Running the Linux version of FAH in Windows?

[NoMoreQuarantine]

I wish I had noticed this thread yesterday. I had the same thought and gave Ubuntu on Win 10 a try. I encountered the same issue with no GPU, but my CPU worked just fine. What was odd was that Linux created 2 processes for FAHClient, each of which used 100% of 2 of my CPU threads. As a result, the performance seemed to be slightly less than normal on just Win 10. Additionally, when I telneted (that's a word right? ) into FAHClient, there were huge delays every time I sent a command. Additionally, while I was able to connect using FAHControl, it would periodically disconnect for a couple seconds before reconnecting again. No problems with web control though. Between the telnet delay, no GPU, and higher resource usage I only bothered sending one WU. It might be able to perform better, but I don't have the time to troubleshoot the issues and will stick with Win 10 for now.

[ajm]

So far I only have achieved 5 WUs on WSL, so I have not much to compare, but for what I have, the performance looks good, closer to Linux Native than to Windows Native.

For example, taking WUs with 1000 BC:

Windows Native
13850 (0, 29353, 18) 0.8352 1000
13851 (0, 18843, 26) 0.8064 1000
13851 (0, 22122, 26) 0.8352 1000

Linux Native
13850 (0, 10463, 34) 0.6048 1000

WSL2
13850 (0, 29605, 51) 0.6624 1000

And WUs with 685 BC (+ 700 on Linux Native:

Windows Native
14379 (1213, 0, 1) 0.6912 685
14379 (1830, 0, 10) 0.6912 685
14379 (1921, 1, 2) 0.6768 685
14379 (431, 0, 28) 0.6912 685
14379 (484, 0, 30) 0.6912 685
14379 (537, 0, 23) 0.7056 685
14379 (606, 0, 15) 0.72 685
14379 (722, 3, 12) 0.6768 685
14379 (837, 0, 21) 0.7056 685
14379 (942, 0, 19) 0.6768 685

Linux Native
14379 (3282, 1, 6) 0.4752 685
14621 (1314, 0, 26) 0.4608 700
14621 (1981, 0, 18) 0.4176 700
14645 (147, 0, 6) 0.432 700
14645 (249, 0, 26) 0.4176 700
14645 (250, 0, 19) 0.4464 700
14646 (145, 0, 14) 0.432 700
14646 (85, 0, 0) 0.432 700
14647 (0, 0, 78) 0.432 700
14649 (108, 0, 101) 0.432 700
14649 (229, 0, 9) 0.432 700
14649 (27, 0, 22) 0.4464 700

WSL
14379 (466, 0, 55) 0.4752 685

That's pretty much what one could have expected.

[warrelium]

Thank you for putting your effort into this testing, ajm!

[ajm]

It's mostly fun!

[HGF7]

I am very much interested in the results of running FAH in the most productive enviroment for virtual machines. I recently was gifted a couple computers from a gamer and am looking to update my 5 year old ESX enviroment running on a 8 year old computer.. If I understood a comment, Linux runs faster and although I need Windows for some of the software, would see the potential of 2-3 vms running windows and FAH hosts but knowing the fastest configuration would help. I'm very new to FAH but didn't see much about speeds with different OS's in my limited searching. Since I just put in solar, and will likely generate more than I need under normal conditions and live in a northern area where heating is needed 8 months a year, I don't mind running older machines if they can be effective. Is 1000 to 2000 points a day worth the effort? One of the newer machines seems to get 5-6 times that but I don't know where the averages run. I have over 25 years in IT and willing to investigate but the learning from the experience of other with maps and directions is much more productive than build it and test.

[ajm]

For now, Linux Native is a clear winner, closely followed by Linux on WSL2, but only for CPU jobs, so far. Next week, I'll try VirtualBox, and maybe other systems later. But I essentially test Windows solutions. I need this environment for my work anyway and although I now have PCs that only run FAH, I find Linux a bit too cumbersome to install and maintain for FAH, especially with GPUs (endless driver issues). But if you want to just put older PCs to work and you don't mind the possible complications, the best seems to install a common Linux distribution (LTS) and to run it natively. At least for now. I very much doubt that any virtualisation will be able to compete at the level of raw performance. But then Windows wins in other areas that may seem more important to some (like me).

A modern graphics card can produce some 2 million points per day (incl. bonus): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... Ek/pubhtml but as long as a CPU or GPU can fold and deliver results in time, it is useful.

[ajm]

I was not able to install VirtualBox yet. It will be for the next week-end, I guess.

First, the thing doesn't support Insider versions of Windows (I run Win 10 2004 of that machine), but I only noticed when trying... it was bumpy - no indication of any kind, just massive bugs. But I eventually found it out in some online manual. So new installation of Win 10 1909. And then I could install Ubuntu in the VBox.

But then, in order to really use it, you need so called Guest Additions. Otherwise you're stuck with such a small interface that you cannot use any GUI. You haven't even access to the VBox CLI to help you out. But then those Guest Additions are only documented, not provided on Oracle's website. I found a couple of them online, but these are for older versions of VirtualBox and Windows refuses to install them. So... I'll have to find an older VirtualBox version that matches that of the Guest Additions I can find. And of course recreate the whole Ubuntu installation.

It was fun, all in all, but that's enough for a Sunday.

[PantherX]

Yikes! I didn't realize that it was a mission to use VirtualBox... I have mostly been using VMWare but played around with VirtualBox a long time ago. It would be interesting to see if the difference was worth the efforts just for future reference.

[ajm]

Well, at least I now have a second win 1909 handy for Remote Desktop tests...

Edit: OK, finally found it: https://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/6.1.6

EDIT2: With the right software at hand, it is a breeze. At least it feels much faster than the installation on top of WSL2. I now installed everything short of FAH, through RDC from my main PC, while folding on the CPU and both GPUs on both machines. Fantastic tool!

[MeeLee]

Some articles online claim that linux OSes based on Ubuntu 20.04 have some optimizations worked in them in kernel +5.4.xx;
While in most computations 20.04 is somewhat faster, some calculations are done faster on the older kernel ran by 18.04/16.04.
Mainly CPU optimizations, no real GPU optimizations.

So there's a CPU performance difference between those different operating system versions. It would be interesting to see which one works fastest.

Also, several BIOSes have IOMMU settings. If you do have one, enabling it will increase performance when running VMs.
If you're not running VMs, it's best to disable it.
The first boards I've seen carry this were x450 and x570 boards (for Ryzen 2 and Ryzen 3 boards).
I didn't see it on my 6th gen, 7th gen, and 8/9th gen Intel motherboards; but I could have just overlooked it.

So while you can somewhat improve the speed of VMs, there's still an operating system running outside of the VM (Windows) that slows down.
What would be a fair test, is see how (or even if) FAH for windows can also run via Wine, WineHQ, or other windows 'emulators', and compare that to FAH for Linux running on Windows.

[ajm]

Good idea Re IOMMU, thanks! On Intel boards, you have two such settings:
Intel Virtualization Technology in Advanced -> CPU Optimization
VT-d in Advanced -> System Agent Configuration

Yes, there are many other tests that would be interesting. Here, my main concern was (and still is, so far) to find a way to optimize FAH while running Windows. I'm not sure that I wound find the incentive to test this the other way around. But at least, my results would be comparable.

[ajm]

I am now running FAH within the VBox. The CPU is crunching. But I can't add a GPU. After "Save", the GPU just isn't created. All drivers (incl. openCL) and GPUs.txt are there (/var/lib/fahclient), and the service has been restarted. I'll look into that later, bit busy right now, and maybe it will be ok when the CPU will have done its first WU (with only one thread, as I'm running 7.5.1, as in all the tests here).

But what is interesting is that I can run the GPUs in FAH/Windows at the same time.

[PantherX]

AFAIK, the only way to theoretically support GPU folding in a VM is using PCI pass through. From what I have read, VMWare player, VirtualBox, WMWare Workstation, do not support that feature. I have read that ESXi and vSphere does that: https://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-51/inde ... C6EB7.html

[ajm]

Thank you PantherX!

So I guess I'll test the CPU on VirtualBox for a week, while having the GPUs folding in Windows. Then I'll try and install ESXi in Windows. Glp.

EDIT: Apparently, I should be able to set up a CPI pass-through with their VSphere Hypervisor (which is free, or can be used for free). I created an account and downloaded it. According to the intro video, I'd have to setup a static IP, as for a server. I have one, so I'll give it a try. It looks good, so far. But first, one week with the Vbox.

[Burlingtonian]

Our team recently joined Folding@home and have completed 784 WU's to date running on 3 MacOS and 1 Windows 10 computers. I would like to maximize our efforts and would like to know if switching one or more of our computers to Linux or Virtualbox Linux would significantly improve our team results. Thanks.