I think FAH has my cards confused

[ozzlo]

Hello all,

It's been a long time since i've been in the fold but I'm looking to make a comeback and I've just built my first rig in over 8 years! Yeah, I ran my x58 system into the dust

I'm running windows 7. I have a GTX 1080 powering a 4k screen and my old cheap GTX640 powering 4 other screens.

The 640 does not have alot of clearance for airflow and i'm not interested in folding on this card but when I pause it, the PPD drops down to around 2kPPD When I pause the GTX 1080 there is almost no change in PPD at all.

so... Unless my 640 is really able to pump out 250k PPD, I think FAH might have it confused with my shiny new 1080.

Looking at GPU Usage with the 1080 paused shows the 1080 at 60% gpu usage and the 540 at 0% gpu usage.



How do I get FAH to detect these cards correctly and get this 1080 up to the 700kPPD+ levels i've been reading about?

 

[ozzlo]

After trying absolutely everything posted online and no suggestions working, I reversed the order of the cards on the motherboard and deleted the GTX1080 slot and now it's cranking out a million PPD

And I still need to overclock the system.

 

[caddi daddi]

SWEET!!!!!!!!!

 

[JrClocker]

You should get around 750 to 800K PPD!

 

[ozzlo]

Yes it seems to be averaging just under 750k (I have still yet to overclock it beyond the factory overclock it comes with), The workunits it's been getting vary from 460kPPD to 1,000kPPD. I'm noticing that my GPU usage rarely gets above 90%, is there anything that can be done to get that to 100%? I noticed the CPU thread for the GPU core was always maxed. I disabled HT so the thread could have it's own dedicated physical core, Reduced the number of threads to use on the CPU core from 6 to 4 (6-core processor), and Overclocked my CPU but there seems to be no change in gpu usage. This is leaving me a little puzzled because the thread is maxed but increases in CPU performance are not increasing the GPU usage percentage. Does FAH always use 100% of a CPU thread even if the GPU does not need that much processing power?

 

[JrClocker]

Yes it always maxes out the CPU thread.

I wouldn't bother with messing around with HT on or off to optimize Folding. HT on is probably better if you are going to use the PC for other stuff while folding.

The rule is one free thread (core) for each folding slot you are running.

If you have a GPU doing 750 K + PPD, I wouldn't bother with CPU folding...that extra 20 K PPD is just a drop in the bucket...and you can easily get an extra 50 K + PPD from a good overclock on your GPU.

The GPU usage depends on the core type (0x18 or 0x21 currently) and the project.

Core 0x18 are the worst for PPD, but draw the least amount of power on the GPU.

Core 0x21 draw more than core 0x18. Here is what I see from the various core 0x21 projects on my 3 GPUs:

1. Core under 100%, GPU power usage around 80%
--- This happens A LOT for my 1080, not very often for my 980 Ti or Titan X Pascal

2. Core usage at 95%, GPU power usage around 100%
--- The most common for my 980 Ti and Titan X Pascal
--- Rarely happens on the 1080

3. Core usage at 99%, GPU power usage at maximum (what I have the slider set to)
--- Happens about 25% of the time for the 980 Ti and Titan X Pascal
--- Haven't seen it for the 1080...but that doesn't mean it hasn't

 

[HayesK]

Yes it always maxes out the CPU thread.

The rule is one free thread (core) for each folding slot you are running.

If you have a GPU doing 750 K + PPD, I wouldn't bother with CPU folding...that extra 20 K PPD is just a drop in the bucket...and you can easily get an extra 50 K + PPD from a good overclock on your GPU.

On a fast GPU, delays have a large impact on ppd. The GPU client uses one thread at 100% for each GPU slot, but makes very little use of the FPU. The CPU client uses the FPUs and HT has only slight benefit to the ppd. Assuming you have 12 threads available (6 real cores with FPU and 6 HT) and you want to fold on the CPU too, leave HT on try setting CPU=6 to see what impact there is on the GPU ppd. That will also leave several extra threads available for other tasks.

 

[ozzlo]

Thanks guys,

I'm going to re-enable HT and set my CPU threads to 8 so I have one dedicated to the GPU and three completely open for other tasks.

I'm also toying with the idea of getting another 1080 so I can replace this 640 that is giving me so much greif

Looks like the folding bug has returned

I should be crashing into the top20 producers list tomorrow

 

[HayesK]

Welcome back to the fold ozzlo. Congrats in advance for the upcoming milestones.

CPU8 should be ok, but you might try pausing the cpu client for a few frames and see how much impact (if any) on the GPU client time per frame (TPF). Even one second TPF has a big ppd impact on the fast gpus. I generally do not run the CPU client unless testing something or extra heat is needed, which is rare in my area.

Below some HFM benchmark data for p9704 on GTX980Ti, GTX970 and GTX750Ti, all overclocked and running linux client.

 Project ID: 9704
 Core: OPENMM_21
 Credit: 9000

GTX980Ti
 Min. Time / Frame : 00:01:08 - 789,342 PPD 
 Min. Time / Frame : 00:01:09 - 772,245 PPD
 Avg. Time / Frame : 00:01:10 - 755,756 PPD
 Avg. Time / Frame : 00:01:11 - 739,846 PPD
 Avg. Time / Frame : 00:01:12 - 724,486 PPD
 Avg. Time / Frame : 00:01:13 - 709,651 PPD
 Min. Time / Frame : 00:01:14 - 695,314 PPD
 Avg. Time / Frame : 00:01:15 - 681,454 PPD

GTX970
 Min. Time / Frame : 00:01:54 - 363,640 PPD
 Min. Time / Frame : 00:01:55 - 358,907 PPD
 Min. Time / Frame : 00:01:56 - 354,276 PPD
 Min. Time / Frame : 00:01:57 - 349,744 PPD
 Avg. Time / Frame : 00:02:00 - 336,711 PPD
 Avg. Time / Frame : 00:02:01 - 332,545 PPD
 Avg. Time / Frame : 00:02:02 - 328,465 PPD
 Avg. Time / Frame : 00:02:03 - 324,467 PPD

GTX750Ti
 Min. Time / Frame : 00:04:32 - 98,668 PPD
 Avg. Time / Frame : 00:04:34 - 97,589 PPD
 Min. Time / Frame : 00:04:38 - 95,491 PPD
 Min. Time / Frame : 00:04:53 - 88,253 PPD
 Avg. Time / Frame : 00:04:55 - 87,357 PPD
 Min. Time / Frame : 00:04:58 - 86,041 PPD
 Min. Time / Frame : 00:05:00 - 85,182 PPD
 Avg. Time / Frame : 00:05:01 - 84,758 PPD
 Avg. Time / Frame : 00:05:20 - 77,322 PPD
 Avg. Time / Frame : 00:05:27 - 74,853 PPD