New Core_14 Fixes Shader And Mixed Gen. Bugs

[LCB001]

Stanford has released a new Core_14 that promises two eagerly awaited fixes, an end to the dreaded Shader Bug and the ability to finally mix the 200 series cards with ones from the previous generation.

As posted by ihaque on the F@H forums in this thread: Folding Forum • View topic - NVIDIA Core_14 v1.26 available

A new Nvidia Core_14 (v1.26) has been posted. This build includes a fix that addresses problems people were having on multi-GPU systems with mismatched cards; see viewtopic.php?f=22&t=11307 for details. Note that this does not include any checkpointing changes (as included in Core_11 v1.31). This should solve the problems people have had running FAH core 14 with mismatched cards - both mismatched shader counts and mismatched card generations should work now.

To update an existing folding system, you can stop the client, delete FahCore_14.exe and restart the client. The new version will be downloaded the next time a core 14 WU needs to be processed.

A fix for the Core_11 was already included in the experimental v1.31 that was released earlier to address the overheating issues in large WU's

Post by friedrim on the F@H forums June 16, 2009 in this thread: Folding Forum • View topic - Experimental core to reduce overheating for large protein WU

A new, experimental core, FahCore_11.exe, has been posted at http://www.stanford.edu/~friedrim This core allows you to specify the percentage of time the program will idle by setting the environment variable 'FAH_GPU_IDLE'. For example, if FAH_GPU_IDLE=10, the program will idle for approximately 10% of the time. Idle times greater than 0 should reduce problems associated with boards overheating for work units modeling larger proteins. On the downside, large idle time percentages will reduce ppd.

If you wish to test this core, stop your GPU client, rename FahCore_11.exe to something else (for a backup) and download the core into the same directory before restarting the client. This version also includes a fix that changes the way checkpoints are done. You can expect the current WU to restart from the beginning. Install the new core soon AFTER a WU finishes. (The same is true if you decide to switch back to the standard core.)

You can set environment variables via Control Panel -> System properties->Advanced->Environment Variables or
right click on 'My computer' and choose Properties -> Advanced->Environment Variables

Environment variables are case-sensitive so be sure to specify FAH_GPU_IDLE=10 because fah_gpu_idle=10 will be ignored.

Spread The Addiction...

[_dangtx_]

niiiiiiiiiiiiice

[Soultribunal]

Woooooo Hooooooo!

Folding Time!

Mixed Cards FTW!

ST

[3.0charlie]

Thank you. Done 7 times.

[stoanee]

Gotta get those 8800GT's back....

[Dead Things]

In case people are wondering how well the Core_11 and Core_14 fixes work - I experimented by mixing a GTX 260, 9600GSO and 8800GT in a machine, and they all folded at 100% speed (this was before the Core_14 fix was available, so it's only Core_11 WUs):



So this is indeed great news for Nvidia folders. Great news.