Support for (integrated) Intel GPUs (Ivy Bridge and later)

Oliver Behnke
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Busy indeed. Right now we're

Busy indeed. Right now we're struggling with multiple hardware failures and urgent infrastructure upgrades to keep the project running and our volunteers happy :-/ I'll forward this issue again to bring it to the right people's attention...

Please bear with us,
Oliver

Einstein@Home Project

Bikeman (Heinz-Bernd Eggenstein)
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Thanks for reminding us about

Thanks for reminding us about this issue.

If I remember correctly (waiting for confirmation from Bernd), Bernd had configured a beta-app version for Intel iGPUs that does not check for a max driver version. The intention was that people can use this (by allowing beta apps in the web prefs) to explore if new drivers have fixed whatever problem existed.

So if we are lucky, the problem doesn't exist anymore with newer drivers.

This would have to be tested with several combinations of models of HD iGPUs and drivers to work out save driver versions to allow again. I guess we from E@H need volunteers' help here, because we have very few Windows PCs with newer HD iGPUs under our control: anyone interested in helping can enable beta apps and see if the Intel HD iGPU tasks are validating against non-beta app version results, and should post both negative and positive results to this thread.

EDIT: for some of the newer models, we might have to edit the scheduler config to correctly detect the Intel iGPU. So if you cannot get work even with beta apps enabled, please point us towards your host so we can see how BOINC reports the GPU's name.

Cheers
HB

|MatMan|
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From my experience, the

From my experience, the problem with Intel drivers does not exist anymore for Windows 10. I have five Windows 10 hosts with Intel HD 4600 GPUs, they all use the drivers supplied automatically by Windows (driver version 10.18.15.4256) and produce valid results:
host1
host2
host3
host4
host5

They use the beta apps though...
I can't say anything about Windows 7 or 8 and their related drivers.

Randomacts
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RE: From my experience, the

Quote:

From my experience, the problem with Intel drivers does not exist anymore for Windows 10. I have five Windows 10 hosts with Intel HD 4600 GPUs, they all use the drivers supplied automatically by Windows (driver version 10.18.15.4256) and produce valid results:
host1
host2
host3
host4
host5

They use the beta apps though...
I can't say anything about Windows 7 or 8 and their related drivers.

I guess I should try out the beta apps then

Randomacts
Randomacts
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Yup beta app seems to be

Yup beta app seems to be working fine on the w10 sweet

Oliver Behnke
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Great news! Do the (internal)

Great news! Do the (internal) Windows 10 drivers have an Intel-like version number such that we could use it as in indicator for working upstream drivers, helping Win7/8 users maybe...?

Oliver

Einstein@Home Project

|MatMan|
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RE: Great news! Do the

Quote:

Great news! Do the (internal) Windows 10 drivers have an Intel-like version number such that we could use it as in indicator for working upstream drivers, helping Win7/8 users maybe...?

Oliver


I posted the version number above: 10.18.15.4256
The (internal) Windows 10 driver is actually an Intel driver:

edit: Ok, Intel has a new numbering style for Windows 10, i.e. 15.36.26.4294 seems to be the same as 10.18.14.4294. So the last 4 digits matter...
edit2: BOINC reports:
3/31/2016 5:36:26 PM | | OpenCL: Intel GPU 0: Intel(R) HD Graphics 4600 (driver version 10.18.15.4256, device version OpenCL 1.2, 1922MB, 1922MB available, 184 GFLOPS peak)
when installing the latest driver (15.40.18.4380) from the Intel website it is reported by BOINC (and Windows) as:
03/31/2016 5:36:44 PM | | OpenCL: Intel GPU 0: Intel(R) HD Graphics 4600 (driver version 20.19.15.4380, device version OpenCL 1.2, 1630MB, 1630MB available, 208 GFLOPS peak)
I don't know yet if that driver works with E@H though.
What a mess...

Oliver Behnke
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RE: I posted the version

Quote:

I posted the version number above: 10.18.15.4256
The (internal) Windows 10 driver is actually an Intel driver:


So if this is the latest official/internal Win10 driver, we see that

  • * we have at least a

new last known good driver version (as it's newer than 10.18.10.3906): 10.18.15.4256
* Win10 seems to use pretty outdated drivers (compared to 15.40.18.4380)

Quote:

edit: Ok, Intel has a new numbering style for Windows 10, i.e. 15.36.26.4294 seems to be the same as 10.18.14.4294. So the last 4 digits matter...


Why new numbering style? It didn't change to my eyes, they might just be newer. How do you tell those two are the same? FYI, the last digits should be the build number which are an integral part of the whole version number.

Quote:

when installing the latest driver (15.40.18.4380) from the Intel website it is reported by BOINC (and Windows) as:
03/31/2016 5:36:44 PM | | OpenCL: Intel GPU 0: Intel(R) HD Graphics 4600 (driver version 20.19.15.4380, device version OpenCL 1.2, 1630MB, 1630MB available, 208 GFLOPS peak)
I don't know yet if that driver works with E@H though.
What a mess...


Indeed!

Thanks for the details

Einstein@Home Project

Richard Haselgrove
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RE: RE: I posted the

Quote:
Quote:
I posted the version number above: 10.18.15.4256
The (internal) Windows 10 driver is actually an Intel driver:

So if this is the latest official/internal Win10 driver, we see that
  • * we have at least a
new last known good driver version (as it's newer than 10.18.10.3906): 10.18.15.4256
* Win10 seems to use pretty outdated drivers (compared to 15.40.18.4380)

No, they don't work that way. From the driver I'm using under Windows 7:

Quote:

INSTALLATION README

Release Version: Production Version

Driver Version: 15.33.22.64.3621

Package:

Intel(R) Graphics Driver: 10.18.10.3621
Intel(R) Display Audio Driver: 6.16.0.3137

Operating System(s):

Microsoft Windows* 7 64
Microsoft Windows* 8 64
Microsoft Windows* 8.1 64

Release Date: May 21, 2014


You usually see the 15 series number on Intel's download pages - I wish they'd call that the 'package' number, or something.

The bit we're interested in is the Graphics Driver, which always seems to be a 10 series number. That's what BOINC detects at startup:

Quote:
28-Mar-2016 09:23:02 [---] OpenCL: Intel GPU 0: Intel(R) HD Graphics 4600 (driver version 10.18.10.3621, device version OpenCL 1.2, 1298MB, 1298MB available, 192 GFLOPS peak)


though, unlike other GPUs, the driver version doesn't make it through to the computer details page on the server (SETI displays OpenCL version, Einstein doesn't even display that).

I'll try and find some time over the weekend to explore the arcane labyrinth of Intel's download centre, and see what I can find.

Oliver Behnke
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Sigh... Thanks for clearing

Sigh... Thanks for clearing this up!

Einstein@Home Project

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