-bigadv on a mac pro

D

devkinetic

Weaksauce
Joined
Feb 25, 2008
Messages
69
Anyone ever tried this before? I have 2 quad core xeons at 2.8ghz and 6gb of RAM on this thing, normal usage never breaks 5% of cpu.

Honestly i'm just trying to get the best I can out of this machine, right now running 2 smp units @ 1920pts. From what the threads look like I may actually be able to pull it off.
 
Yeah, you should be fine. If you've done 10 A2's and have been using your passkey, kill those two and run a single smp client with -bigadv -smp 8. Just make sure you are using the drop in client that supports -bigadv. I'll go dig the exact link out for you if needed.

Edit: Are these Quad core only Xeons or Quad with HT (i.e. 16 cores)?
 
You should have absolutely no problem. I'm running a dual Clovertown @2.6GHz with 6GB of RAM and the TPF is between 40:00 and 44:00 depending on the WU and what my GPUs are crunching. You should see slightly better performance than that. :cool:
 
Tobit said:
Make sure you are using the client below and set -bigadv and -smp 8 (or 16 if you happen to have HT on those Xeons) and let 'er rip. :D

console OSX/Intel client:
http://www.stanford.edu/~kasson/folding/osx/fah6
MD5 sum 44eeb86e2a4f19a7266591deba504474
Click to expand...
I dont think i have HT

Model Name: Mac Pro
Model Identifier: MacPro3,1
Processor Name: Quad-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed: 2.8 GHz
Number Of Processors: 2
Total Number Of Cores: 8
L2 Cache (per processor): 12 MB
Memory: 6 GB
Bus Speed: 1.6 GHz

Anyway someone could show me how do do this via finstall? Thats what i've been using, but i'm still very new to it. Also, i'm wonding if i could break the 2.7 days for that nice 50k bonus....
 
devkinetic said:
I dont think i have HT

Model Name: Mac Pro
Model Identifier: MacPro3,1
Processor Name: Quad-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed: 2.8 GHz
Number Of Processors: 2
Total Number Of Cores: 8
L2 Cache (per processor): 12 MB
Memory: 6 GB
Bus Speed: 1.6 GHz

Anyway someone could show me how do do this via finstall? Thats what i've been using, but i'm still very new to it. Also, i'm wonding if i could break the 2.7 days for that nice 50k bonus....
Click to expand...
Not 100% sure about Macs, but you appear to have a dual Harpertown (E5462) based machine. That would easily get a TPF of less than 40 minutes. The answer is an unequivocal yes.
 
Look to this guide for installing and running the -bigadv client. Close the current clients you have running and then restart them with the -oneunit flag in order for the current WUs to complete, and no new ones downloaded. After that, you can setup your -bigadv client as instructed by the guide.
 
APOLLO said:
Not 100% sure about Macs, but you appear to have a dual Harpertown (E5462) based machine. That would easily get a TPF of less than 40 minutes. The answer is an unequivocal yes.
Click to expand...

Wow, nice catch there, been wondering exactly what was "under the hood" ( work gave me this :D ) and you seem to be spot on.

Still hoping someone can offer some finstall advice for this setup. I'm sure lots of other mac pro users are looking for something like this.
 
devkinetic said:
Still hoping someone can offer some finstall advice for this setup. I'm sure lots of other mac pro users are looking for something like this.
Click to expand...
Why do you have to be in TX right now and not Nashua? I coulda come over and had this setup for you by now. I'm not too good at walking people through Mac installs though. :rolleyes: :(
 
Tobit said:
Why do you have to be in TX right now and not Nashua? I coulda come over and had this setup for you by now. I'm not too good at walking people through Mac installs though. :rolleyes: :(
Click to expand...

I ask myself the same question every day! If I wasn't paying $400 for my apartment here and the job didn't require it i'd be back up north in a heartbeat.

finstall is the same on mac as it is on linux. I just shoved -oneunit on my clients and will give it a try tomorrow. That guide APOLLO sent is pretty decent, it's just a little vague when it come to the "drop in the new fah6 client" part. If I can compile php and apache I would hope i can get this going.

Update tomorrow...
 
devkinetic said:
That guide APOLLO sent is pretty decent, it's just a little vague when it come to the "drop in the new fah6 client" part.
Click to expand...
Drop in simply means to take the executable I linked above and drop it into the folder overwriting the one that finstall installed. :cool:
 
The different executable is necessary to run -bigadv units. Otherwise you will receive a 'bad argument' message or something similar because the standard executable will not recognize the -bigadv flag. Stanford should update their Linux executable.
 
APOLLO said:
The different executable is necessary to run -bigadv units. Otherwise you will receive a 'bad argument' message or something similar because the standard executable will not recognize the -bigadv flag. Stanford should update their Linux executable.
Click to expand...
Stanford has the same "drop in" for Linux as they do Mac. Thanks for the clarification on this Apollo, I should have stated this. Clients will not be unified again, so all of this mess can be cleaned up, until SMP2 comes out. :rolleyes:
 
Thanks for all the help everyone. Should I actually run 10 smp wu's under my passkey BEFORE I try a bigadv? I don't have one setup at this time. If so I'll add my key and keep my clients going till monday before I give this a try.
 
devkinetic said:
Thanks for all the help everyone. Should I actually run 10 smp wu's under my passkey BEFORE I try a bigadv? I don't have one setup at this time. If so I'll add my key and keep my clients going till monday before I give this a try.
Click to expand...
Yes, the 10 x 1920 point WU's go by so much faster than trying to do bigadv's and not getting any bonus for the. On that machine, I would venture to say you should be able to get 10 x 1920's done in ~36-38 hours.
 
Tobit said:
Yes, the 10 x 1920 point WU's go by so much faster than trying to do bigadv's and not getting any bonus for the. On that machine, I would venture to say you should be able to get 10 x 1920's done in ~36-38 hours.
Click to expand...
Yep, perhaps I was too hasty in recommending the -oneunit flag. I didn't take into consideration the initial 10 unit requirement to receive the -bigadv bonus. BTW, once you receive your passkey, you can enter it by running the -configonly flag in your current client. Another important thing to note is during your -bigadv configuration you must choose 'big' for the work result packets or you will not receive -bigadv units even with the flag included.
 
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I'm still going to keep -oneunit for the time being. I'll then setup finstall to smp all 8 cores and scream through these 10 units instead of my normal smp setup of a wu for each cpu.

At that point when i finish up with 10 or so under my passkey its just a -configonly and a quick edit of my config file before i'm chugging away at my bigadv.
 
I use Finstall to install all my Linux clients and swopping them to bigadv is easy.

Stop and delete one client after it finishes a work-unit.

Get the replacement fah6 file and drop it in the other.
Add your passkey to it, if you need to.
Open the FaH file with an editor and find the default flag line.
Change it from FAH_default_flags="-smp -verbosity 9" to .......
FAH_default_flags="-smp 8 -verbosity 9" to run one client over the 8 cores or to .........
FAH_default_flags="-smp 8 -bigadv -verbosity 9" to run over 8 cores with the bigadv flag.
I found you need to edit the FaH file for the -smp 8 flag to work.

Luck ............ :D
 
Ok update, finished my wu's from yesterday.

curl -O http://ra.vendomar.ee/~ivo/finstall
chmod +x finstall
./finstall smp
(stuff)
cd ~/foldingathome/CPU1
curl -O http://www.stanford.edu/~kasson/folding/osx/fah6
chmod +x fah6
./FaH -configonly
(entered info and passkey, selected 'big' wu's)
cd ..
vi fah_config
(added "-smp 8 -verbosity 9")
./folding start

Looks like Stanford's assign server is having some issues so i didn't get a unit yet and am heading home now, will check in the morning. Anyone see something wrong with my setup?

If thats right once i cycle through 10 work units I'll add -bigadv to fah_config and letherrip!
 
Looks good man. Yeah, there was a network outage at Stanford this afternoon. Several people have been complaining that there was no work available. However, some servers have just recently started assigning work again.
 
Still having problems getting work here. I hope they get it dealt with soon, since it's been hours already.
 
devkinetic said:
Anyone see something wrong with my setup?

If thats right once i cycle through 10 work units I'll add -bigadv to fah_config and letherrip!
Click to expand...

I don't fold on a Mac, so I may be wrong but .......
Did you change the default flags to -smp 8 or did you just add the -smp 8 flag to the fah_config file ??
You need to check the top of your Fahlog file for which flags show up there ??

As long as the -smp flag shows up as -smp 8 each time your ok and you'll fold on 8 cores.
But if a plain -smp flag shows up, without the 8, you may only fold on 4 cores.
If that's the case, then you'll need to find the default flags and change the -smp to -smp 8.

Thats what I found when I set up my Finstall installs to fold on 8 cores on my PC's.

Apart from that it looks good.

Luck ............ :D
 
Came in this morning to a disappointing discovery, not sure it its config, permissions, or a cause of the stanford network outage. Tiger, i do have 8 in there.

Here is my log file which shows my flags as well as the errors i'm getting.

Code: 
# Mac OS X SMP Console Edition ################################################
###############################################################################

                       Folding@Home Client Version 6.24R3

                          http://folding.stanford.edu

###############################################################################
###############################################################################

Launch directory: /Users/ryanh/foldingathome/CPU1
Executable: /Users/ryanh/foldingathome/CPU1/fah6
Arguments: -smp 8 -verbosity 9 -smp -local 

[18:48:36] - Ask before connecting: No
[18:48:36] - User name: DevKinetic (Team 33)
[18:48:36] - User ID: 31968D3A7A356328
[18:48:36] - Machine ID: 1
[18:48:36] 
[18:48:36] Loaded queue successfully.
[18:48:36] 
[18:48:36] + Processing work unit
[18:48:36] - Autosending finished units... [18:48:36]
[18:48:36] At least 4 processors must be requested; read 1.
[18:48:36] Trying to send all finished work units
[18:48:36] Core required: FahCore_a2.exe
[18:48:36] + No unsent completed units remaining.
[18:48:36] - Autosend completed
[18:48:36] Core found.
[18:48:36] - Using generic /Applications/[email protected]/mpiexec
[18:48:36] Working on queue slot 04 [January 15 18:48:36 UTC]
[18:48:36] + Working ...
[18:48:36] - Calling '/Applications/[email protected]/mpiexec -np 4 -host 127.0.0.1 ./FahCore_a2.exe -dir work/ -nice 19 -suffix 04 -checkpoint 15 -verbose -lifeline 27104 -version 624'

[18:48:37] CoreStatus = 7F (127)
[18:48:37] Client-core communications error: ERROR 0x7f
[18:48:37] Deleting current work unit & continuing...
[18:48:37] - Warning: Could not delete all work unit files (4): Core file absent

First i noticed the line here:
Code: 
[18:48:36] At least 4 processors must be requested; read 1.
Not sure if thats right because i set it to run all 8 of my cores and its detecting one cpu?

The other thing is of course the error. I googled it and didn't come up with much (or that i really understood) its on the last 4 lines of the log above.
 
Arguments: -smp 8 -verbosity 9 -smp -local

it might be getting confused with the conflicting -smp flags in your command line as indicated above. You'll need to look to see where it is passing just the "-smp" flag and remove it.
 
Tobit said:
Arguments: -smp 8 -verbosity 9 -smp -local

it might be getting confused with the conflicting -smp flags in your command line as indicated above. You'll need to look to see where it is passing just the "-smp" flag and remove it.
Click to expand...

Correct.
Look in the FaH file, its around 3 Kb in size on a PC.
There is a lot of info about where you can put flags in it.
Code: 
#!/bin/bash
#
# This is FAH (folding.stanford.edu) client startup file.
# To get to know more about FAH go to http://folding.stanford.edu.
#
# Constructed by Ivo Sarak.
# Send Your comments, help and suggestions to ivo at vendomar dot ee.
#
# (My) FAH client documentation:
# http://ra.vendomar.ee/~ivo/FAHLinux.txt
# Finstall documentation (finstall/folding FAQ):
# http://ra.vendomar.ee/~ivo/finstallFAQ.txt
#
# (Optional) FAH client flags can be set in 3 separate files or/and by setting 
# environment variable 'FAH_flags'.
# ./FaH will run these files before it will start FAH client:
# 1. File 'fah_config' inside user/donator home directory;
# 2. File 'fah_config' inside foldingathome directory;
# 3. File 'fah_config' inside CPU directory;
#
# If the file 'fah_config' is present, it will be started and only thing it
# should do is to modify 'FAH_flags' variable to its likings.
#
# Every one of these files can override previous 'FAH_flags' value and 
# set it's own. This is making possible to set per CPU based FAH flags. 
# The easiest way to set FAH client flags is to:
# [user@machine user]$ cd
# [user@machine user]$ echo 'FAH_flags="myflags"' > fah_config 
#
# "myflags" must be legal FAH client flags. To get these flags run
# ./FaH -?
# or/and read FAH client documentation.
# 
# Note: If there are any arguments given to ./FaH then the FAH client will
# be run only with these as a FAH client flag(s) and all other ways of 
# configuration will be ignored.
#
#Set 'FAH_default_flags' to FAH client flags You want to be used every time.
#Note: You can not override these flags with any method...

FAH_default_flags="-smp -verbosity 9" <- [COLOR="Red"]This is the line to alter[/COLOR]
add_pref=""

#Set PATH to ensure availablility of external utilities:
PATH=$PATH:/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:.

............. snip .........................

$add_pref  /home/Nigel/foldingathome/CPU1/fah6 $FAH_flags $FAH_default_flags  $@
Ignore that and edit this file.
You need to add an 8 to the -smp flag in that file.
I also add the -bigadv flag in there as well.
Once you've altered the correct line, you don't need the flags in the fah_config file.

Luck ........... :D
 
EDIT: Ok uh i found out a bit more about this error and it seems to do with the mpiexec file i went and looked for it at ~/foldingathome/ and its not there :(

The funny thing is in my cpu1 folder under that has an alias to it. I grabbed it from stanford, made it executable and started my client back up. SUCESS!

Tiger, I found that line and there it was! Put the right flags there and cleared out finstalls fah_config file. On my way to 10 under my passkey then bigadv time :D
 
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