Some help setting up F@H

[Ultima]

Hey guys,

I will be installing F@H on most of my rigs, but what client is best for dual and quadcore, and which is most stable for GPU crunching??

I will have 2 rigs that need cpu and gpu clients running next to eachother.

All rigs will be multicore, so I don't need singlecore client

I know what team to run in and how to set that, it's just the client setup thingie.

Thanks for all the help.

Pim

[ShyguyXPC]

posted a link over to here from the F@H chat thread, so hopefully some of the other guys can help.

I've only used the regular GUI CPU & GPU clients, & haven't tried any of the other clients so can't help with suggesting which is better, but for the standard client setups, its pretty straight forward as to setting it up, just input the name you want to show up on the stats list with in all clients, & the team number & off your systems go a crunching LOL...

as for whether theres a single core client, I don't think there is a seperate one, last I checked depending on the one your running, only one version should cover single & multicore.

also from your other post, probably list your two Dually's as well, I'm pretty sure the SMP client is the one for those two, since their 2 seperate CPU's on the same board.

[sharder8]

The different performance clients are found HERE!

For the GPU, I use this one . . . easy, stable (for me), and straight forward.

Windows XP/2003/Vista GPU System tray client (installer msi)

For the SMP, I use the Deino . . . not so easy to set up, but has been stable for me.

Windows XP/2003/Vista/2008 SMP client console version
Read this forum post first!
(it has directions for 5.92 that also apply for 6.22)

Make sure you read the linked page first.


Harder

[2monsters]

Hey Ultima
We have a sticky in the DC forum for help setting up clients. Now as for your question. On a dual core rig your best bet is to either run the smp client by itself or gpu2 by itself. You can run both on a dual core but not without performance loss to each client. IMO i would run a gpu client on the dual core, that would yield the most ppd. Now on a quad core you can run smp and gpu2 with a quad core, iirc you have to use 180.84 nvidia drivers for a smp gpu2 setup. The 180.84 drivers limit cpu usage on the gpu2 client thus leaving all cores open for an smp client. Also iirc that setup only works if you are running XP. Personally i use the gpu2 systray client for gpu2, that allows for an easy on and off situation, for instance if you were to be gaming on the rig from time to time, i find systray easy to turn on and off. A couple of the guys use console clients, sorry can not help to much there, I stick with whats easier for me.

Here is the link for the high performance client ( smp & gpu2 clients)
Folding@home - DownloadWinOther

Anymore questions feel free to ask.

[ShyguyXPC]

2M, he's using ATI cards...

[2monsters]

2M, he's using ATI cards...

No worries evrything is pretty much the same, except for the nvidia drivers thing. A couple months ago i had a 3870 crunching for a bit. However that would limit him in running smp and gpu2 on the quad core. Not really sure how ATI is with their drivers. I'm sure it can still be done, just not as effective as the nvidia setup.

Forgot to add that when your setting up these clients, make sure each client has it's own machine ID number.

[nunyadam]

Hey Ultima
On a dual core rig your best bet is to either run the smp client by itself or gpu2 by itself. You can run both on a dual core but not without performance loss to each client. IMO i would run a gpu client on the dual core, that would yield the most ppd.

Here is the link for the high performance client ( smp & gpu2 clients)
Folding@home - DownloadWinOther

Anymore questions feel free to ask.

old info in Bold.
Run SMP AND GPU Core usage is now almost non existent with the GPU client.

[KarmaKiller]

^That depends on what drivers your using. ATI cards still use ~30% of one core to crunch GPU2 on.

[nunyadam]

In that case he should buy a new Video card. , but +70% more work give or take should = more points I would think.

[ShyguyXPC]

In that case he should buy a new Video card. , but +70% more work give or take should = more points I would think.

he has... My new rig is finally coming together

[Ultima]

OK, I installed the 6.22 beta version and it seems to be running ok, but only using one core.

I looked in the FAQ thread, but couldn't find the exact setup procedure, can someone guide me through it??

[KarmaKiller]

Deino or MPICH?

Those are the guides I use for the most part.

[Ultima]

well,

I followed the instructions and according to that link you posted, my setup is running ok now on the dualcore:



thanks for the help

I also created a batchfile, so that if my pc gets rebooted, it'll auto start the client again.

[KarmaKiller]

Awesome man.
GPU is much much much easier to install. Not only that, but it's much much much faster too.

[Ultima]

I downloaded the client specified earlier in the thread, seems to be running a-ok as well.

Was indeed a lot easier to install. LOL

Both are crunching away, altho I must say it does take quite some time before the cpu client goes from "Extra SSE boost OK" to the actual crunching.



I must say the iter/sec do jump up and down a lot, from 4.5 up to 178, do you know why that is??

Ohh, I saw I entered the charts, came in at 239th. LOL

and is it normal that my 1st GPU WU displays 10 million points to be done and the 2600XT is only running at 3 to 8 iter/sec?? sometimes jumping higher?!

[KarmaKiller]

It jumps around alot, so nothing to worry about there. But when your running the on screen display, it slows it down A LOT.
And if you really wanna boost PPD, install the console version. That is the fastest version.

I look foward to seeing you in the stats.

[Ultima]

I have the systemtray version, and I just every so often check if it's still running.

I don't have the viewer up all the time, then I see it dropping to 1.x / sec

here's my page:

Folding@Home

btw, how many times a day/week/month does the stats page update itself??

[batmeat]

In that case he should buy a new Video card. , but +70% more work give or take should = more points I would think.

LOL...funny you should say that, because that's exactly what I did. I went from a 4850 to a GTX 260 just so I could fold.

[Ultima]

fold a bit faster ya mean?? it's not like the 4850 can't do it at all. LOL

[Ultima]

OK, guess I'll be using a different username for folding then Ultima.

My GPU client finished and for some reason it put me in a team somewhere in the 27000 with some dude Ahkbar. 27500 points it was.
I doublechecked my client, I used the same passkey as I did for my cpu client, and that was requested new, on my username and email......strange.