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VM vs winSMP

H

HighYield

Gawd
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Feb 2, 2008
Messages
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Is there an advantage to running one instance of a VM set to all 4 cores vs a single instance of win SMP? This would be on a Q6600@3.0 GHz. The machine is not on all the time so that is why I am interested in just running one instance so that it can have enough time to get the wu's done.

I tried following the VM sticky to test this out. I installed the VMware player and notrfed's files. I loaded it all up and reconfigured for team 33, but when Fahmon checks out the status the folding instance is configured incorrectly. It is running two non smp wu p2499 and p2498....

The notfred web config screen says it is configured for 1 smp per 4 cpu, but for some reason only 2 of the cpu cores are being detected/used.

If there isn't really any benefit to using a single VM vs the winSMP on a Q6600 then I'll just go back to the winsmp. However if it is more efficient running the VM then I could use some help getting it set up....

 
Single VM definitely performs higher. I believe you still need to run VMware Workstation to utilize all 4 cores in a VM, though.

My Q6600@3.5GHz on my main rig does about 5400 PPD in a single VM and is totally transparent on the system, performance-wise. It's a little less than two VMs, but the nice thing with it being on my main rig is that it only uses 1GB of memory and doesn't impact performance at all.

I don't recall what PPD 4-core Win SMP did, exactly, but I thought it was closer to around 4k PPD.
 
There is enough of a difference between VM and WinSMP to make it worth while.

VMWare Workstation is the only way right now to get 4 cores out of a VM. It saves on the memory overhead of running two VMs and has made the machines that I run it on very smooth because of the freed ram.

If you use VMWare Player or Server, you'll need to run two instances of notfred's to get the maximum ponts on a C2Q.

 
Unfortunately with the current released version of Workstation 6.5.x you can only have two vCPU's per vm. (See page 349-350: http://www.vmware.com/pdf/ws65_manual.pdf)

You need to have ESXi 4.0 running on a dedicated pc to use four per vm. Anything more than that and you're looking at shelling out money for the enterprise plus edition of ESX.

 
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It is not officially supported in 6.5.x, but it does work if you change "numcpus" to 4.

I am currently running 6.5.0 in two boxes with the above configuration.
 
I thought with VM Workstation the download was only a 30 day evaluation copy.... Are there any free options to get 4 core support? This system has to run windows so I can't install ESXi 4.0 if it needs a dedicated system.
 
Free options, no. Workstation (or ESXi which obviously is its own OS) are the only options available to us.
 
I finally got the Notfred VMs set up properly along with winAFC. I am running two and the GPU client. The Q6600 is running at 2.9 GHz at the moment and it is crunching a P2669 and a P2667. Fahmon indicates they are getting a combined 3790 ppd on a2 cores. As a comparison I was getting about 3600 ppd running 2 win SMP clients along with affinity changer. I thought the a2 core was suppose to be a lot more efficient. Seems like it is just slightly more efficient on my system. Are these two WUs slow ones like the P2655?
 
The PPD you're getting seems low. How do you have their affinities set up?
 
I set the winAFC afinityinput file to the settings that were in the sticky....

*\vmware-vmx.exe := PAIR0+PAIR1 [assign=2,priority=Idle]

*\FahCore_11.exe := PAIR0+PAIR1 [priority=High]

*\FahCore_14.exe := PAIR0+PAIR1 [priority=High]

The GPU (GTX260) is getting plenty of CPU cycles. It just seems like the Q6600 is running a bit slow. This system is on win7x64 rtm with 8 gig of ram.
 
Try going into Task Manager and manually check the affinity and priority settings to make sure they're set correctly.
 
Kendrak said:
I hope that changes, some of these boxen with HT are going to need some room to breath in coming years.
Click to expand...
I hope it changes as well. I don't know if I'd bet on it though. And to be honest, I'd rather just have SMP2 already so we don't have to worry about any of this VM stuff altogether.
 
Zero82z said:
Try going into Task Manager and manually check the affinity and priority settings to make sure they're set correctly.
Click to expand...

Each vmware-vmx.exe both has a 2 core pair (0-1 and 2-3) set to low priority. Maybe my OC is just too low. I'll try and push it up some. Still, the 2 VMs do give a little more than 2 winSMPs and free ppd is always good :)
 
The recent 2.10 a2 core also reduced the performance of the LinSMP client so that is probably contributing as well.
 
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