Is this GPU too weak to bother with?

[jrweiss]

Is there anything inherently wrong with Folding 7 (vs 6) CPU threads + GPU? My i7-4770 + AMD 7750 system Folds fine in the 7-thread config...

[Joe_H]

Is there anything inherently wrong with Folding 7 (vs 6) CPU threads + GPU? My i7-4770 + AMD 7750 system Folds fine in the 7-thread config...

Most of the time - no, nothing wrong with it. Many if not most projects fold okay at a setting of 7, but it does restrict you from folding those projects known to have issues with 7. Similarly there is a small number of projects known to not work well with a setting of 5 or its multiples. Most projects have been found to have problems with higher prime number settings than 7 - so settings of 11, 13, 17 and so on are not used.

In some cases WU's are issued to systems with settings known to be problematic. But they have a wrapper that will adjust the count to one that is usable. When that happens you will see an entry in the log such as "...mapping NT 7 to 6".

[willfolder]

I left the machine running both CPU and GPU overnight, the points per day was at about 17000 - the same as with just the CPU folding.
This was with the CPU slot set to -1 as far as thread usage - I assumed the client knows best how to allocate threads however
if I set the CPU threads to 6 is this so that 2 can be devoted to driving the CPU code that services the GPU?

The CPU is overclocked to 4Ghz - it is stable at this speed and I have a water cooling system and a 750watt PSU.
The problem I have is that the computer is unusable if both GPU and CPU are folding at the same time and pausing the GPU
means there is not enough time to finish the GPU WU in the time alloted.
I am going to try setting the CPU threads to 6 as suggested and leave the machine running overnight and during the day while I am at work.

[P5-133XL]

I would not assume that the client knows best by default. Everyone's machine and usage differ. The default is a good start and will give reasonable results for the vast majority but for true optimization there is nothing better than a human testing the various choices.

Do note, that for your CPU half the CPU cores are hyper-threaded (HT) which are not nearly as useful as true cores. HT cores are designed to use CPU resources that are not currently in use by a real core, rather than having their own resources. HT cores are just efficiency improvers. They are not nearly as useful as a normal core (1-4). As such don't worry too much about going from 8<->7<->6.

It is much more important not to over-subscribe the cores by using 9 (CPU=8 + 1 for the GPU). Also leave enough CPU resources so that your personal usage does not force over subscription.

[willfolder]

I am currently running CPU on 6 threads
Assume the other 2 CPU threads are there to assist the GPU?
If this fails I will contemplate getting a better gpu to use for folding while using my old 8400 GS to simply drive the monitors.
Assume you can do this - have 2 gpu cards in a machine and leave one for folding and the other for driving the windowsmonitors.
Will let the experiment run over the next day or so to determine if this 8400 is worth using for folding at all.

[P5-133XL]

One Nvidia GPU will use one CPU core, so there is no need to free up two unless something else needs that CPU core.

Run the task manager. Sort the processes running by the CPU column and you can see how much is being used by the CPU core, the GPU core, and idle.

It is easy enough to test PPD under a variety of settings. Make sure you run it so all WU's complete at least 3%-5% to get a reasonably accurate PPD estimate. It seems to me that testing with 8 CPU cores + 0 GPU and 7 CPU cores + 1 GPU or even 6 CPU cores with 1 GPU will get you a valid estimate as to the value of GPU folding for your card and what settings work best for it.

[John_Weatherman]

I got the "Paused:no gpu access" message too when trying the new v7 client with a 9600 GT card. Went back to v6 client.

[PantherX]

I got the "Paused:no gpu access" message too when trying the new v7 client with a 9600 GT card. Went back to v6 client.

Could you please post the log file here so we can see why that happened?

[John_Weatherman]

I stopped the v6 client and tried with a GPU slot on v7.44 and got the same message again

Code: Select all

05:52:55:Adding folding slot 01: PAUSED gpu:0:G94 [GeForce 9600 GT] (no gpu access)
05:52:55:Saving configuration to config.xml
05:52:55:<config>
05:52:55:  <!-- Folding Core -->
05:52:55:  <checkpoint v='10'/>
05:52:55:
05:52:55:  <!-- Logging -->
05:52:55:  <verbosity v='5'/>
05:52:55:
05:52:55:  <!-- Network -->
05:52:55:  <proxy v=':8080'/>
05:52:55:
05:52:55:  <!-- Slot Control -->
05:52:55:  <power v='FULL'/>
05:52:55:
05:52:55:  <!-- User Information -->
05:52:55:  <passkey v='********************************'/>
05:52:55:  <team v='48913'/>
05:52:55:  <user v='John_Weatherman'/>
05:52:55:
05:52:55:  <!-- Folding Slots -->
05:52:55:  <slot id='0' type='CPU'/>
05:52:55:  <slot id='1' type='GPU'/>
05:52:55:</config>

I can not update the driver to the latest from Nvidia - have 321.01 now. I'm getting a failure message when I try to install and GeForce Experience can not be updated either. I'm getting a message when booting that NvMCTray.dll can not be run as it's missing, but that seems to be the Nvidia Media Center.
UPDATE - Seems like Nvidias Media Center/Control Panel is only for Aero/7/8 - which explains lack of NvMCTray, even in Safe Mode it's not possible to update drivers.

[PantherX]

Could you please post the initial section so that we can see what FAHClient has detected? Also, do you use GeForce Experience? If you aren't, then you can safely "un-select" it (along with other packages that you don't need). Moreover, here are some solutions to the missing NvMCTray.dll issue which you can try (http://pcsupport.about.com/od/findbyerr ... -error.htm). Finally, please use the default verbosity of 3 since any higher would print the default values too which makes it difficult to see what has changed.

[John_Weatherman]

The driver and GeForce Experience I managed to get via XPs new hardware detection program - when I try to update driver via Device Manager I get a no newer driver message.
I posted all that the log printed when I tried to add a GPU slot - the client finds the card - latest log -

Code: Select all

GPU 0: NVIDIA:1 G94 [GeForce 9600 GT]
04:06:55:         CUDA: 1.1
04:06:55:  CUDA Driver: 5050

This old PC has only PCI-E 1.1x16 which does not help ...

[PantherX]

Weird, FAHClient does detect the GPU and CUDA version which would mean that the driver is properly installed. However, it can't fold on the GPU. Not sure why that is. Also, since your GPU isn't a high-end one, I highly doubt that the PCI-E would create a bottleneck (viewtopic.php?p=254816#p254816).

[bruce]

when I try to update driver via Device Manager I get a no newer driver message.

I generally do not trust that message. It's strictly from Microsoft's perspective which doesn't always include drivers from other sources. Even though NVidia isn't helping, what does Sony say?

Other options:
* Have you tried V6?
* From the topic title, you must have already considered upgrading to a newer GPU. Again, check with Sony. We don't know what they might have done to invalidate the NV drivers.

[John_Weatherman]

I'm running v6.41r2 now so that's not a problem. The v7 client must need something that XP can not run - I did see that certain games don't run without Nvidias Media Center (which requires Windows 7 or 8).

[KCMizik]

Anyone been able to get the 8400 GS to work using the FAH Client? I have the following card & am surprised the client won't pick it up. This card isn't the best however it is a 3rd gen, 1GB card. I'm also using Linux Mint & have gone thru the process ot added in the GPU whitelist.

GPU - GT218 GeForce 8400 GS Rev. 3