Mixed GPUs for F@H. Any Change?

[SKYMTL]

I know last year people were having issues running mixed cards for Folding in their systems (say a GTX 285 and a GTS 250). The cards themselves would work but there PPD production was horrible when compared to the cards being used in separate systems.

Has anything changed over the last year? Is it now possible to get the hoped-for production from at least some mixed GPU setups?

Reading through forums I have seen answers which vary from "no way" to "if the second card has half the number of shaders as the primary card, it will work well". This second statement means that a GT 240 (96 cores) should be able to run with a GT 220 (48 cores).

There are so many tiny bits of information running around so I am posting here...


Also, I am currently running a GTX 295 (240 cores x2) on one system. Is it possible to add a GTX 275 or GTX 285 ( also 240 cores) without any issues?

[chrisk]

Mixed shaders are fine:
New Core_14 Fixes Shader And Mixed Gen. Bugs

[SKYMTL]

They talk about "mismatched" but does that mean from generation to generation with the same number of shaders (GTS 250 = 9800 GTX/+) or actual mismatched shader counts?

Also, when installing mismatched cards, is it best to delete the existing drivers and do a fresh install or just reinstall the drivers over the existing ones?

[chrisk]

Originally Posted by SKYMTL

They talk about "mismatched" but does that mean from generation to generation with the same number of shaders (GTS 250 = 9800 GTX/+) or actual mismatched shader counts?

That should be fine. I folded with a GTS 250 (an Asus Dark Knight I got from 3.0 Charlie...) and a 9800GTX+ with no issues.

Also, when installing mismatched cards, is it best to delete the existing drivers and do a fresh install or just reinstall the drivers over the existing ones?

I always do a driverclean.net and reinstall from scratch when adding new cards, regardless. The one time I tried by just installing the card, I got EUEs.

[SKYMTL]

I'll give it a try tonight and report back. I'll give it a try with a GTX 285 + 1x GTS 250 + 1x GT 240 in one system and the GTX 295 + GTX 275 in the other.

[SugarJ]

I've run 2x285's and a 9800GTX simultaneously with no major issues, but had to use the -forcegpu nvidia_g80 flag on all three instances for it to work properly.

[SKYMTL]

That's not an issue since I had to add that flag to my GTX 295 as well.

[Zero82z]

You can mix generations, GPUs, and shader counds without any problems. I have been doing it since last year. I used to run my GTX260 and both 9600GSOs in the same system, and now I'm running the GTX260 and one GSO in my main rig and I'm running the second GSO in another rig and will be adding a GT 240 for the Chimp Challenge.

[boggtrotter59]

Several of my machines are running mismatched cards without any issues whatsoever... In one machine I have a GTX260 a 9800GTX+ an 8800GT and a 9400GT PCI card...lol... Don't need to add any flags or anything... just plopped them in and they work fine. I do find that things run smoother though if you add the cards one at a time... configure the card then add the next one etc...

[Soultribunal]

ALthough I never got a 8800GT to work with my GTX260 (I'll give them a try one day again) I do have a GTX275 humming along perfectly with my GT240.

The 275 Averages 9kPPD, and the GT240 4kppd. So they work fine as far as I'm aware.

ST