A3 Core Update Coming Today!

[Tobit]

Dr. Kasson has just informed me that he will be putting A3 Core v2.15 up on the servers for auto-download sometime this morning (Pacific time I would presume). In beta testing, this core has shown to provide significantly better performance with the Windows scheduler on non-dedicated systems and especially those running A3 with GPUs.

I'm not sure if it will be a forced update or if you will have to delete the current core for it to download the new one. I am presuming the later and I am not sure when this will be done today but it will be done sometime today. Send me a PM if you want to do a manual upgrade.

 

[Elledan]

I'll see whether it auto-upgrades or not. So far it seems to be working for me, so I'm in no rush to fix something that isn't broken

Thanks for the news!

 

[The_Heretic]

Thanks for the update Tobit. I went back to the old cores to verify the GPU bogdown and sure enough when I checked this morning the GPUs were still at full steam on A1. I'll watch and see what others say about the newer version of A3 and then switch back if the reports are good.

 

[flogge]

Sounds good. I deleted my 2.14 core and put -oneunit back on the VM. It should be done by the time I get back tomorrow morning and then I'll try it again.

 

[Tobit]

Ok, Dr. Kasson reports that 2.15 is now setup for auto-download. It will not be forced so you have to delete the current fahcore_A3.exe file from your current work directory if you want it to download the new core. I do not recommend doing this while you are crunching an existing WU with 2.14. Stop and restart your existing WU with the -oneunit flag. When finished, delete the fahcore_A3.exe file and restart the client as you would normally run it. For those who want to do a manual install, I've made the core available for DL here. I will not be keeping this here permanently though and would prefer you do it the Stanford way.

 

[Elledan]

Will the 2.15 or later update later be forced?

 

[OvrrDrive]

Was anyone else having stability issues with the other core?

I can run these a1's all day at any clock but I ended up having 3 crashes on the other one even back at stock speed (with the 3rd core unlocked on my PII 720).

It sounds pretty isolated though. Actually it sounds like it was just me.

Points were good though after I finally started getting the bonus.

 

[APOLLO]

Well, I have to admit that the new version of the A3 core is finally working. I have no more discernible issues with my GPU clients. Kudos to Stanford for a quick fix.

 

[Tobit]

Will the 2.15 or later update later be forced?

Elledan, in my post right above yours I said it would NOT be forced and gave specific guidelines on how to install it if wanted.

 

[Elledan]

Elledan, in my post right above yours I said it would NOT be forced and gave specific guidelines on how to install it if wanted.

Yeah, but you didn't say 'won't ever be forced', so there

 

[The_Heretic]

Well, I have to admit that the new version of the A3 core is finally working. I have no more discernible issues with my GPU clients. Kudos to Stanford for a quick fix.

I looked this morning at the one box I put back on the 2.15 A3 core and the GPUs seemed fine.

 

[flogge]

I switched mine back on and it promptly downloaded an a1 WU. Hopefully it will pull an a3 tomorrow. I'm very curious how my AMD CPU is going to handle a3.

 

[APOLLO]

I switched mine back on and it promptly downloaded an a1 WU. Hopefully it will pull an a3 tomorrow. I'm very curious how my AMD CPU is going to handle a3.

If it's anything like my old Opterons, not too well I'd wager. To be honest, I am able to get a higher PPD with 4 uniprocessor clients running P46xx WUs @~350-400PPD each than I get with the SMP2 A3 WUs released so far, which produce under 1000PPD. The best I was ever able to produce with my Opterons was running a VM and A2 WUs that averaged a 9-10 minute TPF.

If your processor is clocked high and it's the newest architecture, it probably will do better but by how much is open to speculation. I'm going to shut down my Opteron system later this year, and replace it with something from Intel but don't know what yet. I lost two of my old dual socket-A machines last year, and this is my only AMD system still in operation. I don't think I'll be building another AMD box for the foreseeable future.

 

[Vaulter98c]

so would you sugest (in favor of ppd) abandoning the AMD path for a while?

 

[404 - File not found]

no, higher-end AMD are fine, abandon slow dual-core or very slow quads

 

[APOLLO]

so would you sugest (in favor of ppd) abandoning the AMD path for a while?

If you were to ask this question two and half years ago, I would probably say no. Since then, I haven't seen anything really compelling coming out of the green team except for Istanbul, but the cost of those processors are still prohibitive. My main concern is platform longevity both in the performance and build quality perspectives. Both considerations aren't impressing me as much as what I have seen from the Intel camp in the past couple of years. I honestly do hope things will change because we badly need the competition. I was a diehard AMD customer 5-10 years ago and for some time, that was the best route to take if you wanted to fold.

 

[Elledan]

I just built a system for someone who wanted a cheap gaming system and used an AMD Ph-II 350 X3 CPU as Intel CPUs are just outrageously expensive here in the EU if you're not looking for a mainstream/high-end system.

If I had to built a system for myself, however, I'd probably go for an i7 860 system or so, though.

 

[OvrrDrive]

I switched mine back on and it promptly downloaded an a1 WU. Hopefully it will pull an a3 tomorrow. I'm very curious how my AMD CPU is going to handle a3.

My 720 (unlocked) loves the a3's. What it doesn't love is the a3 client. According to HFM, I can get 2500-3000 ppd on an a1 but the current a3 I'm halfway through with the 2.15 core is calling for 5365ppd. I have had troubles with the a3 core and stability but hopefully the new version runs better for me. We'll see.

If 5k ppd isn't enough reason to run it on your PII 720 I don't know what is.

 

[Zero82z]

Well, I have to admit that the new version of the A3 core is finally working. I have no more discernible issues with my GPU clients. Kudos to Stanford for a quick fix.

It was fixed before SMP2 went public; they just pushed it out with an old core version. Apparently this was due to the performance drop with 2.15, but I much prefer the increased stability and system responsiveness of this core.

so would you sugest (in favor of ppd) abandoning the AMD path for a while?

If CPU PPD is the primary concern, there is no reason to go AMD. Intel CPUs will quite simply provide significantly better PPD, especially if you go the -bigadv route.

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

I just built a system for someone who wanted a cheap gaming system and used an AMD Ph-II 350 X3 CPU as Intel CPUs are just outrageously expensive here in the EU if you're not looking for a mainstream/high-end system.

If I had to built a system for myself, however, I'd probably go for an i7 860 system or so, though.

Even without taking into consideration the effects of Folding@home, I would still have gone with an i7 920. Going from an Athlon64 3200+ with a single core at 2.4GHz to the 920 with 8 threads at 3.6GHz was an awesome feeling. And I hope when I upgrade again further down the track I'll be able to octuple my thread/core count again.

However, building a rig for most of my friends I would probably go with an Athlon II X4 630. As far as I'm concerned they are awesome chips.

If CPU PPD is the primary concern, there is no reason to go AMD. Intel CPUs will quite simply provide significantly better PPD, especially if you go the -bigadv route.

They're perfect for GPU ppd, though, since mobos are much cheaper for AM2+/AM3 systems and seem to also have more PCI-e slots too.

 

[Zero82z]

They're perfect for GPU ppd, though, since mobos are much cheaper for AM2+/AM3 systems and seem to also have more PCI-e slots too.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813186153

Although I don't see much point in building a GPU-centric machine these days now that we have -bigadv and SMP2. It makes much more sense to build a balanced machine using an i7 and several GPUs so you can push a lot of CPU and GPU PPD. It's better for the science as well.

 

[zero2dash]

I'm confused regarding the new cores and what to run...can someone break it down for me?
-i7 bigadv keep Linux VM
-quad or dual use Win SMP now?

 

[Tobit]

I'm confused regarding the new cores and what to run...can someone break it down for me?
-i7 bigadv keep Linux VM
-quad or dual use Win SMP now?

-bigadv is A2 based for now and will never run on a Windows native client. There are plans to move bigadv to A3 core but no clue on when this will happen.

If you have a dual core or quad core, use the native client for your installed OS.

 

[zero2dash]

As always, thanks Tobit!

 

[APOLLO]

-bigadv is A2 based for now and will never run on a Windows native client. There are plans to move bigadv to A3 core but no clue on when this will happen.

What's the reason for keeping the -bigadv WUs strictly Linux, BTW?

 

[Tobit]

What's the reason for keeping the -bigadv WUs strictly Linux, BTW?

-bigadv currently uses the A2 core. The A2 core has design flaws that do not allow it to run on Windows platforms. This goes back way before the existence of -bigadv. It's an A2 core problem. As I've said before, there are plans to move -bigadv to the A3 core but nothing has been formally announced yet.

 

[Zero82z]

What's the reason for keeping the -bigadv WUs strictly Linux, BTW?

The A2 core doesn't run on Windows. That's the reason. Once -bigadv moves to A3, it will be possible to run those units under Windows.

 

[APOLLO]

-bigadv currently uses the A2 core. The A2 core has design flaws that do not allow it to run on Windows platforms. This goes back way before the existence of -bigadv. It's an A2 core problem. As I've said before, there are plans to move -bigadv to the A3 core but nothing has been formally announced yet.

The A2 core doesn't run on Windows. That's the reason. Once -bigadv moves to A3, it will be possible to run those units under Windows.

OK, I had already known about the A2 core Linux exclusivity, but misread Tobit's post when he said 'never run on Windows,' LOL.