a friend wanted to buy my 650 ti . so I moved up to a 970 . its running between 63 and 75 % . I run 4 cpu rosettas along with it . just pausing the rosettas moves my % up 3 % . is there anything I can do for higher usage ? also my driver - older or current is best

You can run 2 WU (Task) at the same time and got 10% more.

https://www.gpugrid.net/forum_thread.php?id=4107#41309

also my driver - older or current is best

I'm using the latest and it works just fine on my 760's.

thanks guys - I want my new toy to do real work . its errored out a bunch while I was messing with settings but it appears its about 2 x better already , I appreciate your help

Only run long-runs task on that fast GPU. Deactivate short runs in your profile, but leave "if no work is available, accept work from other queues" checked so you won't run dry if at some point there are no long runs available.

Definitely reserve a CPU core, i.e. only run 3 CPU tasks in your case.

The current long runs are almost exclusively "GERARD_FX..". They result in relatively low GPU utilization on GPUs with many shaders, hence it's beneficial here to run 2 WUs concurrently. The best way to do this is via an app_config.xml. Do you know how to set this up?

Increase your GPU memory clock to at least stock clocks. Be default nVidia underclocks it for GP-GPU tasks.

You can overclock your GPU by setting a positive offset for the core clock in the usual OC utilities. This will lower GPU utilization, but it's faster. I have mine running at ~1.32 GHz and ~1.10 V. This is far below the maximum stock voltage of ~1.20, which makes the card work significantly more energy-efficient even with an overclock. I achieve this by reducing the power target. My card is working at 77% of 200 W (default power target for my model, this is probably different for yours), i.e. 156 W. GPU utilization is very high 92-93%, at least for Win Vista and newer.

And finally: you can dedicate an entire CPU core to feeding the GPU. This gains a few more % GPU utilization in my experience. You can do so by setting an environment variable "SWAN_SYNC" and giving it any name. Do you know how to do this?

I have 2 physical cores of my i7 3770K @ 4.0 GHz dedicated to feeding my GTX970, running 2 WUs concurrently. It needs a bit over 67k seconds for 2 long runs, i.e. would yield 655k RAC if it could run undisturbed.

MrS

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Scanning for our furry friends since Jan 2002

I do not know how to modify the settings . . 4but I do wish to try it . I have win 7 64bit

Hi robby,

to answer your PM:

1. The BOINC program is installed somewhere under C:\programs.. by default. The data is in a seperate directory in the user profile. To find it I suggest to search for the file "client_state.xml". This should be in the "root" of the BOINC data folder.

2. From there navigate to the folder "projects", then "www.gpugrid.net". That's we want to place the "app_config.xml".

3. Let's create a new .xml file here. A relatively easy way is to right-click some existing file, e.g. "slideshow_cellmd_00", then "open with" and choose "editor". Then choose "save as", change the file type to "all files" and type as name "app_config.xml". Done!

4. Add the contents of that file. Right click it, and choose "edit". Delete everything currently in the file. Then copy & paste these lines:

<app_config>
<app>
<name>acemdlong</name>
<gpu_versions>
<gpu_usage>0.5</gpu_usage>
<cpu_usage>1</cpu_usage>
</gpu_versions>
</app>
<app>
<name>acemdshort</name>
<gpu_versions>
<gpu_usage>0.5</gpu_usage>
<cpu_usage>1</cpu_usage>
</gpu_versions>
</app>
</app_config>

The 1st section is for long-runs, the 2nd one for short-runs. The 0.5 after <gpu_usage> signals to run 2 WUs concurrently. The 1 after <cpu_usage> signals BOINC to reserve 1 logical CPU core for each of those tasks. Set anything you see fit.. although 0.5 might be a good choice for your system. This way both tasks would in sum request 1 full core. BOINC would run 3 CPU tasks and there'd always be some spare time on the 4th core to feed the GPUs.

5. Save the filed modification.

6. Restart BOINC. Or in BOINC manager, advanced view, choose "options/reread config files"

7. Let us know how it went and what's the GPU utilization now :)

MrS

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Scanning for our furry friends since Jan 2002

I use win 7 . I thought I had it to show hidden filess . what is the correct way . so I can mod the app files . very much thank you

I use win 7 . I thought I had it to show hidden filess . what is the correct way . so I can mod the app files . very much thank you

Right click on the desktop, choose new shourcut, copy and paste the following to the "location of the item" dialog box:

notepad c:\ProgramData\BOINC\projects\www.gpugrid.net\app_config.xml

click next
type in the name of the shortcut ("edit app_config.xml") to the next dialog
click finish
double click on the new shortcut you've created
it will say there's no such file, and ask if you want to create one?
click yes
copy the text from below, and paste it

<app_config> 
 <app>
  <name>acemdlong</name>
  <gpu_versions>
   <gpu_usage>0.5</gpu_usage>
   <cpu_usage>1</cpu_usage>
  </gpu_versions>
 </app>
 <app>
  <name>acemdshort</name>
  <gpu_versions>
   <gpu_usage>0.5</gpu_usage>
   <cpu_usage>1</cpu_usage>
  </gpu_versions>
 </app>
</app_config>

close the notepad, and save the file
Restart BOINC. Or in BOINC manager, advanced view, choose "options/reread config files"
(thanks ETA)

Robby, if those instructions are not enough you'd need to ask more precisely where you encounter a problem. Otherwise I wouldn't know how to improve them.

MrS

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Scanning for our furry friends since Jan 2002

I think while doing it some malware nailed me . the boinc manager cannot find the work and projects but if I open boinc.exe they run . I tried uninstalling and reinstalling but I am getting the same results . I get a message its tried to start 3 times in 2 minutes

I finally reloaded used a different directory and bingo

Good to hear it works. What'S the performance you're getting now, or the improvement?

Zoltan has just summarized on how to make the app use a full core over there. If you want to maximize GPU production this can be a worthy trade-off.

MrS

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Scanning for our furry friends since Jan 2002

I got the app loaded it shows 2 - one running one ready to run . it has a cpu core open . both will run if I suspend Rosetta@home . with one my gpu is about 72%@ with 2 its 85% cpu usage is low , can 2 share a single core ?

with rosetta suspended for 14 hrs my run time appears to have stretched to about 23 - 24 hours . I tried using .5 cpu by .5 gpu and it dropped the GPU usage by 5 % to about 80 . which is only 5-8 % higher than one instance

If you wanna to push more, i overclocked mine to 1440 mhz, +12mv, got no issue/error, using EVGA precisionX 16.

I think my issue may be the pcie slot is a 16x ver 1.1 and it just cannot feed enough . opening up a gpu cpu core to feed the gpu . helped but 2 instances went from 74 to 85 % of gpu and the est time went up a bunch [ almost double ] I am waiting for completed task to check the real performance . I just may to try and bump up the gpu speed a bit as well

my 2 gpu task finish about 23 hours . and generally about 80 % of gpu . just about perfect