Hi,

Several of you have asked exactly which graphics cards are supported by GPUGRID. All Geforce 8, 9 and 200 series GPUs are capable of running CUDA code. In practice, however, only those with 96 or more stream processors are fast enough to participate usefully. Currently, this means a 8800, 9800 or GTX260/280 card.

You may look up the configuration of a particular card on the following wikipedia pages:

*Geforce 8 Series Cards
*Geforce 9 Series Cards
*Geforce 200 Series Cards

Currently we use 8800GT and 9800GX2 cards for our development.

Note that because the GPUGRID code works the graphics card very hard, we do not recommend using an overclocked card.

Edit 25 Aug 2008: We are not currently able to support the 320MB and 640MB 8800GTS/X cards.


MJH

Hi,

Several of you have asked exactly which graphics cards are supported by GPUGRID. All Geforce 8, 9 and 200 series GPUs are capable of running CUDA code. In practice, however, only those with 96 or more stream processors are fast enough to participate usefully. In practice, this means a 8800, 9800 or GTX260/280 card.

You may look up the configuration of a particular card on the following wikipedia pages:

*Geforce 8 Series Cards
*Geforce 9 Series Cards
*Geforce 200 Series Cards

Currently we use 8800GT and 9800GX2 cards for our development.

Note that because the GPUGRID code works the graphics card very hard, we do not recommend using an overclocked card.

MJH

Now you should explain me why those VGAs with less than 96 stream processors are unable to "partecipate usefully". Weaker cards will just take more time to process datas, isn't it?

In our team, Boinc.Italy, we have many users with 8400 and 8600 cards that WANT to partecipate but CAN'T and this, in my humble opinion, is like WASTING some good computing power. Do you know how many Pentium 2, Pentium 3, Athlon XP and Duron are still out there running BOINC? Are they not "partecipating usefully"?

In our team, Boinc.Italy, we have many users with 8400 and 8600 cards that WANT to partecipate but CAN'T and this, in my humble opinion, is like WASTING some good computing power. Do you know how many Pentium 2, Pentium 3, Athlon XP and Duron are still out there running BOINC? Are they not "partecipating usefully"?

I've got an 8600GT running this project, it crunched the first WU without problems. Now is a sample of 1 not really sufficient for general remarks, but I'd say: let them give it a try!

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Gruesse vom Saenger

For questions about Boinc look in the BOINC-Wiki

A longer deadline would be nice.
Certainly for when you make a windows version available, as you are going to have a lot bigger user base, and probably by definition a lot more complaints about the deadline being too short.

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Down with the Kredit Kops!!!

A longer deadline would be nice.
Certainly for when you make a windows version available, as you are going to have a lot bigger user base, and probably by definition a lot more complaints about the deadline being too short.

The type of application that we provide require a lot of computer time, this is why it is PREFERABLE to join if you have at least 8800GT.
You can still try to return workunits with 8600 type cards, but it will take you much longer. 8400 are 20 times slower than top cards and cannot return wu within the deadline.

They can still connect as we do not have any mean to exclude them. This is why we specified better what are the computational resources recommended.

GDF

The type of application that we provide require a lot of computer time, this is why it is PREFERABLE to join if you have at least 8800GT.
You can still try to return workunits with 8600 type cards, but it will take you much longer.

If I get the numbers right from this thread, and am right to assume that CPU doesn't matter that much, the difference is about 4 times. The WUs take about 12h for UBT - NaRyan on a 8800 and 50h on my 8600.

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Gruesse vom Saenger

For questions about Boinc look in the BOINC-Wiki

[A]m right to assume that CPU doesn't matter that much, the difference is about 4 times. The WUs take about 12h for UBT - NaRyan on a 8800 and 50h on my 8600.

That's correct. In general, the performance of the GPUGRID application will scale linearly with the GLFOPS rating of the GPU (refer the Wikipedia articles above for these values).

MJH

A longer deadline would be nice.
Certainly for when you make a windows version available, as you are going to have a lot bigger user base, and probably by definition a lot more complaints about the deadline being too short.

The type of application that we provide require a lot of computer time, this is why it is PREFERABLE to join if you have at least 8800GT.
You can still try to return workunits with 8600 type cards, but it will take you much longer. 8400 are 20 times slower than top cards and cannot return wu within the deadline.

They can still connect as we do not have any mean to exclude them. This is why we specified better what are the computational resources recommended.

GDF

Exclude? Are you serious?
People want to help and you want to EXCLUDE them?
What's better? More power in a longer time or less power in a shorter one?

Maybe you should read GDF's post again?! ;)

They can still connect as we do not have any mean to exclude them

Also we are still in the early testing stage and GDF and his team will for sure choose what's best for their project...

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pixelicious.at - my little photoblog

Exclude? Are you serious?
People want to help and you want to EXCLUDE them?
What's better? More power in a longer time or less power in a shorter one?

My old Commodore C128 is excluded from crunching for BOINC, I doubt whether my first real PC, a 286er, would not be excluded as well.

Imho people have to live with the simple fact that computer hardware is outdated quite fast. It may still work as a browsing machine, but will not do anything useful for science (besides wasting energy). It's a bit like demanding that the Formula 1 racing rules should be inclusive for the Käfer/Beetle.

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Gruesse vom Saenger

For questions about Boinc look in the BOINC-Wiki

Maybe you should read GDF's post again?! ;)

They can still connect as we do not have any mean to exclude them

His knowledge of the fact means that they actually thought about (or even tried to) excluding them.

Anyway, I understand that some cards may be slow. A 8400 will take around 250 hours for short WUs and 650 hours for long ones. That means 11 days and 30 respectively. Maybe a bit too much, considering that it's not sure those PCs will run 24/7.

But a 8600GS or GT, with just 32 stream processors, will complete a WU in 50 (short) and 130 (long) hours. A couple days and less than a week (24/7). Let's say they'll run 8/5 (work time) and you'll get a WU completed in slightly more than a week and slightly more than 2 weeks respectively. Is that unacceptable for the project?

That's what I don't understand. Why is there the need for such a short deadline? Is it just for quick developement purposes or will it stay the same when the project will exit the alpha and beta status?

Hi all,

i'm using a slightly over clocked 9600GT (XFX XXX version)on Ubuntu Hardy (8.04), cuda drivers 177.13, Pentium D processor. It takes about 18 hours to process, in line with what Zeuz said in an earlier post. The card has 64 streaming processors.

However my first two runs had computational errors (at about 52% and 90% completion ..if i recall correctly),the third will finish in 2-3 hours..... one way or another.

I'll post an update after completion of the 3rd unit, with some other issues i came across.

Cheers,
Fil.

p.s the first error was my fault as i accidentally hit the sleep mode, and obviously the gpu didnt like it as it didnt pick up from where it left off.

Hi all,

i'm using a slightly over clocked 9600GT (XFX XXX version)on Ubuntu Hardy (8.04), cuda drivers 177.13, Pentium D processor. It takes about 18 hours to process, in line with what Zeuz said in an earlier post. The card has 64 streaming processors.

However my first two runs had computational errors (at about 52% and 90% completion ..if i recall correctly),the third will finish in 2-3 hours..... one way or another.

I'll post an update after completion of the 3rd unit, with some other issues i came across.

Cheers,
Fil.

p.s the first error was my fault as i accidentally hit the sleep mode, and obviously the gpu didnt like it as it didnt pick up from where it left off.

I have been seeing your errors. The compute errors seem to be correlated to the card/driver of each machine as some users experience none, some others a lot.
We still don't know if there is a workaround it, so keep us informed.

We probably have found a solution for the libcudart.so error which should be fixed in the next release of the BOINC client.

gdf

hi, i need to choose a laptop and i want to run gpugrid on it
do you know the number of SP of the quadro3600M and the 1600M ?

Maybe you should read GDF's post again?! ;)

They can still connect as we do not have any mean to exclude them

His knowledge of the fact means that they actually thought about (or even tried to) excluding them.

Anyway, I understand that some cards may be slow. A 8400 will take around 250 hours for short WUs and 650 hours for long ones. That means 11 days and 30 respectively. Maybe a bit too much, considering that it's not sure those PCs will run 24/7.

But a 8600GS or GT, with just 32 stream processors, will complete a WU in 50 (short) and 130 (long) hours. A couple days and less than a week (24/7). Let's say they'll run 8/5 (work time) and you'll get a WU completed in slightly more than a week and slightly more than 2 weeks respectively. Is that unacceptable for the project?

That's what I don't understand. Why is there the need for such a short deadline? Is it just for quick developement purposes or will it stay the same when the project will exit the alpha and beta status?

I'm quoting myself because I'm still waiting for an answer.
I bought a 8800GT and I'm running this project 24/7, do I deserve an answer now?

That's what I don't understand. Why is there the need for such a short deadline? Is it just for quick developement purposes or will it stay the same when the project will exit the alpha and beta status?

The few days deadline will stay as the aim of this project is to create by distributed computing the largest supercomputer for applications of biomolecular simulations. Our calculations are so heavy that they will require weeks on slow machines. Such an high time to return the workunits is not ideal for distributed computing as the resources are volatile. One day of calculations is probably the maximum. Also, it is crucial to reduce the latency between submission and return of the results to be analyzed. So, we do not need the biggest possible pool of machines, but the fastest pool of machines.
Hope it helps.

gdf

Hi,

I'm looking to buy a new card and I'd like to know if i should buy a
8800GT 256 or 512MB?
I found a 8800GT 256 at $60
What is the best for GPUGRID?

Thank you

Eric

Hi,

I'm looking to buy a new card and I'd like to know if i should buy a
8800GT 256 or 512MB?
I found a 8800GT 256 at $60
What is the best for GPUGRID?

Thank you

Eric

The 256MB one should be fine for current version of the application, but we cannot guarantee for the future.

gdf

Two questions:

Does GPUGRID support the Telsa C870?

Does GPUGRID support using multiple video card on the same host? Specifically, I'm looking at 2 of the Geforce GTX 280. OK, I found this thread, so if I have four CPUs and four video cards, then I can run 4 GPUGRID tasks simultaneously?

I'm running Fedora 8 on x86_64.

Two questions:

Does GPUGRID support the Telsa C870?

Does GPUGRID support using multiple video card on the same host? Specifically, I'm looking at 2 of the Geforce GTX 280. OK, I found this thread, so if I have four CPUs and four video cards, then I can run 4 GPUGRID tasks simultaneously?

I'm running Fedora 8 on x86_64.

Hi,
if you are happy to test, I can upload a new Linux application which should automatically support multiple GPUs. If you have 4 cpus and 4 GPUs cores, you can have 4 GPU wu running. Four G280 should deliver something of the order of 20,000 credits per day. However, some users had problems with the driver of the 200 series.

Yes, we do support tesla units too, but they are not faster than graphics cards.

gdf