Hello,

I have a Radeon HD 5450 Graphics card made by HIS Digital(HIS 5450 Silence 512MB DDR3 PCI DVI/HDMI/VGA). A link to the manufacturer's product website is below ...

http://www.hisdigital.com/un/product2-580.shtml

On the product box it says it is designed for OpenCL 2.0

I thought I might be able to use it with BOINC.

I have BOINC Manager v7.0.28 and am running Windows XP Home Edition (32-Bit) SP-3. I have installed the latest AMD Catalyst Drivers (v12.8).

When I start BOINC Manager I get the message "No usable GPUs found" in the event log.

Does anyone know if there is anything I can do to get it working ?

Best Regards,
Daniel

P.S. Here are the first lines from the event log ...

24/09/2012 4:36:13 PM | | No config file found - using defaults
24/09/2012 4:36:14 PM | | Starting BOINC client version 7.0.28 for windows_intelx86
24/09/2012 4:36:14 PM | | log flags: file_xfer, sched_ops, task
24/09/2012 4:36:14 PM | | Libraries: libcurl/7.25.0 OpenSSL/1.0.1 zlib/1.2.6
24/09/2012 4:36:14 PM | | Data directory: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\BOINC
24/09/2012 4:36:14 PM | | Running under account DanielM
24/09/2012 4:36:14 PM | | Processor: 1 AuthenticAMD AMD Athlon(TM) XP 2200+ [Family 6 Model 8 Stepping 0]
24/09/2012 4:36:14 PM | | Processor: 256.00 KB cache
24/09/2012 4:36:14 PM | | Processor features: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 mmx fxsr sse syscall 3dnowext 3dnow
24/09/2012 4:36:14 PM | | OS: Microsoft Windows XP: Home x86 Edition, Service Pack 3, (05.01.2600.00)
24/09/2012 4:36:14 PM | | Memory: 1.50 GB physical, 2.11 GB virtual
24/09/2012 4:36:14 PM | | Disk: 158.91 GB total, 73.65 GB free
24/09/2012 4:36:14 PM | | Local time is UTC +10 hours
24/09/2012 4:36:14 PM | | No usable GPUs found

It's your drivers & operating system. AMD no longer supports OpenCL under Windows XP its drivers since catalysts 12.2 (even though it does state they're in the package in 12.2, 12.3 and 12.4, they aren't really), so if you want to use OpenCL, you'll have to use older drivers. But beware here, as the 11.5 to 11.11 drivers have a bug that will use high CPU usage. So you're effectively limited to 11.12 or 12.1 for the latest drivers.

You can read for yourself that the driver you have no longer supports OpenCL, as it says so on the 12.8 driver description:

Description:
Package contains the following graphics drivers and dependent/required software for the products specified in the current version's official release notes:
Display Driver
AMD Integrated Driver
AMD HDMI Audio Driver
Catalyst Control Center

Catalysts for Windows XP 11.12
Catalysts for Windows XP 12.1

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Yes, most projects use ATI cards in OpenCL mode, so having a driver which supports OpenCL is likely to be important. But BOINC should still detect the card in native (CAL) mode, shouldn't it? Or has ATI withdrawn that as well?

I don't know, perhaps that they removed that as well. As far as I know, AMD stopped CAL development a long time ago in favor of OpenCL. So I suppose it is possible that when they stop adding support for some GPGPU component that they do it for all components as well.

Also possible that one just needs the AMD Stream SDK installed in order for the CAL detection to work.

And finally it's possible that it's a driver screw up. That's only fixed by uninstalling the driver, cleaning out all the left-over crap, and reinstalling a driver.

---

Also possible that one just needs the AMD Stream SDK installed in order for the CAL detection to work.

That might be true.

My XP3200+/AGP_HD4650/PCI_8400GS is stuck on Cat 11.1 drivers, AGP drivers after that stuck the resolution at 640*480 and 4bit colour, once that was fixed and i could install a driver properly, then Boinc wouldn't detect the HD4650 anymore,
i suppose the lack of an SSE2 processor stopped the SDK runtime getting installed, when i have a free moment i'll try Cat 12.1 and see what is installed, and whether Boinc detects the HD4650.

Claggy

The 1.4 beta SDK is available through this page, however, it's required to register an account in order to be able to download it.

The 2.0 beta SDK is only still available for Linux.

Thinking about this, doesn't it need mention of the driver being an APP (Accelerated Parallel Processing) driver, in order for it having CAL support? Or is that for Windows Vista and 7 only?

---

Yes, an APP driver is more relevant for end-users than a full-blown developer SDK.

Thanks for your suggestions, unfortunately I haven't had any luck.

I have tried installing v12.1 of the driver but Boinc Manager still can't detect my GPU.

I then tried v11.12, but still Boinc couldn't detect it.

After each driver install I ran a GPU diagnostics program called "GPU Caps Viewer" but in both cases it couldn't detect OpenCL support.

I finally followed the instructions regarding cleaning up old driver files using "Driver Sweeper". I then tried installing v12.1 again, but again Boinc couldn't detect it and GPU Caps Viewer didn't detect OpenCL support.

I have contacted the manufacturer's tech support people and am waiting for a reply. If I find a solution I'll post it here.

Best Regards,
Daniel

24/09/2012 4:36:14 PM | | Processor: 1 AuthenticAMD AMD Athlon(TM) XP 2200+ [Family 6 Model 8 Stepping 0]

You'll never get OpenCL support with an ATI/AMD GPU as a CPU with SSE2 support is required first, try Cat 11.1 then at least CAL will work.

Nvidia GPUs don't require an SSE2 processor, so OpenCL support is shown, but that doesn't improve matters as the one developer who tried to build an SSE OpenCL app couldn't get it to work, my SSE only XP3200+ host:

15/09/2012 11:30:00 | | NVIDIA GPU 0: GeForce GT 430 (driver version 301.42, CUDA version 4.20, compute capability 2.1, 512MB, 484MB available, 269 GFLOPS peak)
15/09/2012 11:30:00 | | NVIDIA GPU 1: GeForce 8400 GS (driver version 301.42, CUDA version 4.20, compute capability 1.1, 512MB, 488MB available, 34 GFLOPS peak)
15/09/2012 11:30:00 | | ATI GPU 0: ATI Radeon HD 4600 series (R730) (CAL version 1.4.900, 1024MB, 1017MB available, 774 GFLOPS peak)
15/09/2012 11:30:00 | | OpenCL: NVIDIA GPU 0: GeForce GT 430 (driver version 301.42, device version OpenCL 1.1 CUDA, 512MB, 484MB available)
15/09/2012 11:30:00 | | OpenCL: NVIDIA GPU 1: GeForce 8400 GS (driver version 301.42, device version OpenCL 1.0 CUDA, 512MB, 488MB available)

Claggy

Good catch on the SSE2 requirement!

---

Thanks for the explanation about why OpenCL wouldn't work.

I tried installing v11.1 of the drivers but I think they're too old for my hardware. I went through the installation process but after I rebooted, Windows still said that it had detected new hardware & prompted me to install drivers. Also Catalyst Control Center didn't appear.

I've gone back to v12.8 of the drivers for now.

I think I'll give up on this one.

Thanks,
Daniel

I have ...

3 HD3650 AGP cards working.
1 HD2400 PCI card (no, not PCI-E, PCI!) working.

... on GPU tasks.

My advice FWIW.
Ignore the persistent and very irritant (!) prompt to use the latest BOINC software (7.x.x).
a) Find and use the ATI driver that supports your card.
b) Find and use the BOINC software that still supports AGP.
NB 1) ... only in Windows. (I have tried UBUNTU, please:- just don't ask. Pretty, please don't.)
NB 2) ... a working a) + b) combination isn't easy but it is possible. I've done it.
NB 3) Again, don't ask me about UBUNTU with ATI AGP & BOINC. It still hurts.
NB 4) in Windows I can do the following:-
Control the CPU fan based on temperature (SpeedFan) and observe history plus much more
Control the GPU fan speed based on teperature (ATI Tray Tools), HD3650 only
Control the GPU voltage* (ATI Tray Tools), HD3650 only, not necessary for the HD2400 PCI card - it's a cool running item.
NB 5) ATI Tray Tools allowed me to correct a MAJOR flaw in all of my HD3650 cards fan speed profiles. The standard fan speed profile was set to REDUCE the fan speed when the temperature rose at around 45C. DUH!
* ATI Tray Tools allowed me to operate the HD3650 cards at a SIGNIFICANTLY lower voltage than standard e.g., 0.974V on one card and 1.014V on another versus the 1.134v standard (the 3rd HD3650 card is a really cool dude so no need to intervene).

---

The difference between 0 and 1 is greater than the difference between 1 and 1,000,000,000

b) Find and use the BOINC software that still supports AGP.

This is a driver event, not something that BOINC does. BOINC only reads a file from the drivers installed, if that file does not contain your specific card, it won't detect it. So it's hardly BOINC its fault, but more (that specific file in) the drivers.

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b) Find and use the BOINC software that still supports AGP.

This is a driver event, not something that BOINC does. BOINC only reads a file from the drivers installed, if that file does not contain your specific card, it won't detect it. So it's hardly BOINC its fault, but more (that specific file in) the drivers.

Well, it's more that the driver provides the channel of communication between BOINC and the hardware, so that BOINC can use the API (Applications Programming Interface) to ask questions and get answers back.

But you're right, it will be the driver which provides the AGP support (or not, as the case may be). BOINC doesn't interact with hardware at that level.

AGP cards may require Catalyst AGP Hotfix before the main drivers will install.