Einstein@Home causing system chunkiness

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Cruisin'
Cruisin'
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29 May 2011 17:38:17 UTC
Topic 195807
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    After a system restore I'm reattaching to projects. My 3 are WCG, MW@home and Einstein@Home. Just today finished reattaching to Einstein. Now my system chunks up a bit when playing games as if things aren't quite getting out of the way well enough.

    So I wanted to go over with the community what these BOINC settings mean and to get a better understanding of how they affect me.

    On preferences I have:

    Allow computing while:

    Computer is at work YES

    While GPU is at work YES.

    Now these are getting out of the way after whatever I put in, say I started using 50% of the system?

    Also have told it not to leave suspended tasks in memory.

    I have unattached from the Einstein@Home project and my system chunkiness has stopped.

    32bit Windows XP Home
    AMD Opteron 180
    ASUS A8N-SLI Motherboard
    Nvidia 450GTS GPU
    4GB DDR 400 Memory

    Olivier
    Olivier
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    Einstein@Home causing system chunkiness

    29 May 2011 18:15:55 UTC
    Message 105503
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      I assume you are using your GPU for eintein? From my experience crunching with your GPU while gaming always gives lower gaming performance (fps etc). I have an almost simmilar setup:

      64bit Windows 7 Pro
      AMD Athlon 4800+ CPU
      ASUS A8N-SLI Motherboard
      Nvidia 250GTS GPU
      3GB DDR Memory

      If you really want to crunch while gaming you should test your game fps while using different project settings. Im guessing the GPU project should halt when the system is over 20-25% usage.
      Personally, i just shut down BOINC altogether to get max gaming performance.

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      GPU tasks hurt performance in

      30 May 2011 2:57:52 UTC
      Message 105504
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        GPU tasks hurt performance in games quite a bit for me.

        In the boinc manager, i uncheck this:
        "Use GPU while computer is in use"

        And in the "activity" menu set:
        "Use GPU based on preferences"

        ..so that it doesn't interfere.

        Cruisin'
        Cruisin'
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        RE: GPU tasks hurt

        30 May 2011 3:57:43 UTC
        Message 105505 in response to message 105504
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          Quote:

          GPU tasks hurt performance in games quite a bit for me.

          In the boinc manager, i uncheck this:
          "Use GPU while computer is in use"

          And in the "activity" menu set:
          "Use GPU based on preferences"

          ..so that it doesn't interfere.

          OK did both those things and now have these settings set in my preferences:

          I set these parameters:

          Suspend work while computer is in use: No

          Suspend GPU work while computer is in use: Yes

          Suspend work if CPU usage is above: 50%

          Leave tasks in memory while suspended: No.

          Use at most 75% of CPU time.

          I'll reattach to Einstein later

          32bit Windows XP Home
          AMD Opteron 180
          ASUS A8N-SLI Motherboard
          Nvidia 450GTS GPU
          4GB DDR 400 Memory

          FrankHagen
          FrankHagen
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          RE: Suspend work while

          30 May 2011 12:23:12 UTC
          Message 105506 in response to message 105505
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            Quote:

            Suspend work while computer is in use: No

            Suspend GPU work while computer is in use: Yes

            Suspend work if CPU usage is above: 50%

            you DO NOT want to do this with 270.xx driver versions. you will run into the dowclock problem. so stick with those you are running now - even then you might run into this.

            Quote:
            Leave tasks in memory while suspended: No.

            afaik this has no effect on cuda tasks, they won't stay in memory anyway.

            oh - and make sure you are running only one gpu-project at a time. swapping cuda-tasks is not a bright idea too..

            Cruisin'
            Cruisin'
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            RE: RE: Suspend work

            31 May 2011 3:58:23 UTC
            Message 105507 in response to message 105506
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              Quote:
              Quote:

              Suspend work while computer is in use: No

              Suspend GPU work while computer is in use: Yes

              Suspend work if CPU usage is above: 50%

              you DO NOT want to do this with 270.xx driver versions. you will run into the dowclock problem. so stick with those you are running now - even then you might run into this.

              Which one of those dont I want to do? Do I NOT want to suspend work while computer is in use? Or GPU or all 3 of those choices are wrong?

              Quote:

              Quote:
              Leave tasks in memory while suspended: No.

              afaik this has no effect on cuda tasks, they won't stay in memory anyway.

              oh - and make sure you are running only one gpu-project at a time. swapping cuda-tasks is not a bright idea too..

              I'm running MW@home usually and Einstein@home and they both use GPU. So what am I suppose to do? limit only one to gpu?

              32bit Windows XP Home
              AMD Opteron 180
              ASUS A8N-SLI Motherboard
              Nvidia 450GTS GPU
              4GB DDR 400 Memory

              FrankHagen
              FrankHagen
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              Posts: 102
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              RE: RE: RE: Suspend

              31 May 2011 5:29:56 UTC
              Message 105508 in response to message 105507
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                Quote:
                Quote:
                Quote:

                Suspend work while computer is in use: No

                Suspend GPU work while computer is in use: Yes

                Suspend work if CPU usage is above: 50%

                you DO NOT want to do this with 270.xx driver versions. you will run into the dowclock problem. so stick with those you are running now - even then you might run into this.

                Which one of those dont I want to do? Do I NOT want to suspend work while computer is in use? Or GPU or all 3 of those choices are wrong?

                all 3 of them will leed to boinc suspending gpu-tasks. and this is the thing which causes the driver to shut down into power-safe mode.

                Quote:

                I'm running MW@home usually and Einstein@home and they both use GPU. So what am I suppose to do? limit only one to gpu?

                it would work if all tasks finish normally. but since you never know how or when boinc decides to switch projects, you might run into the same problem described above.

                Cruisin'
                Cruisin'
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                RE: RE: RE: RE: Suspe

                31 May 2011 6:26:52 UTC
                Message 105509 in response to message 105508
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                  Quote:
                  Quote:
                  Quote:
                  Quote:

                  Suspend work while computer is in use: No

                  Suspend GPU work while computer is in use: Yes

                  Suspend work if CPU usage is above: 50%

                  you DO NOT want to do this with 270.xx driver versions. you will run into the dowclock problem. so stick with those you are running now - even then you might run into this.

                  Which one of those dont I want to do? Do I NOT want to suspend work while computer is in use? Or GPU or all 3 of those choices are wrong?

                  all 3 of them will leed to boinc suspending gpu-tasks. and this is the thing which causes the driver to shut down into power-safe mode.

                  Quote:

                  I'm running MW@home usually and Einstein@home and they both use GPU. So what am I suppose to do? limit only one to gpu?

                  it would work if all tasks finish normally. but since you never know how or when boinc decides to switch projects, you might run into the same problem described above.

                  So what is my best bet? Turning that all on then just closing BOINC when I want to game or something?

                  32bit Windows XP Home
                  AMD Opteron 180
                  ASUS A8N-SLI Motherboard
                  Nvidia 450GTS GPU
                  4GB DDR 400 Memory

                  FrankHagen
                  FrankHagen
                  Joined: 13 Feb 08
                  Posts: 102
                  Credit: 272,200
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                  RE: So what is my best bet?

                  31 May 2011 11:08:46 UTC
                  Message 105510 in response to message 105509
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                    Quote:
                    So what is my best bet? Turning that all on then just closing BOINC when I want to game or something?

                    hmm - i'd manually stop all GPU-tasks. if the driver crashes, you'll have to reboot to get into normal mode again. if the tasks are not stopped, boinc will run one directly after restart and you are in an endless loop.

                    best choice would be stopping all except the one running and wait until it finishes. but who wants to do that?

                    mikey
                    mikey
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                    RE: RE: So what is my

                    31 May 2011 11:36:17 UTC
                    Message 105511 in response to message 105510
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                      )

                      Quote:
                      Quote:
                      So what is my best bet? Turning that all on then just closing BOINC when I want to game or something?

                      hmm - i'd manually stop all GPU-tasks. if the driver crashes, you'll have to reboot to get into normal mode again. if the tasks are not stopped, boinc will run one directly after restart and you are in an endless loop.

                      best choice would be stopping all except the one running and wait until it finishes. but who wants to do that?

                      I believe you can also set it up to do this automatically if you know the name of the file that starts the gaming process. In the app_info.xml file you just add a line that says 'when this file runs stop Boinc'. Again send a PM to the user Claggy and he will help you much better than I can!

                      Richard Haselgrove
                      Richard Haselgrove
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                      RE: RE: RE: So what is

                      31 May 2011 13:47:38 UTC
                      Message 105512 in response to message 105511
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                        )

                        Quote:
                        Quote:
                        Quote:
                        So what is my best bet? Turning that all on then just closing BOINC when I want to game or something?

                        hmm - i'd manually stop all GPU-tasks. if the driver crashes, you'll have to reboot to get into normal mode again. if the tasks are not stopped, boinc will run one directly after restart and you are in an endless loop.

                        best choice would be stopping all except the one running and wait until it finishes. but who wants to do that?


                        I believe you can also set it up to do this automatically if you know the name of the file that starts the gaming process. In the app_info.xml file you just add a line that says 'when this file runs stop Boinc'. Again send a PM to the user Claggy and he will help you much better than I can!


                        No, not app_info - that belongs in a cc_config.xml:

                        Quote:
                        important.exe
                        BOINC will suspend use of GPUs whenever the executable is running.


                        See client configuration for details.

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