CPU + GPU Balance
8 Mar 2016 19:55:10 UTC
Topic 198493
(moderation:
Hi All!
Just a quick Q...I have searched the forums for this specific query but can't find anything and i'm sure someone will know.
How do I force BOINC to prioritise GPU work units over CPU ones?
e.g. a GPU unit will require 0.5 CPU, I have 2 GPU's and 4 CPU's but BOINC chooses to run the 4 CPU tasks instead of the GPU ones. I have a GPU factor of 0.5 in my preferences so really i should be able to run 4 GPU tasks (utilising 2 CPU's in total also). And use the other 2 CPU's for CPU work.
Help!
CPU + GPU Balance
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Since the GPU apps are CUDA based and not OpenCL based, you don't need all that much CPU resources to feed the GPU's. I would set your BOINC computing preferences to use only 50% of your CPU cores, IOW 2 cores which would free up the other two CPU cores to feed the GPU's. The setting is on your Einstein account page.
The AMD GPU (which the OP
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The AMD GPU (which the OP seems to have) uses OpenCL and requires more CPU.
The exact setting Keith is talking about is called "Use at most [ ] % of the CPUs" and it's found in the "Options - Computing Preferences..." menu of the boinc manager.
Thanks to both for your quick
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Thanks to both for your quick replies so far!
I have just noticed that in the startup event log i get this:
08/03/2016 19:46:52 | | OpenCL: AMD/ATI GPU 0: Bonaire (driver version 1912.5 (VM), device version OpenCL 2.0 AMD-APP (1912.5), 1024MB, 1024MB available, 1198 GFLOPS peak)
08/03/2016 19:46:52 | | OpenCL: AMD/ATI GPU 1 (ignored by config): Tahiti (driver version 1912.5 (VM), device version OpenCL 1.2 AMD-APP (1912.5), 3072MB, 3072MB available, 2739 GFLOPS peak)
Which would explain why one of the GPU's isn't running, incidentally it is the one in the first PCI Express port and the primary GPU that is "ignored by config". What would cause this? I don't have any app_config file overrides or anything...
RE: What would cause this?
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Nothing to do with app_config.xml. The BOINC client configuration is handled by cc_config.xml. This shouldn't be needed so find it and remove it (or at least remove the entry in that file that causes the GPU to be ignored).
Cheers,
Gary.
What about RE:
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What about
is that no longer required in cc_config.xml ?
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Cracking! I don't know
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Cracking!
I don't know where the client was reading it's config from because there was no cc_config file.
But creating one and adding the lines:
1
As suggested has solved the problem :) the event log now looks like this and both GPUs happily crunching away:
08/03/2016 22:00:43 | | OpenCL: AMD/ATI GPU 0: Bonaire (driver version 1912.5 (VM), device version OpenCL 2.0 AMD-APP (1912.5), 1024MB, 1024MB available, 1198 GFLOPS peak)
08/03/2016 22:00:43 | | OpenCL: AMD/ATI GPU 1: Tahiti (driver version 1912.5 (VM), device version OpenCL 1.2 AMD-APP (1912.5), 3072MB, 3072MB available, 2739 GFLOPS peak)
Thanks all for your help!
Matt
PS. Most probably know this but I also set my CPU to use only 75% of the CPU cores (3/4) as MSI Afterburner was showing sketchy GPU usage, but now both GPUs are going for gold with just 2 CPU tasks running alongside.