Poor 3rd gpu performance

[Coors]

I installed a 3rd 8800gts recently. At first I had problems getting the 3rd client to run. Then I added the forcegpu_g92 something or other rule to the shortcuts of each client. That seemed to work to get all three folding. But the third one seemed to be working very slowly. Fahspy reported 199 ppd the next morning when i woke up. I checked it again at night after work and it was still on the same WU and still showing 199 ppd. Any ideas why? Also is it normal for the extended desktops to be discolored like they are?

 

[kingdingeling]

I have never actually done the extended desktop business (for me the multi-gpu just worked with -gpu 0 and -gpu 1 flags, but I do believe that this is a problem of CPU core allocation. You're running Windows XP (although 64-bit), where the GPU clients eat the CPU cores alive, so I think you're gonna have to set the affinity of the WUs to the cores

[Coors]

Hmm are you sure about the cpu usage? I thought the Nvidia cards didn't use hardly any cpu cycles. The cpu is running full bore in that pic because of the smp client. The 3rd card should be done with that WU today so maybe it's just that one WU...but I doubt it.

 

In fact i'm fairly sure the gpu client doesn't use much of the cpu because my main desktop is only running a single gpu client and no cpu client at all and the cpu is barely used at all beyond normal.

[razor]

from what I understand, when you're GPU folding under XP, each instance of GPU F@H maxes one CPU core, but you dont have to use a VGA dummy plug. the opposite is true under Vista. I have almost no CPU usage, but I need to have a dummy plug/extended desktop to make it work.

 

I could be wrong, but I remember reading something along these lines concerning this issue.

[Crazy_Nate]

Look at your CPU usage in the corner...the green box. 100%.

 

What CPU are you using? In XP, you'll probably need a tri-core or quad to use three or four cards. In Vista...probably one core (I'm probably 11% usage max, folding 24-7 with the single 8800GTS)

[Coors]

Look at your CPU usage in the corner...the green box. 100%.

 

What CPU are you using? In XP, you'll probably need a tri-core or quad to use three or four cards. In Vista...probably one core (I'm probably 11% usage max, folding 24-7 with the single 8800GTS)

 

It's running 100% because of the SMP client. The cpu is an AMD X4 940. I didn't know that in XP it used almost a full core per gpu...i'll try turning the SMP client off and see what happens.

[Crazy_Nate]

You can probably get away with a single SMP + multiple GPU2's in Vista, but not in XP with that many graphics cards. Once you start cutting into the GPU2 core processor usage with SMP, your performance drops significantly.