Well, not technically cancelled, but the results won't count in the overall year standings. :'(
Original post:
Another month, another PrimeGrid challenge. This one is a one-day CW Sieve race, and for the second year in a row this challenge lets you sieve with nVIDIA GPUs! This challenge also happens to use a sieve client I wrote, so I have a few more suggestions than usual. :sneaky:
What you need to participate:
What would help a whole lot:
What would help a little, but isn't absolutely necessary:
What won't help (but won't hurt either):
This challenge starts on February 29, at 18:00 UTC and runs for only one day. Only WUs downloaded after the start of the challenge and completed before the end of the challenge will be counted. Should you not be able to be in front of one or more computers at the start time, either set their queue level to zero (0) days or try one of the scheduled start methods from the strategy thread (for Linux or Windows). Network connection time options may also be useful - though they depend on your computer's clock being correct, so set the start time a few minutes late.
Sadly, I still haven't gotten around to RMAing my GPU, so I may do little to nothing in this race. 🙁 Hopefully, others can make up the difference. 😉
Welcome and good luck to all! :thumbsup:
Original post:
Another month, another PrimeGrid challenge. This one is a one-day CW Sieve race, and for the second year in a row this challenge lets you sieve with nVIDIA GPUs! This challenge also happens to use a sieve client I wrote, so I have a few more suggestions than usual. :sneaky:
What you need to participate:
- One or more fast x86 processors and/or certain GPUs. (See below for GPU details.) (Even slow ones might help a little!)
- Windows, Linux, or MacOS 10.4+.
- BOINC, attached to PrimeGrid (http://www.primegrid.com/).
- Your PrimeGrid Preferences with only "Cullen/Woodall Prime Search (Sieve)" selected in the Projects section.
What would help a whole lot:
- An nVIDIA GPU, of the 8000 series or later (so it's CUDA capable). A mid-range GTX 460 does about 10 times as much work as a mid-range quad-core CPU! 😱 Try to avoid version 260 and 295 drivers; 256.53 is perfect on Linux, but so are 270-290 and newer drivers. I've heard reports that the 295 drivers will stop computing if power settings turn your screen off! 😵
- "Use NVIDIA GPU" set to "yes" in your PrimeGrid preferences.
- Windows users should make sure they have msvcrt90.dll. You can get it by installing the .NET 3.5 runtime. (I may have gotten around this since last year, but I'm not absolutely sure.)
- Users with multiple GPUs should add a cc_config.xml file.
What would help a little, but isn't absolutely necessary:
- A 64-bit OS on a 64-bit processor will run CPU work 30% faster than a 32-bit OS. It matters very little for GPU work. If you can't get a GPU working on a 64-bit OS, but it does work on a 32-bit OS, go back to the 32-bit OS.
- Overclocking a little. Particularly overclock your GPU shaders and underclock your GPU RAM. This project produces less heat than the LLR challenge from last month, and it's more tolerant of errors - except on GPUs, so watch out!
- An app_info.xml file with <cmdline>-m64</cmdline> may improve performance a few percent on Fermi-based nVIDIA cards. Other values may improve performance a little on other cards -- try them and see!
What won't help (but won't hurt either):
- A large amount of RAM.
- Any really old video cards or Intel video cards - though you might want to use them for your display while newer cards crunch.
This challenge starts on February 29, at 18:00 UTC and runs for only one day. Only WUs downloaded after the start of the challenge and completed before the end of the challenge will be counted. Should you not be able to be in front of one or more computers at the start time, either set their queue level to zero (0) days or try one of the scheduled start methods from the strategy thread (for Linux or Windows). Network connection time options may also be useful - though they depend on your computer's clock being correct, so set the start time a few minutes late.
Sadly, I still haven't gotten around to RMAing my GPU, so I may do little to nothing in this race. 🙁 Hopefully, others can make up the difference. 😉
Welcome and good luck to all! :thumbsup:
Last edited:
