ATI / DriverHeaven Folding@Home Contest & Interview

pr0digal jenius

just solve cancer one GPU at a time then instead?


also, not having the GPU version, as i'm on a 6800GT here....can you run a single client on a really high priority on a single GPU affinity like you can with the CPU? [I have mine running at "normal" priority locked into CPU 3 & 4 and locked everythign else other then my virus scan to CPU 1 & 2. I'm afraid to put it above normal priorty though, cuz that soemtimes causes issues with things

BWX

Cool, I counted 21 DH members in the list now..

Zardon

i have to say that after using the multi cpu client for a day, its a bit flaky, I had a BSOD earlier with the ATI driver as the culprit. might just go back to the single one.

IvanV

I don't think it would use more than 1% of CPU power even if the molecule display was on at all times. I'm estimating this by looking at the total CPU time used by FahCore_82.exe (the scientific process) and winFAH (the GUI part) in Task Manager, but I haven't really tested (and I wouldn't know how, since I'd have to run the same part of the same WU twice).

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Our Folding@home stats:

Erroneus

Well i switched to console now, the only thing bothering me about the console version, is there is no way to monitor progress, if it's running as a service... or is there?

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swimtech

I'm in. DH_swimtech - dual CPU's, but no GPU juice .

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It's not so much getting your way that matters or not - what matters is how you go about getting it.

Judas

In the console, every so often, (5-6minutes) i get 1% completed ticked, and it reports it as:

completed 1
completed 2

and so on.

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Erroneus

But what if you run it as a service, how do you check?

Nevermind FAHlog.txt does it.

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bobbytomorow

yay my first one is complete

deagz

Out of curiousity... how is ATi going to contact the winner? No email info is used with Folding@Home. No password is required to fold for a donator name, so anybody could claim to be the chosen winner.

Lowfat

1312 points myself , Asmoday still has me beat though..

Tipstaff

The idea is to use the same name you have here, but with DH as part of it. Winners will be picked by ATI, but most likely one of the mods will send the info back, or at the very least the winner will be posted here. So, again, the key is to use the same name you have here, with that slight DH alteration. Otherwise it'll be a hell of a mess to figure out who is really who.

For anyone running the console version (as a service or not) you might be interested in a little program called "FahMon". All you do is run the little app, tell it what client to watch (right-click the blank window on the left, and choose to "add client"), and it will give you info on estimated time to completion, how many points each WU is worth, allow you to benchmark the system, and it will also allow you to see that fahlog. Screenies HERE.

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Judas

good question deagz

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Erroneus

Cool, makes it a lot easier to track your current progres. Looks like a got a heavy one, 50 mins pr frame

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Tipstaff

For some reason I'm getting a lot of the Amber cores which aren't worth much point wise (average is about 150 points for them), and usually take about 20 hours to complete. The ones I want, or are worth the most, are the Gromac ones (usually 600 points and up), and they usually take about 1 1/2 to 2 days or more to complete. I can't understand why I'm getting the smaller ones either as I have everything setup to get them.

Mind you, it's all for a good cause anyways, so it's not all that frustrating when I don't get them.

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Asmoday

You can set a preference on what cores you wanna do? If so where do you do that..?

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BWX

My first two were Amber.. now I have a GROMAC, but it is taking quite a while to get done. fahmon said it was worth 600 pts. I didn't see anywhere to set anything about what cores you get in the GUI version.

Tipstaff

Sort of. If you tell the client to allow the download of bigger WU's than 5mb, then it will (but not always) download some of the bigger units. Thing is that you will still be assigned smaller ones to run, but if the next one in the list to run is a big unit you won't skip it as you would if you only were to run the smaller ones. However, if you run the client on multiple CPU cores then you need to asssign ram for each client as some of the bigger WU's can take a lot of ram. For more on that you will need to read the last paragraph of this post.

For those wanting to run on multiple CPU cores (not HT enabled machines, but actual Dual Core CPUs), take a read:

From what I can tell you can only set what cores to use by using the console version, running the client from within seperate folders, and then adding a command switch ( -local ) so that the client runs and uses the config file from the directory it's in only. It's also best to run them as a service as the console version will run in a command line box, but you run 2 clients then you need to take one extra step to make sure that they don't conflict with each other.

So, run the console version in 2 folders. Say:

C:\FAH-CPU1
C:\FAH-CPU2

(one for each CPU core)

Create a shortcut for the each client, and then changed the properties of that shortcut to read something like this: "C:\FAH-CPU1\FAH504-Console.exe" -local -configonly"

(the -configonly switch will close the client at the end of configuration)

When you run the client be sure to type in "yes" when asked about running it as a service, and "yes" to change the advanced settings. At the very end it asks you what machine ID to set the client for. In this case it's machines ID 1 (core 1), and ID 2 (core 2). Finishing this off will close the client, then do the same for the other client.

Now, run regedit, and look under this section: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\ , and you should see 2 "FAH@" listings, one for each client. Click on one, and on the right side you see the info on it. Look for the string value called "ImagePath". This is the direct link that will run the client. What you need to do is change the path to include the -local switch, or it will interfere with the other client just as if you ran it manually. So, change the path to this:

C:\FAH-CPU1\FAH504-Console.exe -local -svcstart
(do not delete the -svcstart or else it won't run as a service)

Now, do the same for the other client. Now, go into Control Panel | Administrative Tools | Services , and look for the 2 FAH listings. Right-click on each, and select start.

You're all done. If you want to monitor them you just run that FahMon program I mentioned earlier.

BTW, just a couple notes about this. Since both clients will be running as a service they will run even if you do not log into the machine. The great thing about this is that even when you are not logged in the client can still upload/download info from the servers, so if you finish a WU you don't have to wait for the next one, or wait to get credit for it. As well, if you reboot the machine the clients will automatically startup again.

Also, if you choose to run big WU's then you need to assign memory for each client based on the total amount of system memory used for running your system (bring up the task manager, and take note the "Commit Charge" number, of the 2 numbers you want the one on the left of the / ) plus the amount of ram you want to assign. So, if you run the client on 2 cores, and want to run the bigger WU's, you would take your commit charge number, say 200mb (which is the amount of memory your OS is using to run all of it's services and programs), divide the total amount of ram you have (say 2gb of system memory / 2 = 1gb), and add that commit charge to each total (so you'd assign each client to use 1200mb of memory). If you do not choose to run the bigger WU's then you would leave the amount of memory on it's default (which it will detect as your full system memory) as the smaller WU's only require 48mb of memory to run.

Edit: Come to think of it, I just realized my sense of helping people out just got the better of me, cuz for those that didn't know how to get both CPU cores working, and that are in this competition, just got a leg up. Guess it's time for me to figure out how to get my X800XT and X1600XT cooking them WUs.

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IvanV

Wanna trade?! I happily finished an AMBER WU last night and got myself a
GROMACS. So far, I've got 200/20000 frames done and it says it will be over somewhere around december next year!

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Our Folding@home stats:

temeteus82

When I play simcity 4 deluxe I must stop folding
Otherwise the game screen is minimized to the tray

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Zardon

ATI are not picking a winner on their scores, they are picking a winner at random - this is not a competition to get more points than everyone else, its a competition so that those who enter have a chance of winning, otherwise it would more than likely just be the guys running X1950 video cards and the GPU client who would win.

For the people who have been asking me am I entering to "win" the video card, no im not. I am not in the running, ive entered to show people this is all for a good cause.

Zardon

An ATI X1950XTX can process a gromacs core with 25000000 iterations in around 12 hours....... (1.9seconds per frame).

IvanV

You just had to rub in some salt, didn't you?
On a serious side, it just jumped from 200 to 400 (and yay, the completion date says this thursday), but that was after one hour of work. I already thought there was something wrong with it, but apparently it "autosaves" every 200 frames. Is there a way to make it respect the set "Checkpoint frequency", which is currently 15 minutes?

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Our Folding@home stats:

temeteus82

Well that's nice to know... Now I must have one.....
Can't wait to see how well the new R600 core will do in folding

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Tipstaff

That's what I figured, but mind you, I kinda wished it wasn't. Glad you clarified that for me though.

Are you serious? That's insane. At best it takes my server 3 minutes to complete a 1000 piece frame.

Speaking of which, the GPU client lists off the frames itself, but not how much each frame is in size. All it says is the time, and then "Completed (0)", or "Completed (1)", and so on. Does anyone know how many pieces (or sets) each completed frame is on the GPU client? For the CPU client it can be anywhere from 1000 pieces and up per frame (there is one on my server right now that is 20,000 pieces per frame). Just wanted to find out for comparison.

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Lowfat

you kind of wish it wasn't because you have 8 CPUs folding currently?

BWX

LOL- well you could always enter twice then!

http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/...e=DH%5FTipstaf

http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/...=DH%5FTipstaff

Zardon

lets just hope no one is folding from DH under the name "51394" (there is a name in there with that tag)

BWX

Woot 979 pts.. 5th place for DH members.. And I got another GROMACS core to work on for the next day and a half. Well, one thing is for sure, this will let you know if you OC is stable or not. I guess mine is.

Tipstaff

Oh, crap. Sorry about that guys. It's so easy to screw up the naming when using the console version. That has to be one of my clients machines I just built. I must have screwed up the naming for one of the 2 clients, cuz the others are fine.

Damnit. I won't be able to change that until tomorrow either. Oh well. I'll be removing it anyways when he picks it up tomorrow.

Funny thing about that. Right now there are only 4 machines running it: One with 4 cores, one with 2 cores, one with a CPU client & a GPU client (running the X1600XT) which is my work machine, my home machine, and my laptop (which is working on a HUGE Gromacs right now). Technically that's 10 clients running. Thing is that the F@H client doesn't distinguish between computers, but IDs. Finish a WU on a machine with a different ID, and it lists it as a new CPU. Finish 2 WUs on a dual core machine, and it sees it as 2 seperate IDs. Since I have access to client machines I thought that the F@H client was perfect for breaking in any new computer I would build, so you'll probably see way more IDs pop up. However, there will never be that many running it at one time... I wish though.

BTW, Zardon, I just realized that the 1.9s a frame the X1950 runs you mentioned is based on what the GUI client shows, right? The one that shows the actual protiens being worked on? If so, then forget what I said about the server taking 3 minutes to do a frame. I'm using the console version, so I mistook the numbers. Tomorrow I'll have to find out using the graphical CPU client to figure out the exact frame/s.

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