Does DC take advantage of dual processor machines?

[Mudbone]

I have an old dual cpu mobo. I am trying to decide if it is worth keeping and running a machine with it. I started a thread here to ask some general questions. My question for this forum is will this machine be useful for DCing? I have never done any DCing before, but am interested. I think I could get this machine up and going for less than $100 bucks. I have enough other spare parts, vid card, cd rom, floppy, etc just sitting around unused. It could just sit and chug, abet slowly, 24hrs a day. Does the DC apps have to be programmed to take advantage of dual processors or if I use W2K or XP will those OSes utilize both processors for any app? Is this worth doing from a DC stand point?

TIA

 

[Freewolf]

That depending on what you decide to run.
Some like Find a drug set it up for you during install

 

[RaySun2Be]

Whether or not it is worth it depends on the speed of the CPUs, and whether you think it is worth it electricity cost wise.

I know a number of the DC projects take advantage of dual processors, but you have to be running Win2k or XP, or Linux.

In SETI Classic, it isn't built in to the client to take automatically take advantage of dual procs, but you just create 2 different folders, and run 2 clients. Or you can run something like SetiDriver or SetiHide, and they detect and run 2 instances for you, plus keep a cache on hand.

I have an old dual PII400 running SETI Classic, and I used FreeSCO Linux based SETI on Floppy. It averages 13 hour WUs. (x 2). 🙂

You can check SETI on Floppy out here: http://members.shaw.ca/dan.mckay/fscoseti.htm

🙂

 

[GLeeM]

Welcome to the DC Forums, Mudbone

It would be on the slow side and I know other DCers that have computers like that and don't run them because they have many other computers using electricity more efficiently, cost per work done wise. But there are some that run many low end machines like that. (Especially in winter, it doesn't increase air conditioning cost)

I would guess most here run DC on all of their computers. Almost all of the DC clients run at idle or low priority and don't affect the general use of a computer. The DC client just gives up cycles when anything else needs them. 🙂

 

[MDE]

What hardware are you going to have to buy? Depending on what you have you may be better off buying something like a cheap AMD Athlon XP\Duron\Sempron.

 

[Mudbone]

Originally posted by: GLeeM
Welcome to the DC Forums, Mudbone

It would be on the slow side and I know other DCers that have computers like that and don't run them because they have many other computers using electricity more efficiently, cost per work done wise. But there are some that run many low end machines like that. (Especially in winter, it doesn't increase air conditioning cost)

I would guess most here run DC on all of their computers. Almost all of the DC clients run at idle or low priority and don't affect the general use of a computer. The DC client just gives up cycles when anything else needs them. 🙂

I guess I would not set this machine up for solely for DCing. I have some other things I would like use it for. For example, I have three machines in the house. I would like to be able to access my email on any of the three. I am not sure exactly how to do this but I would like to set up a central machine as an email server for that purpose. I have a few other tasks like that I could use any extra machine for. But most of the time it wouldn't be doing much and therefore could be turned over to DC. I just wanted to make sure if I went to the trouble of putting this rig together, that it could be used. If I understand correctly, Win2K Pro or Win XP Pro will allow two DC clients to run at once and handle the distribution of tasks to the two processors, otherwise there is no reason to fool with this dual cpu board.

 

[Coolkid]

Originally posted by: Mudbone If I understand correctly, Win2K Pro or Win XP Pro will allow two DC clients to run at once and handle the distribution of tasks to the two processors, otherwise there is no reason to fool with this dual cpu board.

Thats right 🙂
You will find you do have to run 2 instances of whichever DC project you choose, but as you said, Windows will distribute one of them to each processor 🙂
To give you an idea of times, my dual P3 500 system does about 5 SETI WU's per day, not much, but it helps 🙂

 

[Mudbone]

Originally posted by: MDE
What hardware are you going to have to buy? Depending on what you have you may be better off buying something like a cheap AMD Athlon XP\Duron\Sempron.

Just another processor or a pair of processors, it only has one PIII 450 now, and some more memory. I have enough left overs from previous machines that I can put one together.

 

[networkman]

I'm tired so I may have missed it, but your operating system will also need to recognize and support SMP before your application could even see the 2nd processor. DOS, Win9x, etc aren't going to see the 2nd proc; Win2k, Win XP Pro(not Home?) and NT4, plus various Unix/Linux flavors should all see at least 2 processos without a problem. Some version can support more as well.

FWIW, I currently have (3) SMP systems: a 2-way P3-1GHz, a 2-way P3-800MHz, and a 4-way P3-500MHz system. The first processor will typically get hit the hardest since it's also the primary for the operating system.. the others will produce results faster given their lighter load. Memory bandwidth does become more of an issue the more processors you have and the slower the memory. If the power supply that you use in a dual-rig is the same size as what you'd otherwise use in a single processor rig, then yes, there's the benefit of more processing cycles per watt of power used. However, if you don't already have the components for an SMP system, you'd need to consider that added costs of the parts as a factor. 😉

For me, the cost of electricity to run a system has become the deciding factor in using a system. With the exception of the novelty of running a 4-way rig(I've previously owned a 6-way rig), my math has determined 800 MHz to be the slowest processor I'll run, and then only if I have two going per box.

I'd encourage you to get the experience of building and learning about dual-processor systems. You can even have some fun with it with games that support SMP capability like Quake 3, not that any of us would want to waste the cpu cycles. 😛

PS: My project of choice at the moment is "Einstein@Home" but it's currently not open to the public yet. Something to look forward to though as, since it's BOINC-based, it supports multiple processors easily and efficiently. Other projects like Seti@Home, RC5 and Find-a-Drug also support SMP.