.

Boinc downloaded 12 work units one of which was the Astropulse and commenced working as described above. However as soon as all the gpu clients were completed it is now working solely on the Astropulse and will not or is unable to download any more wu's.

The completed cuda units have been uploaded but no new wu's have been downloaded. Is this a problem perhaps with my configuration or maybe there are no new cuda wu's available from the server?

Any help appreciated.

Cheers, Simon.
 
Very confused by this. Had to reimage my machine, now installed the latest version of Boinc and this happened without me realising.

Now says i'm running SETI@home Enhanced 6.05 (cuda), Running (0.05 CPUs, 1 CUDA).

So this never really uses the CPU properly, all work is pushed to the GPU? And can I not use my other core of my CPU?

Seems my CPU is now 50% idle.

Also, messages are coming up with: Message from server: (project has no jobs available).
Credit is coming through though to my account? *head hurts*
 
Hi,

From what I understand if you have these three in combination Boinc will always use the enhanced 6.05 Cuda client.

1. Cuda enabled GPU
2. Cuda drivers installed
3. Boinc 6.45

I believe going back to an earlier version of Boinc prior to 6.45 will get things back to normal.

Cheers, Simon.
 
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