gpu folding?

L

lehmann

[H]ard|Gawd
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Feb 8, 2005
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Sense bigadv will be gone soon im turning my gtx260's back on but the desktop is horrible laggy. tride both gpu2 and gpu3
 
Probably drivers. All the recent ones have done that with my 460s. Dunno what the last "good" folding drivers were tho. Hopefully someone else knows.
 
Desktop or just programs? I know FF has hardware acceleration and GPU folding will make it lag
 
i get the same thing on my GTX470s. I do think it's the drivers.

The whole desktop is laggy. I turn GPU folding off when I'm sitting at the desk.
 
Now gonna install the second card. 18,000 ppd with two cards should offset some points from bigadv i wont be getting soon.
 
well, firstly the 260 isnt a g80 card. I just retired 2 260's and all I did was run -gpu 0 and -gpu 1 after my exe call.

Aero seems to keep the gpu alive and smooths out the scrolling.
 
I will mention that my AMD 5870 card folding is fine on the desktop. I even play starcraft without pausing. It has a negative effect on TF2 and BF3 tho :( Probly doesn't help too much, but might help rule out the folding client.

I might swap back to SMP tho since winter is def here now. If i ever get some free time.
 
I upgraded to 285.62 and it helped my desktop lag. It's not perfect, but I can definitely use the desktop while folding on the GPUs.
 
266.66 here, gpu folds fine, although full screen flash does lag.
 
I'm running several systems, each with 3 X GTX 450s. These systems have the latest FireFox versions and have no desktop or browser lag with Nvidia drivers 260.99. I have no clue what advantages or disadvantages those drivers have with gaming, as I don't game, but they are perfect for GPU3 Folding.
 
Just a thought - could we add a post to one of the sticky guides with a "Known Good/Bad Drivers for Folding" section of some sort?
That way if we have lag with a particular driver, or better TPFs with another, we could PM someone to get it posted so others can see?
This strikes me as useful info for us gpu folders.
 
Go for it! As long as you're dedicated to keeping it updated.
 
using 260.99 here, I've found later drivers result in less PPD.

As I don't game on PC (why play console games on a PC, just play them on the console and save the PPD), folding points are far more important with comparability with newly released games.

I still have to finish Rage.... maybe over the holiday weekend......(sorry OT)
 
^lmao I started the same way, I was a PC gamer then bought a PS3 so my PC can fold nonstop :p
 
Ugh. I'd rather buy another folding rig than a console.

Actually, that's what I did, so now I have 3 HTPCs :p
 
Alright, here's what I've got so far:
-Aero on as a general rule
-260.99 good (aero or no aero)
-266.66 some lag (fullscreen gpu-intensive apps)
-Drivers between 266.66 and 285.62 cause noticeable desktop lag, with the possible exception of 275.33 (unconfirmed)
-285.62 reduces lag, possibly still lower ppd than 260.99

** Notes **
Support for the GTX 560 TI was added in 266.66. Cards newer than the 560 TI should use 285.62 at this point. Cards older than the 560 TI are probably better off with 260.99 unless a compelling reason to upgrade can be found.
280.x Series drivers have lower cpu usage with some gpu3 work units (currently -advmethods), but still cause lag in some cases

Does anyone have things to add to this? If not, I'll probably start a post for this in one of the stickies over my Thanksgiving break.
 
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I think i had to use 266.66 becuase my 560ti couldnt go lower or there was something missing from lower drivers
 
Thanks 86 5.0L; 266.66 did indeed add support for the 560TI to the WHQL releases. Post updated to reflect this.
 
I have two 460's running on this Q9550 rig on Windows 7 64 bit. My drivers say 275.33. Am I using the wrong ones? They have been running flawlessly for a few months now as far as I can tell.

I don't know if I have aero on or not as I never have looked into it. Should I?
 
rick5127 said:
I have two 460's running on this Q9550 rig on Windows 7 64 bit. My drivers say 275.33. Am I using the wrong ones? They have been running flawlessly for a few months now as far as I can tell.

I don't know if I have aero on or not as I never have looked into it. Should I?
Click to expand...

if it works its fine.
 
I'll check those drivers when I get home to see how they run for me, but if they work for you, they're probably fine.
 
The other thing to note is that 280.x and higher drivers had a much lower impact on CPU allowing people to not have to reserve cores from the cpu for gpu (if doing both cpu & gpu folding)
 
Biffa said:
The other thing to note is that 280.x and higher drivers had a much lower impact on CPU allowing people to not have to reserve cores from the cpu for gpu (if doing both cpu & gpu folding)
Click to expand...
that's right. great point.
 
I've done quite a bit of toying around with GPU + SMP.....
Unless you are running GPU3 -advmethods, I'd recommend saving a core for GPU folding.

GPU3 -advmethods WUs take almost no CPU time and will allow GPU and bigadv with all cores available for bigadv. There is a CPU hit, but it is minor. These WU are HOT HOT HOT, expect GPU temps to go up by 10C at least........



 
I stuck with 266.66 insead of newer drivers becuase they were giving lots of problems, idk about others experience, that was my experience with drivers upto 27x.xx
 
I've also had a lot of lag with all the 280.x series drivers, but I'll update the post to reflect potentially lower CPU usage
 
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