Posts by JockMacMad

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1) Message boards : BOINC client : nVidia GTX-295 x 2 = GPU Hell
Message 25150
Posted 31 May 2009 by JockMacMad 		Correct but seeing as I was seeing 3 GPU not 2 SLI could not have been on.
2) Message boards : BOINC client : nVidia GTX-295 x 2 = GPU Hell
Message 24321
Posted 15 Apr 2009 by JockMacMad 		Okay the 4th GPU has entered the building.

After I taught myself CUDA I wrote my own program to enumerate the CUDA drivers present and was seeing 3 even though the nVidia control panel and the MMC device panel was showing 4. So it's not BOINC Manager.

I deinstalled all the nVidia drivers, rebooted and checked in the registry at

Hkey_Local_Machine\Hardware\DeviceMap\Video

to see what I had. There were 3 devices Video0, Video1 and Video2 present which were all standard VGA drivers. I then installed Forceware 185.68 and rebooted.

I now had 10 devices in the registry. I navigated down to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video\

and looked to see what was present. Here we see a list of registry keys like

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video\(GPU ID)\0000

where there is a key for each GPU. I searched the list and for each GPU e.g.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video\{D82C4D9A-396A-4292-A538-A8F8F22FFEB5}\0000\Settings field (where {D82C4D9A-396A-4292-A538-A8F8F22FFEB5} is a GPU id)

and looked for the words NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295.

I presumed (luckily correctly) that the 1st GPUID with those words i nthe Settings field had the monitor on it. To the following 3 GPU's I added the following registry keys:-

DisplayLessPolicy DWORD 1
LimitVideoPresentSources DWORD 1

at the

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video\(GPU ID)\0000

level in the registry tree and rebooted.

Now I only have 2 monitors showing in the nVidia control panel as having my desktop on them but my own CUDA program shows 4 GPUS. I fired up BOINC Manager which still displays that it found only 3 (due to the string length being exceeded I expect) but I have 4 running GPUS.




Maybe the string output in the Manager can be changed to be more like the CPU one. i.e.

Processor: 8 GenuineIntel Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 920 @ 2.67GHz [x86 Family 6 Model 26 Stepping 4]

so we could have

CUDA devices: (4) GeForce GTX 295 (driver version 18568, CUDA version 1.3, 896MB, est. 106GFLOPS), GeForce GTX 295 (driver version 18568, CUDA version 1.3, 896MB, est. 106GFLOPS), GeForce GTX 295 (driver version 18568, CUDA version 1.3, 896MB, est. 106GFLOPS)

which would at least semi mitigate it shows 3 or

(4) GeForce GTX 295 (driver version 18568, CUDA version 1.3, 896MB, est. 106GFLOPS)

and in the case of mixed cards

(2) GeForce GTX 295 (driver version 18568, CUDA version 1.3, 896MB, est. 106GFLOPS) (1) GeForce 9800GT (driver version 18568, CUDA version 1.3, 896MB, est. 106GFLOPS)

etc. Granted if they have 4 totally different models it would still not be right in the second option. Or allow it to span more than 1 line in the output :)
3) Message boards : BOINC client : nVidia GTX-295 x 2 = GPU Hell
Message 24307
Posted 14 Apr 2009 by JockMacMad 		Alas not that I can see no :(
4) Message boards : BOINC client : nVidia GTX-295 x 2 = GPU Hell
Message 24300
Posted 14 Apr 2009 by JockMacMad 		So I did some sceen shots.



The compound image shows:-

2x 295 with 4 displays enabled and the image streatched across the 4.
SLI off and PhysX on.

4 GPUs shown in Riva Tuner.

A PrintScreen of the desktop showing all 4 desktops are present in the screen shot.

Yet I still have 3 GPU tasks running and 3 showing when BOINCManager starts up.

Now quite why the screens are numbered 1,2, 4 and 5 and where 3 went is a mystery and maybe one which indicates where the issue is. i.e. Is BOINC looking for 1, 2 ,3 and 4 and as such 3 is not present. BOINC does not look not look for 5 there I get 3 GPU's 1,2 and 4 and not 4 GPU tasks 1, 2, 4 and 5?

I doubt this assumption as according to Rivatuner they are GPU0 through GPU3 which makes more programmatic sense.

I am sooo confuddled.
5) Message boards : BOINC client : nVidia GTX-295 x 2 = GPU Hell
Message 24297
Posted 14 Apr 2009 by JockMacMad 		Ahh no now I get the cutting off thing :) I read the thread twice before I saw what you mean't :)

Not sure if it is cutting off the 4th card in the string but I'm sure it isn't allocating a task to it still.
6) Message boards : BOINC client : Why does BOINC not support ATI RADEON card?
Message 24283
Posted 13 Apr 2009 by JockMacMad
hmmm, thought to have read that BOINC will support ATI xxxx from version 6.8 ?


Yes support for ATI in 6.8 is mentioned in 2 posts above :)
7) Message boards : BOINC client : Why does BOINC not support ATI RADEON card?
Message 24278
Posted 13 Apr 2009 by JockMacMad 		You install an ATI card and it installs Folding at Home on your machine unless you deselect the option.

Maybe ATI picked Folding as it's space to spend money rather than BOINC. Shame for us with ATI hardware but big business do their own things and resource is finite. It would be nice if they supported both project but who knows the whys and wherefores.

Maybe the OpenCL work, if properly supported by the vendors may pay off. Only time will tell if that helps us all.

I applaud the 6.8 thread for forthcoming ATI support. I'm sure that will make alot of people happy (and a small few unhappy as that is the way of the world). Also kudos to Cluster Physik (Gipsel) for his work on Milkyway@Home for ATI, where there is a will there is a way.
8) Message boards : BOINC client : nVidia GTX-295 x 2 = GPU Hell
Message 24253
Posted 13 Apr 2009 by JockMacMad 		Yes indeed. I have swapped all the cards around and all is fine with them. As mentioned FurMark itself sees and uses all 4 GPUs. If I suspend all BOINC tasks with 3 GPU's running, close down BOINC Manager and stop the clients, run FurMark 4 GPUSs work. I restart the manager and watch the processes start in task manager and I have 3 again.

I'm not paticualrly trying to run 32-bit Vista but as there was a known 64-bit problem at one time. I am still trying to get it to work on both and getting same issues on both. 64-bit would be better actually but same results.
9) Message boards : BOINC client : nVidia GTX-295 x 2 = GPU Hell
Message 24237
Posted 12 Apr 2009 by JockMacMad 		Hi

The BOINCManager was set to start at login. I have disabled this. I booted to the desktop. Checked the number of GPU's was 4 in the nvidia control panel. Checked the displays were all extended. Ran FurMark which finished and said there were 4 active GPU's. Started BOINCManager and found that BOINC thought there were 2 GPU's but is showing 3 on the host page.

The 2 monitors and 2 dummy vga plugs should ensure all the GPU's are active. Indeed as I mentioned, FurMark is telling me the 4 are active.

The machine is at:-

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/show_host_detail.php?hostid=4837048

Also seems there have been some errors:-

Cuda error 'cudaAcc_GetPowerSpectrum_kernel' in file 'c:/sw/gpgpu/seti/seti_boinc/client/cuda/cudaAcc_PowerSpectrum.cu' in line 56 : unknown error.
Cuda error 'cudaAcc_summax32_kernel' in file 'c:/sw/gpgpu/seti/seti_boinc/client/cuda/cudaAcc_summax.cu' in line 147 : unknown error.
Cuda error 'cudaAcc_summax32_kernel' in file 'c:/sw/gpgpu/seti/seti_boinc/client/cuda/cudaAcc_summax.cu' in line 147 : unknown error.
Cuda error 'cudaMemcpy(PowerSpectrumSumMax, dev_PowerSpectrumSumMax, cudaAcc_NumDataPoints / fftlen * sizeof(*dev_PowerSpectrumSumMax), cudaMemcpyDeviceToHost)' in file 'c:/sw/gpgpu/seti/seti_boinc/client/cuda/cudaAcc_summax.cu' in line 160 : unknown error.
10) Message boards : BOINC client : nVidia GTX-295 x 2 = GPU Hell
Message 24234
Posted 12 Apr 2009 by JockMacMad 		Hi guys

This has been driving me nuts for a month or so.

I have 2 GTX-295's not in SLi with the desktop expanded over the 4 GPU's. 2 Monitors connected and 2 Dummy VGA plugs. All this is on Vista 32 SP 1 (due to the nVidia drivers on 64 bit showing only 2 CUDA devices). nVidia drivers 182.08, 181.xx and 185.xx.

What I'd like to know is why the BOINC client only reports 3 devices found even though the nVidia control panel shows 4 and if I run a FurMark test it reports 4 GPU's in use. This problem occurs on GPUGrid and SETI as it seems to be a client issue. I only get the line :-

04/12/09 01:59:43 CUDA devices: GeForce GTX 295 (driver version 18568, CUDA version 1.3, 896MB, est. 106GFLOPS), GeForce GTX 295 (driver version 18568, CUDA version 1.3, 896MB, est. 106GFLOPS), GeForce GTX 295 (driver version 18568, CUDA version 1.3, 896MB, est. 106GFLOPS)

which is obviously 1 short. I have 5 working Dummy VGA plugs and have tried all of them. I know they work as I use them in another machine.

For 4 hours today all 4 showed up but as soon as I (foolishly) rebooted we are back to the same scenario.

This has been on client 6.4.5, 6.6.15 and 6.6.20.

Many Thanks

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