BOINC 6.10.x (Alpha) For Windows

[arkayn]

- client: ATI GPU detection code (from Crunch3r)

http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/changeset/18846

boinc_6.10.0_windows_intelx86.exe
boinc_6.10.0_windows_x86_64.exe

[arkayn]

I will probably test it on my quad tomorrow after I get some sleep and maybe play a few games first.

[Josef W. Segur]

I wish people would stop writing "released" for Alpha builds. It's likely to give somebody the wrong impression. Of course anybody who expects a .0 build to be release quality is impossibly trusting anyhow.
                                                                                Joe

[Raistmer]

AFAIK this build will run single app instance per GPU detected (as CUDA-enabled BOINC does).
It's unappropriate. Even highly optimized GPU MW works considerably better with 2 or 3 tasks sharing one GPU.
And if app using GPU only part of time... that is, GPU sharing ability is required (smth like avg/max_cpu setting we have now for CPU sharing) Is it implemented already?

[arkayn]

I tried it on the quad and it was not even requesting any work from MW.

I ended up installing the basic 6.6.20 as that seems to keep me in units and not do weird things with LTD and DCF.

The ATI 6.6.20 was asking for GPU work from SETI and I ended up with over 50 days of SETI work on my machine.
The ATI 6.5.0  was running all MW units in priority mode and my DCF was all the way up to 99.

I will stick with the one that was working just fine for me.

[Raistmer]

From versions I've tried 6.6.20 works most stable with MW and has no prob with other projects (SETI/Einstein).
Non-modified 6.6.20 I mean.

[arkayn]

Travis just updated the server code at Milkyway in preparation of releasing Cuda/ATI apps.

[MarkJ]

6.10.3 is out now for those wishing to Alpha test (like me).

They have reworked some of the detection stuff and it now allows for multiple wu to use the same gpu. Should be better for MW now Raistmer. I haven't got my ATI card installed yet so haven't tried that side of it, but it seems to be working fairly well using CPU and CUDA work so far.

[Raistmer]

6.10.3 is out now for those wishing to Alpha test (like me).

They have reworked some of the detection stuff and it now allows for multiple wu to use the same gpu. Should be better for MW now Raistmer. I haven't got my ATI card installed yet so haven't tried that side of it, but it seems to be working fairly well using CPU and CUDA work so far.

Well, at least they should issue separate work for ATI (as it done for CUDA), right?
AFAIK MW split work only for CPU and CUDA now... So CPU-based app_infor still required for ATI GPUs, right?

[arkayn]

Yep.

6.10.4 should be out soon as well.

[MarkJ]

Well, at least they should issue separate work for ATI (as it done for CUDA), right?
AFAIK MW split work only for CPU and CUDA now... So CPU-based app_infor still required for ATI GPUs, right?

As far as I know there were server-side changes for that. Might account for why it requests the ATI work as CPU work. No scratch that. It was a bit of missing code, since added. Need to wait for 6.10.4 though.

[Raistmer]

It's the core of current errorneous approach to different hardware support.
Too many changes needed, both from client _AND_ server sides.
Though BOINC will not do anything with hardware itself. All it really needs is just correct description of new hardware to make correct scheduling decisions...
It could be done with extended anonymous platform approach... but I wrote all this on SETI main already 

[MarkJ]

Yep.

6.10.4 should be out soon as well.

Its out now. You have to watch that <on_frac> value...

They have fixed an issue where BOINC (supposedly) wasn't accounting for how much time it is on. This has the effect of making it go into EDF mode now that its been fixed. The suggested approach is either:

Let it sort itself out (might take a while)

or as described below in the mailing list by someone else:

Due to a bug, none of the previous v6.10.x-clients updated the <time_stats>, meaning your <on_frac> will take a huge drop on upgrading to v6.10.4.

Personally, my <on_frac> dropped from 1.000000 to 0.122804, but has slowly started increasing again, as it should.

To immediately get back up to "normal" <on_frac> again, stop BOINC, and edit client_state.xml and set <on_frac> to 0.99something.

[Raistmer]

I have bunch of problems with EDF mode on virtually all attached projects (SETI with bigges share included  ) and different sorts of not requesting work problems.
It seems it's time to dive into BOINC beta/alpha again....

[MarkJ]

That must have been the .4 and .5 iterations. We are now up to 6.10.11 which seems to be okay so far. There have been a couple of fixes since so expect a new version any day soon.