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CUDA Burping test to start
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![]() Volunteer moderator Project administrator ![]() Send message Joined: 16 Jun 04 Posts: 4574 Credit: 2,100,463 RAC: 8 |
Ever wanted to BURP with your graphics card? Well, soon you can, over the next few months we're starting occasional random tiny tests with GPU-compatible workunits. If you are really lucky you'll spot them as they fly by - they will go by the application name "Blender (GPU)". Quite likely the first few of them will be errors but eventually we will be able to move on to actually rendering something. GPU workunits are going to be a bit different from other workunits in that they will not use all the CPU cores like the new multithreaded clients; rather they will use a full GPU and less than a single CPU core to manage that GPU. GPUs are made slightly differently than CPUs and one of the things they have trouble with is switching between doing one thing and doing another - so they always let computations finish on one thing before moving on to the next. When using the same GFX card to compute and to draw the desktop this means that there can be a detrimental effect on the performance of the desktop. For this reason it is recommended to select "Keep apps in memory" and "Only do computation when computer is not in use" in the project prefs - more GPU-related options as well as the option to opt in/out of the testing will be available as soon as more of the new site is in the air. Only certain machines will be able to take part in the tests so far:
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noderaser Project donor Send message Joined: 28 Mar 06 Posts: 516 Credit: 1,567,702 RAC: 0 |
Too bad my CUDA machines are both Macs :*( Windows machine is currently a Radeon. Click here to see My Detailed BOINC Stats ![]() |
funkydude Send message Joined: 23 Dec 13 Posts: 275 Credit: 2,478,281 RAC: 0 |
Another reason to be glad I swapped camps :p |
jk1swt Send message Joined: 20 Mar 11 Posts: 20 Credit: 2,187,202 RAC: 24 |
Well I'm disappointed, wish it could have been programmed in Opencl that way everybody could play... |
![]() Volunteer moderator Project administrator ![]() Send message Joined: 16 Jun 04 Posts: 4574 Credit: 2,100,463 RAC: 8 |
There has been some development on an OpenCL version but it was slower than CUDA when running on NVIDIA cards, didn't compile/run properly on AMD cards due to some limitations and was around the same speed as CPU when running as OpenCL on Intel CPUs. Give it a couple of years then both the drivers, compilers, Blender, the hardware and OpenCL will have matured a lot! |
noderaser Project donor Send message Joined: 28 Mar 06 Posts: 516 Credit: 1,567,702 RAC: 0 |
Hopefully it won't take years for those of us with ATI cards to come to the party... D'oh, guess I should have gone with the GTX 760 instead of the R9 280X. Ditto with OS X, the one CUDA system I have is my MacBook Pro. Click here to see My Detailed BOINC Stats ![]() |
Achim Send message Joined: 17 May 05 Posts: 183 Credit: 2,642,713 RAC: 0 |
some limitations and was around the same speed as CPU when running as OpenCL on Intel CPUs. Currently my intel "gpu" is doing nothing, so having another CPU, is not that bad. If it is working, than let us decide if we like to use it, or not |
noderaser Project donor Send message Joined: 28 Mar 06 Posts: 516 Credit: 1,567,702 RAC: 0 |
Picked up a Quadro FX M in a laptop that I've been using for over a month, but haven't seen any GPU work as of yet... Will also be getting a beefy gaming laptop soon with a GeForce 870 M... Bring on the GPU work! Click here to see My Detailed BOINC Stats ![]() |
![]() Project donor Send message Joined: 11 Apr 05 Posts: 403 Credit: 2,189,214 RAC: 7 |
Bring on the GPU work! Indeed, it's time for some more - if it helps to finally get credits for the entire pending GPU-workunits there are out there. ;-) Btw: why are there still no credits for them? Life is Science, and Science rules. To the universe and beyond Proud member of BOINC@Heidelberg My BOINC-Stats ![]() |
keputnam Send message Joined: 31 Mar 05 Posts: 20 Credit: 133,293 RAC: 5 |
I'll give BURP another look at that time, then No ATI version and no checkpointing for jobs that can last over 2 days? I'll give my cycles to other projects until this one matures !! |
![]() Volunteer moderator Project administrator ![]() Send message Joined: 16 Jun 04 Posts: 4574 Credit: 2,100,463 RAC: 8 |
The upcoming Linux CUDA tests have some additional requirements as the client requires the CUDA runtime and toolkit to be installed along with an X11-compatible graphical terminal with a working OpenGL environment. Apart from that the requirements from the earlier Windows test are the same: You still need to be able to see the card in BOINC etc. It is very likely that initial workunits may fail on a specific machine and you may have to install one or more missing libraries to participate in this test. If so, the libraries are listed in the workunit output of the failed workunit. |
![]() Volunteer moderator Project administrator ![]() Send message Joined: 16 Jun 04 Posts: 4574 Credit: 2,100,463 RAC: 8 |
Surprisingly the first 100 Linux CUDA workunit instances went extremely well with zero errors in the test group. The results validate against their Windows counterparts. The test is now extended to the entire Linux CUDA capable segment of the farm. |
![]() Volunteer moderator Project administrator ![]() Send message Joined: 16 Jun 04 Posts: 4574 Credit: 2,100,463 RAC: 8 |
The next test unfortunately will not work with the very newest CUDA cards (GTX1060, 1070 and 1080) because the compiler for these cards was not ready when the current client was prepared for the farm. Attemps to render with those cards will result in an error along the lines of "No kernel available for 6.1 cards yet". The next version of the client will contain rendering kernels for the new cards as well if everything goes as planned. |