I can always tell when Einstein@Home is running, sluggish

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Profile Toombra
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Message 39986 - Posted: 3 Sep 2011, 7:00:47 UTC
Last modified: 3 Sep 2011, 7:09:35 UTC

Apologies if this has been posted elsewhere I searched through other threads and didn't see what I was looking for.

My issue isn't an error or anything. I've been a BOINC user for several years and currently am running 6 projects on my year-old computer of 3.4ghz X4 quad-core processor. The projects I'm running are: boincsimap, climateprediction.net, Einstein@Home, Milkyway@Home, orbit@home and SETI@Home. I have also run the World Community Grid project in the past and on other machines. BOINC manager is currently 6.12.33 x64

These projects all behave well for the most part and while I use my computer for many different things, I'm quite content to leave BOINC in "Run Always" mode. It seems to be fairly efficient (with the occasional bug that doesn't occur often) at managing the projects in the background and ensuring they don't interfere with any higher priority processes (which should be every other application) that wants to run. In fact I play a variety of 3D games and the hit to the performance and framerate by BOINC is negligable...

...Except for one project: Einstein@Home. Whenever this project happens to be running, and especially when multiple processes of it are running (the X4 is a multicore chip; 4 "CPUs"), I can tell because of the overall sluggishness that creeps into the computer usage. It's not major, but if I'm wanting to play a game or even watch a video... I can tell when it's running and often suspend BOINC operations for this period (on a related note; being able to assign a hotkey would be nice).

While I understand the code of the Einstein@Home application is ultimately the responsibility of the project and it's programmers. I thought I'd take a moment to highlight that this project does not seem to behave as well in the "background" as the other projects I have experienced, even while it it uses up approximately the same amount of CPU power and memory (and definitely less than Climate@Home).

P.S. None of these projects use my GPU (incompatible model/brand) so it's not that. Einstein@Home seems to only like NVidia and I happened to buy ATI. oops.
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Profile Gundolf Jahn

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Message 39990 - Posted: 3 Sep 2011, 8:23:33 UTC - in response to Message 39986.  

...even while it it uses up approximately the same amount of CPU power and memory (and definitely less than Climate@Home).

Einstein@home tasks use definitely far more memory than SETI@home tasks do!

Though Dagorath didn't see your (edited in?) comment on GPU using, he might be right in suggesting memory contention problems, only for main memory. Since you didn't tell how much memory your host has built in and your hosts are hidden at Einstein, I can't tell for sure if that might be the case.

In addition, there are three different applications at Einstein@home (two for CPUs) that use different amounts of memory.

Gruß,
Gundolf
Computer sind nicht alles im Leben. (Kleiner Scherz)
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Message 39996 - Posted: 3 Sep 2011, 15:09:53 UTC - in response to Message 39988.  

Do you crunch Einstein GPU units? If you do then that could be why games and video playback are sluggish. Tasks running on the GPU don't run "in the background" or at low priority. There is no such thing as "background" execution and low priority on GPUs. With an Einstein GPU task plus a game or video you might be expecting more from your GPU than what it is capable of. Does it have enough memory to run a game/video plus an Einstein task? What model video card do you use? How much memory does it have? How many shaders?

Einstein code is their responsibility but YOU have a responsibility to know what your hardware is capable of and when you are expecting more than it can possibly deliver. My GTX 570 can handle an Einstein GPU task plus video playback but it's a new, fast card with lots of shaders and 1 gig memory.


As I said in my initial post: "P.S. None of these projects use my GPU (incompatible model/brand) so it's not that. Einstein@Home seems to only like NVidia and I happened to buy ATI. oops."

AFAIK it is entirely CPU scheduling.
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Message 39997 - Posted: 3 Sep 2011, 15:15:49 UTC - in response to Message 39990.  


Though Dagorath didn't see your (edited in?) comment on GPU using, he might be right in suggesting memory contention problems, only for main memory. Since you didn't tell how much memory your host has built in and your hosts are hidden at Einstein, I can't tell for sure if that might be the case.


Sorry, you may be right that memory is the issue. This computer currently has only 4GB of DDR3 ram. so far it's been enough for most things I do and as mentioned I don't notice sluggishness in other boinc apps.

In addition, there are three different applications at Einstein@home (two for CPUs) that use different amounts of memory.


I haven't been paying too much attention between the apps beyond identifying them to each project so it's possible that only one in particular is noticeable while the other isn't. I'll keep a better eye on these going forward to try to isolate performance.

At the moment the Gamma Ray Pulsar Search #1 0.23 is running and using 265MB of memory per process. I don't have an accurate baseline at this exact moment for performance. As I said, I'll try to keep a better eye on it.
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uBronan

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Message 40003 - Posted: 4 Sep 2011, 18:23:27 UTC
Last modified: 4 Sep 2011, 18:24:23 UTC

First of all sometimes it is possible to control gpu processing a little bit, depending on the project but this needs some advanced knowledge of boinc and tinkering with app_info.xml stuff which is not for normal users.

But besides that i would do this different cause i well know this issue
On my older quad i had the same problem it somehow became sluggish when running on 4 cores on the same project.

So i went to the project site and made a so called preference on all projects
Under your account you can set a bunch of handy things

Select the project its preferences

Now this depends if you have one or more machines when using different machines one should make new preferences for the different performing machines

For instance for the slower machines i use school as preference and set it to only run 2 cores( of the cpu) when you use this approach you need to set the preference for each machine under : computer on this account then choose details of the machine needed to change

So when only one machine you just have to set these preference for your project not to use more then 2 or 3 cores, einstein gets limited alot on my machines.
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Vg_Ace

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Message 40065 - Posted: 8 Sep 2011, 4:38:23 UTC

I'd like to add that I too have had problems with Einstein@home. I noticed it when trying to watch DS9 with Media Player Classic. After about 3 minutes the computer would get really slow and then once I moved the mouse it would go away. After about 2 hours of diagnosis I finally determined it was Einstein@home. Seti@home does not do this. It is coded so that if Media Player is running, it does not try and run.

They really need to fix the code for Einstein@home. I cannot use it until the sluggishness stops.

Ohh and my setup is quite adequate.

AMD X4 2.4 Ghz CPU
4 GB of Ram
GeForce 450 with 1 GB of DDR RAM
running Windows 7.

Einstein@home definitely needs some work.
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Chris
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Message 40365 - Posted: 25 Sep 2011, 16:39:14 UTC

Hi. I have had the same problem with Einstein@Home and/or BOINC. Even if I set in the BOINC config that certain apps are exclusive and BOINC is to cease and desist immediately when they are running it still becomes a problem. I had to actually completely detach from Einstein@Home to get it to stop.

Einstein@Home says it is a BOINC issue. It may be because two BOINC versions ago(currently using version 6.12.34), setting the games I wanted everything out of the way for as exclusive apps solved this problem. After the update the config settings no longer had any effect. Yes have even tried forcing it to read the config file etc.
32bit Windows XP Home
AMD Opteron 180
ASUS A8N-SLI Motherboard
Nvidia 450GTS GPU
4GB DDR 400 Memory
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Chris
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Message 40366 - Posted: 25 Sep 2011, 17:11:09 UTC

Have unattached from Einstein@Home and the sluggishness is gone. I will repost this on the E@Home board.
32bit Windows XP Home
AMD Opteron 180
ASUS A8N-SLI Motherboard
Nvidia 450GTS GPU
4GB DDR 400 Memory
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Chris
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Message 40374 - Posted: 26 Sep 2011, 0:02:08 UTC - in response to Message 40373.  

I will look into it. Whatever it is that is happening only appears when E@Home is in the house. I have run MW@Home and WCG with no problems.


32bit Windows XP Home
AMD Opteron 180
ASUS A8N-SLI Motherboard
Nvidia 450GTS GPU
4GB DDR 400 Memory
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Chris
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Message 40508 - Posted: 2 Oct 2011, 11:18:16 UTC - in response to Message 40373.  

When I start up the exclusive apps, before they take over the screen I can hover my mouse over the Boinc tray icon and see that Boinc is indeed reading them as exclusive apps and suspending network and computational activity.

E@Home says its an Nvidia problem. Something about downclocking or somesuch with latest Nvidia drivers.

http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/forum_thread.php?id=9095&nowrap=true#114195


32bit Windows XP Home
AMD Opteron 180
ASUS A8N-SLI Motherboard
Nvidia 450GTS GPU
4GB DDR 400 Memory
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Message 40534 - Posted: 4 Oct 2011, 14:23:58 UTC - in response to Message 39997.  


I haven't been paying too much attention between the apps beyond identifying them to each project so it's possible that only one in particular is noticeable while the other isn't. I'll keep a better eye on these going forward to try to isolate performance.

At the moment the Gamma Ray Pulsar Search #1 0.23 is running and using 265MB of memory per process. I don't have an accurate baseline at this exact moment for performance. As I said, I'll try to keep a better eye on it.


The "Binary Radio Pulsar Search (Arecibo) 1.00 (BRP3SSE)" application seems to be one of the ones that's detrimental on system performance. I notice more sluggishness while running 1 instance of this application than I do running 4 of the "Gravitational Wave S6 GC search 1.01 (SSE2)" applications.
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Message boards : Questions and problems : I can always tell when Einstein@Home is running, sluggish

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