ATI newb question

[Computekinc.us]

I am putting together a setup for a friend with a Radeon 3870 video card. He does not have a Nvidia card laying around or I wouldn't be asking you guys about this. While GPU folding it takes 25% of the cpu with nothing else running. Is that normal for the ATI cards? It is running Win7 RC1 64 Bit - Quad core Phenom II 940 @ 3.4ghz.

[Jolly-Swagman]

Yes thats normal for ATI card

[EarthDog]

Yeah usage in F@H with ATI cards tends to be (a lot) more.

[Computekinc.us]

Wow, I guess it's not even worth running the ATI 3870 for 1375 PPD when it takes 25% of the quad which makes 1425 PPD. What a waste :cry:

[ChasR]

It used to be normal, but was fixed months ago. Enter the following environment variables:

BROOK_YIELD =2
CAL_NO_FLUSH = 1
CAL_PRE_FLUSH = 1
FLUSH_INTERVAL = 128

CPU usage should drop to a few percent. Increasing FLUSH_INTERVAL decreases CPU utilization, but setting it too high causes VPU recovers. 128 works great on my OC'd 3850 and will be very close to optimum on the 3870.

[Computekinc.us]

Tanks ChasR! 5% CPU max now. I wonder if this will also help in a gaming enviroment?

[ChasR]

You should be able to get under 5%. Try upping the flush interval to 144.
I don't think it will affect any program not using CAL.

[Computekinc.us]

Actually with 2 x notfreds running it went down to 2-3%. Looks like it is running perfect now.

[harlam357]

I've got ChasR's older thread linked in the FAQ sticky... I know it's not easy to find, but it's there. :)

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=607279