Multi-GPU Folding Tips and Tricks

[sswilson]

With more folks going multi-gpu for folding, figured I'd throw up a single thread where folks can offer their combined wisdom WRT getting them all up and running smoothly.

Got a tip? Throw it in here.

Got a current thread with good info? This would be a good place to throw it as well.

[sswilson]

First couple of observations (learned from trial and error).....

- Under XP 32bit, once the gpus are set up, there is no longer a requirement for monitors to be connected to the gpus.

- If you're running a VM as well as multiple GPUs, ensure you configure the GPU clients to "not" lock to a particular core. It's also important to either run a program to manage affinity, or not to lock anything to a particular core or set of cores. The GPU clients have a habit of locking to one particular core (windows management I believe) which will lock up the client on that GPU if it automatically sets to one of the cores you have set for your VM.

[stoanee]

-I found that using Rivatuner to tweak the gpu's is more effective than EVGA precision
-Under Win7 using priffinity it will keep the gpu priority locked but not the affinity, still looking for a solution.

[Zero82z]

Originally Posted by stoanee

-Under Win7 using priffinity it will keep the gpu priority locked but not the affinity, still looking for a solution.

Try WinAFC.

[sswilson]

I'm currently testing leaving affinity completely to XP to see if there is much of a PPD hit. So far it seems minimal.

[El_Fiendo]

I had the same problem with Prifinity, Stoanee. However I solved my issues with Process Lasso. Linky: Process Lasso, the Windows process optimizer!

[sswilson]

Originally Posted by El_Fiendo

I had the same problem with Prifinity, Stoanee. However I solved my issues with Process Lasso. Linky: Process Lasso, the Windows process optimizer!

Can you do things like designate everything within a certain folder (say each individual GPU client folder) to run on a certain cpu core? The obvious problem with GPU clients is that they're opening a new instance of each core every few hours which resets the windoze designated affinity.

[El_Fiendo]

It won't remember everything in the folder, but everytime that the FaHcore renews on my machine, its set at the correct priority. This is done through default settings for that process. You can access this through the right click menu.

[sswilson]

Cool. I'll have to give it a try.

I like to set affinity for the VMWare on two cores, rosetta gets the third, and then one core left open for the GPU clients, and normal windows operation. That setup required me to constantly reset the affinity windows set for the gpu clients as they ultimately always ended up desginating one of the 100% cores which buggers everything up......

[El_Fiendo]

I will mention this. Upon a fresh install, it won't correctly set your GPU's affinity and keep it. It kept resetting my 3 GTX 260s to cores 5, 6 and 7 on my i7. However Process Lasso has a setting ('Options/More strictly enforce default priorities and affinities'). This setting alone is what worked for me, and what allowed me to drop Prifinity in order to get some of my PPD back.