The amount of difference made by leaving your CPU free at all times for GPUGrid is minimal at best and would not out weigh the benefits I personally believe WCG is brining to humanity. Running bth works quite well.

If you really want to maximize GPUGrid over all else then install linux and run nothing else. Next most valuable increase would be to up your shader clocks, then up your cpu clocks, finally up clock on the memory of your 275. Not much increase from the last couple but that would be my approach (I've done lots of testing) if I wanted to see what was the absolute best I could do for GPUGrid.

---

Thanks - Steve

So, should I not run World Community Grid when running GPUGRID?

I the history of BOINC there have been test after test about running with Hyper-threading on vs. off, GPU project only vs. GPU projects with CPU projects and after sifting the data and my own tests (in the distant past) the results are seldom replicable ...

To put it another way, there are some that are convinced that turning off HT and / or having one free core to support the GPU or to run more than one task on the GPU gives a measurable and noticible increase in production.

The problem is that the focus of those who champion these techniques are either single project focused or focused solely on the increase in RAC on one project. So, yes, if you want to spend your life tuning your system for one and only one project to obtain maximum possible results for that one project (for whatever reason(s)), then perhaps running one project and only one project may be the best way to go ...

But that misses the point of BOINC, yes I am one of the fanatics that purpose builds systems to run BOINC which is also somewhat a perversion of the intent, but, I think that the real goal is to support all of those projects in which you believe ...

If you are heavy into disease projects, or projects like GPU Grid with molecular modeling in mind, then, by all means consider running WCG on the CPU while running GPU Grid on the GPU ... the point is to advance the science, not to run up more points here vs. there ... There are about 62 projects that are considered to be "alive" at this time (with about 10 in long term halts, they show off line and have been for days to months) and they all could use your help ...

I have for years suggested, and still do, that people should attach to as many projects as they find interesting ... the credit will come but the point is to accomplish the work so the science can be advanced ... in my case, those projects that I am not as interested in as others, well I give very low shares to and sometimes turn off work for weeks to months at a time.

Anyway, my two cents ...

HTH, you can run WCG and GPUGrid.

Do you run GPUGrid tasks 24/7 or does the system get turned off regularly?
Do you run other GPU tasks?
I am asking because your RAC and your daily returns are low for that card.

The balance of your system is massively in favour of the GPU; you have a Very good GPU, but you have a rather average CPU (Pent D 2.8GHz). I don’t know how much RAM or Free HDD space you have, but that might be a factor too.

If I were you I would try using one CPU core for WCG, and see if that speeds up your GPUGrid tasks significantly. By significantly I mean your overall cross-project Boinc points rise as a result. If they do not, then there would be no point to set your CPU usage to 50% and you would be better off running 2 CPU tasks and 1 GPU task simultaneously.
If you had a 1.8GHz dual core system I would be fairly sure you should just run 1 CPU task, and if you had a 3.2GHz Core 2 Duo I would be fairly sure you should run 2 CPU tasks.
I just use 3 of my 4 Phenom II 940 cores for crunching CPU tasks, because I have 4 overclocked GT240’s in that box. The overall CPU use sits at about 91% so I am really only losing 36% of one CPU core. For those with 2 big cards (GTX260 or above) that have an i7 with 8threads running, it is clearly beneficial to just use 7threads for CPU tasks, leaving a thread free for the GPUs which gobble most of it up anyway. Remember, a good GPU can roughly do 10times the work of a high end CPU. Even one GT240 would do twice as much as an i7-980X, with its 6 cores (12threads). £50 vs £850!

Overall, what I do expedites the GPU tasks by a few percent each, and there are 4 GPU tasks running 24/7, so for me this makes sense, and I do get more world wide Boinc credits this way. That said, for me it is not entirely about Boinc credits; I don’t try to find ET or count Pi, I just run the projects I believe are useful to mankind. If I was just interested in points I would just have ATI cards and just crunch sETi, Collatz or MilkyWay tasks.
I was not convinced about Folding@home’s GPU utilization, and I had problems crunching their tasks, so I stick to GPUGrid for GPU tasks. WCG does good work, but they do employ some dubious tactics, which is why I still support other projects such as climateprediction, rosetta, docking, malariacontrol, simap, RNA World, poem, the lattice project, Ralph and of course ibercivis, which is a bit similar to the WCG in that they run several different projects.

My tuppence worth ;)

The amount of difference made by leaving your CPU free at all times for GPUGrid is minimal at best and would not out weigh the benefits I personally believe WCG is brining to humanity. Running bth works quite well.

If you really want to maximize GPUGrid over all else then install linux and run nothing else. Next most valuable increase would be to up your shader clocks, then up your cpu clocks, finally up clock on the memory of your 275. Not much increase from the last couple but that would be my approach (I've done lots of testing) if I wanted to see what was the absolute best I could do for GPUGrid.

Thanks! I turned off some of those unnecessary CPU time eating processes.

---

If you are heavy into disease projects, or projects like GPU Grid with molecular modeling in mind, then, by all means consider running WCG on the CPU while running GPU Grid on the GPU ... the point is to advance the science, not to run up more points here vs. there ... There are about 62 projects that are considered to be "alive" at this time (with about 10 in long term halts, they show off line and have been for days to months) and they all could use your help ...

I like them all. I think I have registered for at least 82 BOINC projects at the moment (maybe a world record).

I have for years suggested, and still do, that people should attach to as many projects as they find interesting ... the credit will come but the point is to accomplish the work so the science can be advanced ... in my case, those projects that I am not as interested in as others, well I give very low shares to and sometimes turn off work for weeks to months at a time.

Anyway, my two cents ...

After buying GTX275 I think I should concentrate on projects with CUDA support. Of course, I'm also running CPU-only projects (100% CPU load all the time), but now it's more important to have some work for my GTX275. :)

---

HTH, you can run WCG and GPUGrid.

Ok.

Do you run GPUGrid tasks 24/7 or does the system get turned off regularly?

After buying this GTX275 I have tried to keep my PC on 24/7.

Do you run other GPU tasks?

I have tried all the CUDA BOINC projects. Now (for about three days by now) I'm only allowing work from GPUGRID.

I am asking because your RAC and your daily returns are low for that card.
The balance of your system is massively in favour of the GPU; you have a Very good GPU, but you have a rather average CPU (Pent D 2.8GHz). I don’t know how much RAM or Free HDD space you have, but that might be a factor too.

I have six gigabytes of RAM. I'm every now and then almost running out of disk space, but usually I have at least a couple of gigabytes of free disk space.

If I were you I would try using one CPU core for WCG, and see if that speeds up your GPUGrid tasks significantly. By significantly I mean your overall cross-project Boinc points rise as a result. If they do not, then there would be no point to set your CPU usage to 50% and you would be better off running 2 CPU tasks and 1 GPU task simultaneously.
If you had a 1.8GHz dual core system I would be fairly sure you should just run 1 CPU task, and if you had a 3.2GHz Core 2 Duo I would be fairly sure you should run 2 CPU tasks.

Ok.

I have heard that I should make app_info.xml file for GPUGRID and put these lines in it:
<coproc>
<count>0.5</count>
</coproc>

I don't know how to make it. Do you know? (It needs more than just those three lines.)

I just use 3 of my 4 Phenom II 940 cores for crunching CPU tasks, because I have 4 overclocked GT240’s in that box. The overall CPU use sits at about 91% so I am really only losing 36% of one CPU core. For those with 2 big cards (GTX260 or above) that have an i7 with 8threads running, it is clearly beneficial to just use 7threads for CPU tasks, leaving a thread free for the GPUs which gobble most of it up anyway. Remember, a good GPU can roughly do 10times the work of a high end CPU. Even one GT240 would do twice as much as an i7-980X, with its 6 cores (12threads). £50 vs £850!

Overall, what I do expedites the GPU tasks by a few percent each, and there are 4 GPU tasks running 24/7, so for me this makes sense, and I do get more world wide Boinc credits this way. That said, for me it is not entirely about Boinc credits; I don’t try to find ET or count Pi, I just run the projects I believe are useful to mankind. If I was just interested in points I would just have ATI cards and just crunch sETi, Collatz or MilkyWay tasks.
I was not convinced about Folding@home’s GPU utilization, and I had problems crunching their tasks, so I stick to GPUGrid for GPU tasks. WCG does good work, but they do employ some dubious tactics, which is why I still support other projects such as climateprediction, rosetta, docking, malariacontrol, simap, RNA World, poem, the lattice project, Ralph and of course ibercivis, which is a bit similar to the WCG in that they run several different projects.

My tuppence worth ;)

I find almost all the BOINC projects useful. What SETI@home needs, is a more sensitive radio telescope. Project Cyclops, anyone?

Thanks for all the tips.

---

I have heard that I should make app_info.xml file for GPUGRID and put these lines in it:
<coproc>
<count>0.5</count>
</coproc>

That should make it run 2 GPU-Grid WUs in parallel. It's not the way people normally run it. It could be problematic, but could also achieve a slightly higher GPU utilization.

MrS

---

Scanning for our furry friends since Jan 2002

If you are heavy into disease projects, or projects like GPU Grid with molecular modeling in mind, then, by all means consider running WCG on the CPU while running GPU Grid on the GPU ... the point is to advance the science, not to run up more points here vs. there ... There are about 62 projects that are considered to be "alive" at this time (with about 10 in long term halts, they show off line and have been for days to months) and they all could use your help ...

I like them all. I think I have registered for at least 82 BOINC projects at the moment (maybe a world record).

It may well be, everytime I want to go check I can't find the stat site that allows you to sort out users by how many projects they have joined. You have me beat and no way I will catch up because of all those projets that came and went while I didn't do BOINC at all for about 2 years ...

I have for years suggested, and still do, that people should attach to as many projects as they find interesting ... the credit will come but the point is to accomplish the work so the science can be advanced ... in my case, those projects that I am not as interested in as others, well I give very low shares to and sometimes turn off work for weeks to months at a time.

Anyway, my two cents ...

After buying GTX275 I think I should concentrate on projects with CUDA support. Of course, I'm also running CPU-only projects (100% CPU load all the time), but now it's more important to have some work for my GTX275. :)

Well, there are a few out there ... GPU Gird is probably one of the best as pure CUDA ... (keep us ATI users out ... :)

Also solid, but mixed environment are Collatz and MW ...

New kid on the block DNETC though they are having issues though may be working on them ... project not very talkative ...

SaH, well, enough said ... :)

PG may have another app in the works though nothing solid yet ...

It may well be, everytime I want to go check I can't find the stat site that allows you to sort out users by how many projects they have joined. You have me beat and no way I will catch up because of all those projets that came and went while I didn't do BOINC at all for about 2 years ...

http://www.boincsynergy.com/stats/boinc-individual.php?db1=80&db2=more

Well, there are a few out there ... GPU Gird is probably one of the best as pure CUDA ... (keep us ATI users out ... :)

It would be cool to have ATI-card also. I only have one PCI Express x16 slot, though. LOL.

---

It may well be, everytime I want to go check I can't find the stat site that allows you to sort out users by how many projects they have joined. You have me beat and no way I will catch up because of all those projets that came and went while I didn't do BOINC at all for about 2 years ...

http://www.boincsynergy.com/stats/boinc-individual.php?db1=80&db2=more

Thats the one! Of course this one is better ... it shows you in your glory at 81 projects ...

Well, there are a few out there ... GPU Gird is probably one of the best as pure CUDA ... (keep us ATI users out ... :)

It would be cool to have ATI-card also. I only have one PCI Express x16 slot, though. LOL.

Well, my quad has only one GPU slot, of course I put the surviving GTX295 in there so it looks like I have two GPUs ... the other MB all have two GPU slots and I had them all filled with NVidia cards at one time ... then we started to get ATI applications and, well, I slipped ... now, I really and truly love the productivity of the ATI cards and though I have not seen it yet, the lower power draw for some of the GPUs which I have had for well in excess of a year now ...

Sadly only two of the cards seem to be stable enough for GPU Grid and one of those is on the "chopping-block" in the next week or so when the next ATI card shows up ...

Don't be discouraged, soon enough you will upgrade to a faster GPU, maybe a new MB with two slots or more ... :)

And, with Win7 you can even do mixed modes with ATI and Nvidia cards in the same system (I have two like that at the moment) ...