MW, Collatz and Einstein dont run molecular dynamic simulations, their apps are more simplistic and very different.

Yes of course, you are right. But one word to MW/Collatz: both projects have Cuda and ATI apps. They are simpler for both types, nVidia AND Ati, but both apps are faster on ATI and use much less power also.

So don't let the ATI-apps die!

It’s easier to write simple apps and if ATI doesn’t adequately support the creation of more complex apps then its better to wait for the next SDK than to continue to debug and report endless errors, knowing that they will not be fixed until the next SDK, if at all.

I don’t know of another Boinc project that manipulates large molecules.
Perhaps there will be better support for Vista x86 and Win7 x86.

It’s easier to write simple apps and if ATI doesn’t adequately support the creation of more complex apps then its better to wait for the next SDK than to continue to debug and report endless errors, knowing that they will not be fixed until the next SDK, if at all.

I don’t know of another Boinc project that manipulates large molecules.
Perhaps there will be better support for Vista x86 and Win7 x86.

http://dnahome.cs.rpi.edu/dna/

This project is in an very early stage and I can not say for shure, that it is as complex as GPUGRID, I'm no scientist. And until now there is no GPU-app, but moderators say they plan to do that.

Another thing: as far as I understood, OpenCL is a hardware independent programming language. Since GDF did some tests with an openCL app and it looks like he has an ready to go app (a lot of effort has been put it to get there with large structural changes), he could release that as an nVidia-app. This gives the possibility to test the app in the field und to compare speeds, at least again the cuda-app. This could also solve some problems with the apps for fermi only and non-fermi apps.

MW did that; the openCL and the cuda-apps take exact the same time to complete (only a few seconds apart for a 17min task).

Please do not misinterprete my words, I really don't want to bother anyone. Your efford to develop the project is appreciated. It's my interest for this project that leds me to encourage you to distribute an ATI-app, even if it is unstable. I will not post angry words.

@skgiven: I apologize for my misinterpretational words. I wrote it "it looks like..." not "there is ...".

Of course I can´t help you, because my experiences in molecular modelling are more then 17 years ago and then these calculations were on an very early stage done on an 80286. And I´m not a programmer, only a lecturer and very interested in boinc and the projects. I want to spent my power and energy in "humanic" projects.

My thoughts were that from 2,111,537 boinc users (boinc-stats today) some have the knowledge to help this project. Of course akosh (I think that is the right spelling) was no gravitational expert "only" an interest user of E@H, who improved the performance of the apps. Now his optimations are included in the standard code of E@H apps.

You have spent a lot of time crunching mathematical projects such as DNETC, PrimeGrid, and Collatz, but not so much for the more humanitarian projects. Do you put your Cypres to use at Folding@home? Perhaps you should have thought through your choice of GPU a bit better before purchasing it and limiting yourself to mathematical analyses.

While OpenCL is a cross-device open language, each device still requires working drivers.

If one can accuse SK of being a fan then it would be a GPU-Grid fan ;)

The projects currently working on ATIs are comparably simple. That's why it was possible (for a single person in case of MW and CC) to optimize them this good and to get a stable app. The more you have to rely on calling complex functions from ATIs libraries the more you depend on them fixing their stuff. Which is not exactly easy. NVidia invested a huge amount of money into this software and still GPU-Grid does find quite some bugs in their code / drivers.

Anyway, the ATIs traditionally provide lot's of raw computation power per $ and good power efficiency. And in Cayman (HD69x0) this power became easier to use. So.. hopefully at some point it'll work. Don't put too much hope into OpenCL yet, though. It's not quite where people want to have it. And being able to run on anything doesn't mean one code path will be fast & efficient on anything..

MrS

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Scanning for our furry friends since Jan 2002

So... Delayed until after SDK 2.4 is released?

If speed is the issue, then I'm sure most of us won't mind (it's better than nothing).

Yesterday Lunatics released their first ATI-OpenCL App for SETI (Multibeam).
:-(
~25min/task @ HD6950 6.10 (ati 13ati)
~21min/task @ GTX460 6.08 (cuda)

looks like ATI and OpenCL are not really best friends, but at least they run stable (I updated the ati and nVidia-drivers today).

If speed is the issue, then I'm sure most of us won't mind (it's better than nothing).

+1

GDF said that the problem was numerous bugs in the present SDK package. We know speed is not great but getting a working app is the main problem. Perhaps they will do better using Windows with the present SDK, but I am not holding up much hope. If not then we will have to wait for SDK 2.4, and testing will basically start over again.

If not then we will have to wait for SDK 2.4, and testing will basically start over again.

When should the new SDK be available?

I cant find a future AMD Accelerated Parallel Processing SDK (APP SDK) , but my guess is SDK2.4 will be released in mid of April:
The last release dates have been in Dec 2009, Feb 2010, May 2010, Aug 2010, and Dec 2010. It looks like the release dates are spreading out; the gap has been 2months, 3months, 3months and 4months. So being optimistic my guess is about 4months from the 13th Dec 2010 release date – mid April 2011.

It's now the middle of February and nothing?
I really don't mean to be pushy, but there are several ATi users just waiting to contribute to this project.

Even if it's buggy, there are several of us here that would help you guys out with testing and hopefully provide useful feedback.
Like I've said before, something's better than nothing.

Given the expected ETA's of the next two APP SDK's and some knowledge of the researchers timetable, I don't expect another sustained attempt until around Aug.

If the drivers are not stable for a range of cards then by the time you debug/find work arounds, the next APP SDK will be out, making your efforts worthless. ATI even changed the name from SDK to APP SDK. It's down to ATI to have a useable APP SDK from which to work from.

That's sad to hear. :(
On the bright side Folding@home for ATi GPU's should have a new core and client soon (March). It's OpenCL/OpenMM based. :)

That is good news. I hope it goes well.

It's now the middle of February and nothing?
I really don't mean to be pushy, but there are several ATi users just waiting to contribute to this project.

Even if it's buggy, there are several of us here that would help you guys out with testing and hopefully provide useful feedback.
Like I've said before, something's better than nothing.

Myself included, I am going to upgrade back to an nvidia GPU soon, but still would like to beta test an ATI app

Oh, will check back here in 6 months and see then...

Stanford just released their OpenCL client for ATi (OpenCL 1.1, so only Radeon HD5xxx and 6xxx cards, older cards are being abandoned by that project), based on their opensource toolkit OpenMM. They seems to be happy with SDK 2.3, and a lot more for the speed improvements in 2.4 (in beta/RC now, with the latest 11.3/11.4 drivers).

What about you? Can I ask what are your real biggest problems deploying ATi OpenCL client?
You keep saying that it's buggy and I could be fine with that, but could you just elaborate a little bit on that? It's my curiosity asking!

GDF said before that it's crashing a lot. I don't know anything else, though.
BTW: I've got Milkyway@Home running on my HD6950. It was fine with the release data beta Cat 10.12, but with Cat 11.2 it keeps crashing in conjunction with Win7 and Firefox 4 or a modern Winamp skin. Going to install 11.3 now and hope things improve.

MrS

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Scanning for our furry friends since Jan 2002