NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti and seti?

Wiz

Diamond Member
Feb 5, 2000
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Got this video card, is it any good at seti?
So far it doesn't seem to be getting any GPU work, is there anything special I need to change in the BOINC setup? It's a swap from a buggy ATI card, do I need to reinstall BOINC?
I haven't messed with any GPU crunching yet, always just on the CPU cores.
 

GLeeM

Elite Member
Apr 2, 2004
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In Seti @ Home Preferences (at the Seti web page) ... did you check the box to "Use NVIDIA GPU"?
 

Wiz

Diamond Member
Feb 5, 2000
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Yes that is checked.
Do I need to accept AP units or just v7 and enhanced?
 

GLeeM

Elite Member
Apr 2, 2004
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Seti Server Status currently shows no AP units to send. If you have at least v7 you should be good.

Does the beginning of the Event Log ... show that BOINC Manager found the GPU? Mine shows:
8/9/2013 6:20:08 AM | | CUDA: NVIDIA GPU 0: GeForce GTX 560 Ti (driver version 306.97, CUDA version 5.0, compute capability 2.0, 1280MB, 1162MB available, 1428 GFLOPS peak)

What version of BOINC Manager do you have?
And what video card driver?
 

Wiz

Diamond Member
Feb 5, 2000
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Yes it does have the NVIDIA info:

8/7/2013 8:28:26 AM | | CUDA: NVIDIA GPU 0: GeForce GTX 650 Ti (driver version 311.06, CUDA version 5.0, compute capability 3.0, 2048MB, 1905MB available, 1425 GFLOPS peak)

8/7/2013 8:28:26 AM | | OpenCL: NVIDIA GPU 0: GeForce GTX 650 Ti (driver version 311.06, device version OpenCL 1.1 CUDA, 2048MB, 1905MB available, 1425 GFLOPS peak)

However I also see this:

8/7/2013 8:28:26 AM | | don't use GPU while active
8/7/2013 8:29:12 AM | | Suspending GPU computation - user request
8/7/2013 8:30:52 AM | | Resuming GPU computation

So are there not GPU tasks? I thought I remembered there being GPU tasks, I see "requesting tasks for CPU" in the log a lot but never a request for GPU tasks.
 

Sunny129

Diamond Member
Nov 14, 2000
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Yes it does have the NVIDIA info:

8/7/2013 8:28:26 AM | | CUDA: NVIDIA GPU 0: GeForce GTX 650 Ti (driver version 311.06, CUDA version 5.0, compute capability 3.0, 2048MB, 1905MB available, 1425 GFLOPS peak)

8/7/2013 8:28:26 AM | | OpenCL: NVIDIA GPU 0: GeForce GTX 650 Ti (driver version 311.06, device version OpenCL 1.1 CUDA, 2048MB, 1905MB available, 1425 GFLOPS peak)

However I also see this:

8/7/2013 8:28:26 AM | | don't use GPU while active
8/7/2013 8:29:12 AM | | Suspending GPU computation - user request
8/7/2013 8:30:52 AM | | Resuming GPU computation


So are there not GPU tasks? I thought I remembered there being GPU tasks, I see "requesting tasks for CPU" in the log a lot but never a request for GPU tasks.
looks like you need to change some settings in the BOINC client on your local host. in BOINC, under the Tools menu, go to Computing Preferences. under the "processor usage" tab, make sure the "use GPU while computer is in use" box is checked. then, in the Activities menu, make sure "use GPU always" is selected.
 

Wiz

Diamond Member
Feb 5, 2000
6,459
16
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I see the Avg. Credit for the two boxes running is looking a little different today.

This one:
Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5630 @ 2.53GHz [Family 6 Model 44 Stepping 2](8 processors)
Now has Avg. Credit of 3030.15

And this one:
Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5520 @ 2.27GHz [Family 6 Model 26 Stepping 5](16 processors)
Has Avg. Credit of 3939.36

The first one with 8 cores has the NVIDIA GPU in question, and has been increasing Avg. Credit rapidly, seems to be on course to catch up with or surpass the one with the 16 cores.
 

Wiz

Diamond Member
Feb 5, 2000
6,459
16
81
looks like you need to change some settings in the BOINC client on your local host. in BOINC, under the Tools menu, go to Computing Preferences. under the "processor usage" tab, make sure the "use GPU while computer is in use" box is checked. then, in the Activities menu, make sure "use GPU always" is selected.

I had it set to wait until there was no activity on the keyboard or mouse for a minute before using the GPU. I'll try it running always and see if I notice any degradation of performance while I use the machine.
 

Wiz

Diamond Member
Feb 5, 2000
6,459
16
81
It bothered me I wasn't seeing any specific work being done by CUDA.
I went over to the Lunatics website and read about all the updates to the apps there and realized I had set up with my old video card and made choices during setup for that card.
I downloaded the latest app and now I've got 8 cpu units and one cuda50 unit running.
Man that GPU unit is going fast!
 

Sunny129

Diamond Member
Nov 14, 2000
4,823
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glad you got it all worked out :thumbsup:

now kick some ass in the SETI WOW race for me since, i won't be able to participate this year...:(
 

Wiz

Diamond Member
Feb 5, 2000
6,459
16
81
Wow - my 8 core 12GB ram machine is at 4300 Recent Credit (still increasing) and my 16 core 36 GB ram machine is at 4700 RAC.

What a difference a few CUDA units can make!
 

Sunny129

Diamond Member
Nov 14, 2000
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81
yup...CPUs really are no match for compute-capable GPUs when it comes to processing code that's embarrassingly parallel at the instruction level. i wouldn't be surprised to see your 8-core machine substantially eclipse the PPD of your 16-core machine very soon due solely to the addition of the GTX 650 Ti.