BOINC/Lunatics + Diablo II on Win7-64

[PatrickV2]

Hi there,

Not sure the answer can be found here, but I suppose it's worth a try...

I used to run BOINC on my computer running WinXP-32, and could play Diablo II (a rather old game) concurrent with it without any problems.

The machine in question, in short, is: Q6600/4GB/8800GTX.

I've now migrated to Win7-64, and try the same setup (I've set the GPU to only kick in after 3 minutes of idling), but the game runs atrociously slow (and much much worse than that even when the GPU processing kicks in).

I've tried playing around with the Win7 compatibility settings, but for instance running Diablo II in WinXP-SP3 mode makes it even slower. I've also checked the priorities in Win7, but the AK_v8b apps are running at 'Low' priority, while the Diablo II main game executable runs at 'Normal' priority.

So I cannot set the priority lower for the AK tasks. I've tried upping the priority of the Diablo II game exec, but that seems to be not allowed.

Anyone here any idea what causes the difference between WinXP vs Win7 in this situation? Anything I can try?

Regards,

Patrick.

[Jason G]

I would highly recommend using the <exclusive_app> cc_config option for games .... more info on that file is at http://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/Client_configuration , if you need it.  My (superficial) understanding is that Vista and Windows 7 changed the driver model significantly from XP & earler, which places graphics operations in a different execution 'ring' than before, which on some simplistic level enables win7 to give you driver restarts instead of blue screens of death.

For example, my cc_config.xml file currently looks like this:

<cc_config>
   <log_flags>
      <http_debug>0</http_debug>
   </log_flags>
   <options>
      <save_stats_days>360</save_stats_days>
      <exclusive_app>farcry.exe</exclusive_app>
      <exclusive_app>Z2.EXE</exclusive_app>
   </options>
</cc_config>

[PatrickV2]

I would highly recommend using the <exclusive_app> cc_config option for games .... more info on that file is at http://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/Client_configuration , if you need it.  My (superficial) understanding is that Vista and Windows 7 changed the driver model significantly from XP & earler, which places graphics operations in a different execution 'ring' than before, which on some simplistic level enables win7 to give you driver restarts instead of blue screens of death.

For example, my cc_config.xml file currently looks like this:

<cc_config>
   <log_flags>
      <http_debug>0</http_debug>
   </log_flags>
   <options>
      <save_stats_days>360</save_stats_days>
      <exclusive_app>farcry.exe</exclusive_app>
      <exclusive_app>Z2.EXE</exclusive_app>
   </options>
</cc_config>

Thanks for the tip, but this is what I already, in effect, do, by Ctrl-C-ing in the CMD-window in which I run the BOINC client.

What you are in effect saying is that this cannot be fixed, and is something inherent to the Win7 scheduler? Darn.

Regards,

Patrick.

[Raistmer]

New sheduler from Vista(and Win7 probably) performs faster than older from WinXP, but it looks like it doesn't obey process priorities even in bigger degree than WInXP one.
I've seen negative effect of running CPU-only BOINC apps (idle priority!) on video playback under Vista on Core2 Duo notebook.
I don't see such effects on single core AthlonXP (much less powerfull CPU and maybe even GPU) under WinXP.
Never tried D2 under Win7, but under WinXP it was never bothered by BOINC.
SO exclusive tag could be the single option indeed...

[timiman]

I've been visited from the exact same problem last week.
BOINC is always running on my main PC. If I run any game, the BOINC's tasks were prioritized as Low and left the cpu cores to work for the game.
That was OK running WinXP Pro. But now with Win7 64bit it is something different...
Last week, I was playing Splinter Cell Conviction and Bad Company 2, and the frames per second were awful!!!
I lost many hours trying to find out what was the cause of having 10 frames per second on a Phenom II X4 955@3.5GHz, 4GB RAM, ATi 4870x2 etc.
At last found out that the BOINC applications were not pulling back their "hands" off the processor at all, when running a game!!!
When I snoozed BOINC, I saw 3 digit figures on frames per second for Bad Company 2 !!!
Now, I have set up BOINC to not use the computer when it is being used by the user.
I must say I was that close to uninstall BOINC, SETI etc once and for all...

[Raistmer]

Did you check what apps were running by BOINC that time?
Are you sure that they were CPU-only apps?  your GPU is capable to work with BOINC too. At least 3 projects can use it (MW, Collatz and SETI@home beta + SETI main with app_info installed).
If GPU-based app running, game expirience definitely will be unacceptable. So such possibility should be ruled out before doing reports to BOINC devs.

[PatrickV2]

New sheduler from Vista(and Win7 probably) performs faster than older from WinXP, but it looks like it doesn't obey process priorities even in bigger degree than WInXP one.
I've seen negative effect of running CPU-only BOINC apps (idle priority!) on video playback under Vista on Core2 Duo notebook.
I don't see such effects on single core AthlonXP (much less powerfull CPU and maybe even GPU) under WinXP.
Never tried D2 under Win7, but under WinXP it was never bothered by BOINC.
SO exclusive tag could be the single option indeed...

Yeah, I'm amazed it performs so badly. And, although you didn't ask me, I've made sure that GPU processing is inactive during the playing of Diablo II. I did try that at first, but that made the performance totally unacceptable.

I also have the video-playback problems you mention under Win7 (both with Mediaplayer and VLC) when BOINC is active. It does seem the fact that they run in low priority does not cause them to be swapped out when higher-prio stuff is running.

Isn't there some sort of patch available or planned to fix Win7's scheduling in this regard?

Regards,

Patrick.

[Jason G]

You can probably thank this guy to some extent:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_S._Tanenbaum

For insisting that in an OS all non core drivers/services/applications should be pulled out of Ring 0 (Kernel Mode)  into user mode.  Being more robust and secure has penalties.  .... Maybe you could *try* playing with Process Lasso & see if some fiddling there helps ( http://www.bitsum.com/prolasso.php )

Jason

[Pepi]

Jason, can Lasso "manage" problem I sow on AMD comp: if Cool and Quiet is enabled then GPU crunching is slower about 20%

[Raistmer]

IMO - no.
C&Q will try to keep you fan at lower speed by throttling CPU freqs.
Disable this technology, it suitable for noise reduction from fan, not for high-performance crunching.

[Jason G]

Jason, can Lasso "manage" problem I sow on AMD comp: if Cool and Quiet is enabled then GPU crunching is slower about 20%

Concurring with Raistmer, I've always found myself disabling these kind of features.  They're designed to slow things down to save energy.  I turn that stuff off even on machines I'm not using for crunching, except for notebooks where it helps save battery power.  My rationale is if I wanted a slow CPU, that takes a while to get up to speed when I do something demanding, I could have bought a cheaper CPU

[Pepi]

After reading your response I can just say this   "      "
You are absolutely correct,

[Fredericx51]

Sorry for this stupid question, but which app. needs to be tested at  SETI-BĘTA, since I can't find the app.'s that needs
testing, I saw v280 (Single & Double_Precision) and v393.
I got MW working with : <avg_ncpus>0.48</avg_ncpus>
<max_ncpus>1</max_ncpus>
<coproc>
<type>ATI</type>
<count>0.01</count>   and works with Collatz C. Had v280 (NO_DOUBLE) working, but messed it up

[Raistmer]

What is your GPU ?

[skildude]

I play much more intensive games that DII and I find I always need to snooze the GPU on BOINC. 


As Far as testing on Seti beta, I assumed they wanted to test the app that we downloaded from them.  Are we allowed or should we be using the latest beta from Lunatics.  the current version on seti beta works fine on my 5850.