Folding @ Home F.A.Q.

[LCB001]

Originally Posted by SKYMTL

Ah, so SMP only comes in a console version? No Systray?

No systray version as far as I know, others like 3.0 Charlie would know more tho...

[BrainEater]

Yea , smp requires an open window.No systray version.

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I've got a couple questions , about updating my borgs.

These are p3/p4 class machines , AGP graphics , 350 W psu's.

I've been considering upgrading em to ATI 3650's.

Anyone with experience with the ATI client ? will it start as a service ?

[SKYMTL]

ATI will be upgrading their HD3650 very, VERY soon. But I have no idea if AIBs will choose to include AGP cards in thier lineups

Plus, right now the GPU2 client seems to be very CPU hungry on the ATI side so I would think the cards would be bottlenecked a bit.

[3.0charlie]

Originally Posted by SKYMTL

Considering I have one HD3850 working averaging a mere 1700PPD and an overclocked QX9770 at almost 4Ghz, don't you think that 50% is a bit....extreme?

In the other thread Dashock pretty much showed that an E3110 @ 2Ghz doesn't bottleneck an 8800GT in folding. Yet here my QX9770 is working at 50% to feed info to a HD3850? It makes no sense to me.

You have an ATI card.
Dashock has a nVidia card.

The CPU usage when folding using an ATI card is nothing new.

To confirm what others have already said, no Systray with the SMP console, but much better ppd.

Originally Posted by SKYMTL

I seems like the GPU v3 client will have better optimizations for ATI GPUs.

Should I keep my second 4870 then?

[Cptn Vortex]

Ok....so this is a little odd. Just installed the GPU client onto my server, which is running a Opteron 170, 2GB RAM and a little ATI 3450. Thing is....its not using the GPU, its running off the CPU. I set it to 80% core usage, and it is using 80% of one of my cores....just not the GPU. What the heck?

Edit****
Ok I looked at the last post there, thats weird! my Nvidia rig has 4% CPU usage when my 9800GX2 is folding!!

[LCB001]

Originally Posted by Cptn Vortex

Ok....so this is a little odd. Just installed the GPU client onto my server, which is running a Opteron 170, 2GB RAM and a little ATI 3450. Thing is....its not using the GPU, its running off the CPU. I set it to 80% core usage, and it is using 80% of one of my cores....just not the GPU. What the heck?

Edit****
Ok I looked at the last post there, thats weird! my Nvidia rig has 4% CPU usage when my 9800GX2 is folding!!

Are you using different OS's on them. Vista is much more efficient with the GPU client, I get about 8% usage with my quad

[Cptn Vortex]

Yeah, Vista on the Nvidia 9800GX2 machine, XP 64bit on the server

[LCB001]

Originally Posted by Cptn Vortex

Yeah, Vista on the Nvidia 9800GX2 machine, XP 64bit on the server

That would explain the difference, if you put Vista on the server it's CPU usage would be about the same as your Nvidia rig...

[SugarJ]

The difference is also attributable to the ATI card vs. the Nvidia. When I was folding with my 8800GT, CPU usage was 8-10%. As soon as I put the 4870 in, CPU usage jumped to 35-40%. Same Vista, same client. You'll notice I'm not folding anymore, just boincing.

[Cptn Vortex]

NM....I just checked back on it, and I guess it donest so much like my 3450. It got 1-2% done then the console reported some error, saying (UNSTABLE_MACHINE)