Low PPD with 4 GPU on XP

Y

YoNeX

Gawd
Joined
Oct 29, 2006
Messages
911
fahmoner0.png

Seems like the PPD isn't as high as it could be. I also tried using Bill2's Affinity Changer so that 2 GPU Clients will use one of the CPU cores, but doesn't seem to do anything. I also tried reinstalling the Forceware Drivers with uninstall and driver cleaner. Still nothing. Only running these GPU2 clients on this machine. Am I doing something wrong?

GPU (clock/shader/memory -not effective)
------------------------------------------------------------
GPU0: 8800GTS 512MB (670/1836/971)
GPU1: 8800GS 384MB (550/1728/800)
GPU2: 8800GT 512MB (625/1782/900)
GPU3: 9600GSO 384MB (550/1728/800)

MSI K9A2 Platinum
AMD BE-2400 X2+ @ 2.4Ghz
Corsair 620W HX
4GB DDR2 RAM (I'll be removing this soon for 2GB)
Windows XP 32-bit
Foreware 177.84
 
It seems like GPU0 is about where it should be. If you use only say GPU0 and GPU1 does the PPD on GPU1 go up? GPU1 should be doing about 4K PPD.
 
You're going to be cpu limited with XP, best bet is to switch to Vista or buy a Quad.
 
I agree. I would advise that you pick up an OEM copy of Vista 64 bit. 64 bit just because more RAM support lets you future proof a little bit, and frankly RAM is so cheap, it is easy to get more than you would need. Headroom is nice.

Vista Home
Business
Ultimate

 
ND40oz said:
You're going to be cpu limited with XP, best bet is to switch to Vista or buy a Quad.
Click to expand...

This is simply not true. Your issue is that you are using different GPUs. This is known to cause performance issues.

XP shows CPU usage as maxed with these clients, but it's not reporting the workload accurately. Vista's 8% per GPU is more accurate. Trust me, the CPU is not limiting your PPD. It's the fact that you are using different GPUs.

I am running (4) GPUs on a slow dual-core AMD, with no issue. I could easily run them all on one core, and run a single-core client on the other.

edit: Also, you do not need much ram at this point. the GPU clients use ~ 40mb of ram each. Even if this number doubles in the future, 1GB of ram is plenty for a folding-only machine. If you have other plans for this machine that are RAM intensive, then I would suggest a 64bit-OS. But only if you need 4+ GB.

 
You can run upto 4 GPU clients on a single CPU core on XP with no PpD loss.
I run all my multi GPU clients on XP.
That includes my 8 GPU client box as Vista wont hack it.

Which drivers are you useing ??

I would uninstall/clean out all your vidio drivers.
When you reboot, dont let Windoze pick the best driver, go into the hardware properties and point Windoze at the driver you want to use.
Do this with all four cards.
Then restart the clients, making sure each has the correct -gpu X flag so each fires up on its own card.
Report back.

Luck .......... :D

 
styx0r said:
This is simply not true. Your issue is that you are using different GPUs. This is known to cause performance issues.

XP shows CPU usage as maxed with these clients, but it's not reporting the workload accurately. Vista's 8% per GPU is more accurate. Trust me, the CPU is not limiting your PPD. It's the fact that you are using different GPUs.

I am running (4) GPUs on a slow dual-core AMD, with no issue. I could easily run them all on one core, and run a single-core client on the other.

edit: Also, you do not need much ram at this point. the GPU clients use ~ 40mb of ram each. Even if this number doubles in the future, 1GB of ram is plenty for a folding-only machine. If you have other plans for this machine that are RAM intensive, then I would suggest a 64bit-OS. But only if you need 4+ GB.
Click to expand...

Exactly, it's the fact that you're using XP and different cards, are you saying Vista wouldn't fix this problem?
 
use rivatuner to force all the fans to 100% this was a problem with one of mine.
 
Well got it fixed, but thought I put an update. Yes, it was the mixing the 4 different GPUs that was causing the issue. I can run 4 GPUs on a dual core no problem, I used Bill2's Affinity Changer to force 2 of the fahcore_11.exe to run on each CPU core.

Summary: Match GPUs, 4GPUs can run on dual core CPU in XP just fine.
 
The FACT of the matter is, mixing GPU's with different shader counts can cause this problem. However some system setups are capable of running mixed shader counts without PPD loss. Just playing the devil's advocate maybe but YMMV. The cause of the bug is unknown. Hope we find it one day.
 
@Tigerbitten

I'm using Server 2003 64bit with dual Opteron Quad core 1.8ghz cpu's. I'm doing GPU folding with dual 9800gx2, can I set it so that each CPU feeds two GPU cores in Server 2003? How?
 
in the config set it to "do NOT lock cores to specific cpu".. then go into the task manager and check and see if its setting it up correctly.. if thats not checked it will usually just set it to cpu1.. now if you always leave the programs running and never turn them off you can manually set them to use a specific core.. right click the FahCore_11.exe click set affinity uncheck cpu 1 and check cpu 0..

i know theres a way to change it in the command on start but cant remember what it is.. im sure some one will post how to do that as well.. but the way i described is how i do it since i only run 1 gpu client and 1 cpu client..
 
osrk said:
@Tigerbitten

I'm using Server 2003 64bit with dual Opteron Quad core 1.8ghz cpu's. I'm doing GPU folding with dual 9800gx2, can I set it so that each CPU feeds two GPU cores in Server 2003? How?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure you need to.

I've got a XP box with 2x 9800GX2 cards and all I did was drop em in, install, OC and let em rip :cool:

They are all feeding off a E2140 too :p

 
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