World Community Grid

B1ng

B1ng

B1ng

Associate
Joined
4 Jan 2010
Posts
208
Location
Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire
Greetings!

As my system is AMD-centric, I decided to browse through the other available DC projects and find something more suited to my system than F@H (8-10k PPD on CPU/GPU). I came across World Community Grid as being our lowest scoring DC Project, and that apparently it is AMD GPU friendly. I therefore decided to give it a whirl.

However, I seem to be having the following issues:
  • On Linux (where I spend most of my time when not gaming) my GPUs are not detected as being usable.
  • On Windows (not ideal as only used when gaming, therefore not doing much if any DC computation) my GPUs are detected but are doing no work.

On Linux, is there something I haven't set up correctly? On Windows, is there also an issue or are the projects i'm currently working on simply not needing of the GPUs?

I have allowed both instances to utilise the GPUs by checking the 'use GPU when in use' option.

Any help/tips/advice would be greatly appreciated!
 
Hi and welcome to the team B1ng :)

I have never ran GPUs under Linx myself so I'm not sure, the only thing I can think of however is if you are running the open source driver for your card and you need to run the propriety one from Nvidia/AMD.

In windows check the event log in your boinc client, it may be a case that they have no GPU work available, check also your work preferences at the WCG site, make sure you have the sub project checked that uses GPUs.

Also I don't want to dissuade you from WCG but it's worth pointing out what you said about it being our lowest scoring DC Vault project, when it comes to team rank, you're right, it is, but when it comes to DC Vault points it's one of our better scoring projects because of how the points system works (there are so many teams in it) but for sure their is room for improvement.

Projects to consider if you use Linux mostly are eon2, correlizer, docking and NFS these all run better in Linux than windows, eon2 for e.g. runs 50% quicker.
 
Thankyou!

I will double check, but I believe I am using the proprietary drivers as opposed to the 'standard' ones when you first use when installing Linux.

I will check out the settings for it, but like you say as well there may be no GPU work available.

Ah right ok, still getting to grips with the various scoring systems for the numerous different projects! I must have just seen the rank and gone for that!!

I may have a look at these other projects in that case. Is there one in particular where we are short of people at present, suitable to a Linux setup utilising AMD GPUs?
 
You can see here our worst scoring projects which are at the top and the icons next to them tell you if they're boinc, cpu, ati or nvidia compatible, but what it doesn't tell you is how easy it is to gain a position.

Id say CPU wise for Boinc: Docking, non Boinc Ogr 27
GPU: Milkway or collatz though we are quite strong on these projects, non boinc rc5 72.
 
Last edited:
I'm stealing my thread back! :D

Managed to coax the GPUs into doing something useful under Linux. WCG seemingly has no current GPU work, or won't download any. Managed to get PrimeGrid & Poem@Home working well with the GPUs under BOINC. Couldn't manage to get RC5-72 to run last night, but I will have another play.

Cheers for the help and advice Hanluc; let me know if you think my efforts need re-directing!
 
You're welcome, two excellent choices! Poem@home has always been a favourite of mine but I struggle to get GPU work these days, when I do get given some it's like 2 or 3 at time, I see you have 40+ GPU tasks in progress :) I'm yet to work out why the work server does this for some and not for others.

The big points for poem are on the GPU, by all means crunch both, but if you wanted to do just the GPU and use your CPU cores for some other project uncheck the CPU in your poem preferences.
 
How are you seeing what i'm upto with it? I'm still looking for a reliable way to check my stats against team members and such?

That's not a bad idea at all! Now that I've got the GPUs happy, I can contribute elsewhere too. :)
 
I see everything ;)

Our team page

Your page ... If I click on view computers then tasks I can see what you're up to ;) you can choose to hide your computers if you wish in your poem@home preferences.

For stats I use Free-DC, here our poem page On the top left under poem@home you'll see 'teams' this shows our ranking against other teams (there's no direct link to it) we're currently 80th.

There's also Boinc Stats
 
:eek:

That's handy that is! Started checking when I'm at work, have I caught the bug?

Just to confirm, are the numbers I'm producing reasonable for this project?
 
Good for the medical profession, bad for my electricity bill! :D

Awesome stuff. Plenty more to come!
 
Quick WCG update for those who missed it last month.

Breakthrough in the fight against childhood cancer

20 Feb 2014
The research team behind the Help Fight Childhood Cancer project has just published a groundbreaking paper. It reveals seven promising drug candidates - identified with the help of World Community Grid members – for neuroblastoma, one of the most common and dangerous forms of childhood cancer.
Click to expand...

Great news!

Shockingly, WCG is the project OcUK does absolute worst in! Still 836th in the world isn't too bad.

http://boincstats.com/en/stats/-1/team/detail/1/projectList
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom