KWSN Orbiting Fortress

[Nuadormrac]

Yep, it was up, perhaps a day at most. Collatz will be next down.

Ya know? They need another GPU capable project to split the workload with, so those 2 don't get plastered upon the other going down. And I don't mean folding; only because some people do look at BOINC credits, and to this day folding has chosen to stick to their own platform. Some are looking for BOINC credits in taking the place when these 2 go down.

Ah well, hopefully the admin gets back to it before the hols. Now, lets see what will be planned given the new hardware didn't fix all their probs
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[stooper101]

Agreed.

I've heard rumors about GPUGrid trying to come up with an ATI app. And POEM looking into getting some kind of GPU support. If I knew anything about coding, I'd help out, but all's I's know's is nuttin'
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>stats<

[John Galt 007]

GPUGrid's ATI app will only run on the 58xx cards, I hear...

It will use OpenCL for the language, not Brook like the other ATI cards...
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[Nuadormrac]

That's rather limiting...

Well I know a bit of coding; but not enough for well...

main()
{
cout >> "Hello World!";
}

would hardly be very useful

OK, I know a bit more then that; but having taken up through CS251 in college (intermediate programming) would hardly be enough for well... Besides, prior to having to drop out of college due to family medical/financial considerations I had begun to move away from a degree in computer science/programming, and more towards one in computer engineering. As such the classes I was taking was moving more away from the software, and more towards the hardware.

True there's some programming involved in the latter, but not really an emphasis on it. I got one in computer networking also; so I guess if things continued as they had, it probably would have lead up to something in network engineering, or the like... Designing a logical circuit is not the same as writing a GUI which will make everything nice and purdy for the end user. It can pay more but not the same.
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[JerWA]

Actually the point of OpenCL is that it's, well... more open, than Brooke, Stream, etc. It is tied to hardware, just like Stream, but the requirements have been around since early last year. It's been demonstrated on the HD4800 series cards, and is actually meant to be more hardware agnostic than not, and AMD has already submitted some x86 CPU code for OpenCL certification.

AMDs site is more than a bit confusing right now on this front, as they have an OpenCL page, but it ends up linking back into their Stream page. I guess they are not mutually exclusive, as AMDs SDK 2.0 beta page says "With OpenCL 1.0": http://developer.amd.com/GPU/ATISTREAMSDKBETAPROGRAM/Pages/default.aspx

That page also lists the supporting hardware, which includes most of the 4xxx family (including mobile) and all of the 5xxx. Might finally be time to ditch those 3xxx cards heh.

Anywho, OpenCL is a good thing because it means they can write an app for all platforms at once. I.e. no worrying about who can program for ATI GPUs, and who can program for NV GPUs, and who can write x64 code, etc. You just write an OpenCL app and it'll run on anything that supports OpenCL, including CPUs and GPUs regardless of vendor. The potential down side is I'm not sure how hard/possible it is within that framework to optimize for specific hardware, which is where our "power apps" come from.
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[John Galt 007]

From the GPUGrid forum:

[JerWA]

Which makes no sense because if memory is the problem it should say 58xx cards because the 57xx cards have memory bandwidth problems, enough so that the 48xx cards perform on equal footing with them.

Sounds to me like they're just coding poorly. I'd have more faith hearing it from someone I trust. I'm not particularly fond of GPUGrid and have not, in the past, found their app to be very good. I doubt they've suddenly gotten better lol, but that's just my bias speaking.

I'll wait to hear it from Gipsel or someone similar.
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[John Galt 007]

In the same thread they mention that they are building a box to test with, and are using Win7...and might make that the minimum OS...

Nothing like pissing off everyone that still uses XP....
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[JerWA]

No mercy from me on that front. If you want to run an 8 year old OS that's your fault, I mean prerogative. As a developer I wouldn't bother supporting that old crap either. Everything I own is on 7, with the exception of the new machine I just added that's on 2008 R2 hehe.

I'll wait to hear about it from the folks that code for MW and Collatz (and yes, the same guy helps both). GPUGrid, as I said, hasn't been very good in the past and their credit #'s have steadily fallen compared to other projects because their optimization is bad. Ah well.
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[John Galt 007]

Problem is that I don't have the jack to upgrade 12 PCs to Win7...unless you have a bunch that you want to give me...
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[JerWA]

You need 4 copies of the family upgrade license. It's $150 for 3 systems. And, with a tweak here or there, it will install clean rather than upgrade.

http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=windows+7+family+pack&oe=utf-8&cid=14470715379950950256&sa=title#p

Still not cheap, don't get me wrong, but $150 for 3 systems is way better than the normal price.

As for me, I get 'em free, so it's easier to see why I'd upgrade
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[Sir Papa Smurph]

[JerWA]

Like I said, bad coding. Gipsel is an amazing coder, and has caused enough of an uproar that the powers-that-be at BOINC (namely SETI) are going to revise the ENTIRE credit system because of the gob-smacking credits pouring out of GPUs now. Everyone wants to blame the projects, but they are using the same math as SETI is to compute credits, and have actually dropped their multiplier several times trying to appease the powers-that-be.

The fact that in that same time period GPUGrid has optimized no code, dropped a platform (PS3), still doesn't understand scheduling and how to use client requirements to avoid sending bad work units to people, etc does not make me fond of them.

Edit: I should also say that some people are predicting doom and gloom from the new credit system. Like, every app "normalized" against SETIs horrible inefficient apps and credit, with all video cards being normalized against the worst, with credits being granted based on assumed efficiencies instead of actual time spent, etc. I'm not one to jump on the panic train this early in the game, but I will say that if they drop GPUs to the point CPUs are at, points/day wise, I may just quit BOINC. I know peoples motivations are different, but to me this is just a really expensive video game. If you hack my score in half arbitrarily, I may just hack my contribution in half, and my power bill, and my cooling bill, etc.
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[Sir Papa Smurph]

If they hack my score in half I will save a lot of money. I won't have to buy any new video cards, my electric bill will go way down and I will have a few computers that I can sell........

Ps: at GpuGrid it is never their fault. My cards downclocking was Nvidia's fault, and failed Wu's were my fault for over clocking or having bad cooling...
I also had to set my preferences to suit their project, no compromise....
I have yet to have a failed Wu with Collatz, 100% success rate. (except when I crashed my lappy, Battery died )
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[JerWA]

If you're having problems getting WUs to run (someone was I can't remember now) another thing to check is that BOINC Manager isn't running as a service. As a service there's an abstraction layer that prevents it from seeing the GPUs, so it just flat doesn't work.
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[Sir Papa Smurph]

[JerWA]

Think it's an ATI thing, and I dunno off hand if it's project specific, I didn't think so. I know I ran into the issue myself and just stopped using service mode, so I dunno if it's since been resolved on one project and not the other or what. I do know it still happens, there are recent threads about it which is what reminded me hehe.
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[JerWA]

Sounds like MW is having some issues with the WU size change, including invalid results according to the last post in the thread. That's not a good thing at all.

http://milkyway.cs.rpi.edu/milkyway/forum_thread.php?id=1301
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[Sir Papa Smurph]

looks like the fix may be to leave one Cpu core available to run the Gpu.
Sucks, but really when you consider the difference between credits Cpu vs Gpu then the Cpu is really a waste of power anyway
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[Yankton]

Sounds like the Einstein cuda app. Uses a whole core and barely uses the GPU.
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