Problem: cuda version and video games

sterling
sterling
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Topic 194806

It seems that everytime I play a video game the cuda app will refuse to work afterwards. The wu's will give a "computation error" after attempting to start and failing. I end up having to restart X and reload the nvidia module. Then things work fine.

I've tryed updating my nvidia drivers to the latest beta 195.30 but this didn't change anything. I'm using linux with a gts250.

Is this an nvidia bug or an einstein bug ?

Oliver Behnke
Oliver Behnke
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Problem: cuda version and video games

Hi sterling,

Quote:

Is this an nvidia bug or an einstein bug ?

It would certainly help if you could provide us with the ID of the result/task that failed. You can find it in your account's task list. This way we could take a look at the error message. I suspect the there's not enough free video memory available, hence our app aborts. If that's the case we can't do anything about it. Whether X or NVIDIA is to blame is hard to tell. In my opinion the driver should take care of freeing up unused memory, e.g. when a process (your game) quits - apparently that's not the case...

Cheers,
Oliver

Einstein@Home Project

Jord
Joined: 26 Jan 05
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It would also be nice to know

It would also be nice to know where you got your BOINC version from. Did you compile it yourself, and if so from which revision? I ask as 6.11.1 isn't on the horizon yet and may even never show up.

sterling
sterling
Joined: 11 Jul 06
Posts: 11
Credit: 104497219
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http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/

http://einsteinathome.org/workunit/69635480
http://einsteinathome.org/workunit/69635461

here are two of them and the memory that was free to them when this happened

Detected 1 GPU
^^^^ Device: 0
^^^^ Free : 439463424 bytes (429163 KB) (419 MB)
^^^^ Used : 97079808 bytes (94804 KB) (92 MB)
^^^^ Total: 536543232 bytes (523968 KB) (511 MB)
^^^^ 81.906433% free, 18.093567% used

they errored with 419MB of free mem
restarting X only results in 3 more MB of mem becoming available.

how much does einstein require ?

I'm using a custom boinc 6.11.1 as observed, havn't had a problem with gpugrid or seti cuda.

sterling
sterling
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^^^^ Free : 439463424 bytes

^^^^ Free : 439463424 bytes (429163 KB) (419 MB) Returning control to BOINC, delaying restart for at least five minutes...
------> If this problem persists you should consider aborting this task.

btw i've got an nvidia bug report form open, so lemme know what you think
thanks

Jord
Joined: 26 Jan 05
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RE: how much does einstein

Message 97224 in response to message 97222

Quote:
how much does einstein require ?


450MB free.

Quote:
I'm using a custom boinc 6.11.1 as observed, havn't had a problem with gpugrid or seti cuda.


Where did you get it from? Crunch3r?

sterling
sterling
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Posts: 11
Credit: 104497219
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RE: RE: how much does

Message 97225 in response to message 97224

Quote:
Quote:
how much does einstein require ?

450MB free.

Quote:
I'm using a custom boinc 6.11.1 as observed, havn't had a problem with gpugrid or seti cuda.

Where did you get it from? Crunch3r?

It's my own modified version of the 6.11.1 svn, some slight scheduler tweeks and some extra messages output.

450MB is quite a bit, does this mean a 1GB card would fix this issue ?
are 256MB cards incompatible with einstein ?
I was thinking maybe they'd use some host memory to compensate, or use something similar to opencl's CL_MEM_ALLOC_HOST_PTR
So this would suggest I am infact running out of memory.
On a 1GB card would it use more than 450MB by any chance ?

sterling
sterling
Joined: 11 Jul 06
Posts: 11
Credit: 104497219
RAC: 0

bump for an answer from a dev

bump for an answer from a dev to my 3 last questions.

thanks

sterling
sterling
Joined: 11 Jul 06
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"Our group has about 20

"Our group has about 20 members including professors, scientists, graduate students and undergraduates who work closely together on the cutting-edge research."

Is 20 all einstein@home needs ?
I'd like to contribute.

Is this an oss project whose source code can be obtained ?

Jord
Joined: 26 Jan 05
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RE: 450MB is quite a bit,

Message 97228 in response to message 97225

Quote:
450MB is quite a bit, does this mean a 1GB card would fix this issue ?


Maybe, that depends on whether or not that tasks will hang up in that one as well, as then you only need 2 before you have the problem again.

Quote:
are 256MB cards incompatible with einstein ?


Yes, minimum GPU memory requirement is 450MB.

Quote:
On a 1GB card would it use more than 450MB by any chance ?


Probably. But not much more.

On your other question, look at http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/license.php

sterling
sterling
Joined: 11 Jul 06
Posts: 11
Credit: 104497219
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I think i've discovered the

I think i've discovered the problem.

Changing my resolution at all results in caches being cleared and 100MB of vid mem being freed instantly :)

This is a valuable suggestion to anyone who encounters the same problem as I did
(atleast for linux: just ctrl-alt-+/-)

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