For Nvidia Fermi users

Message boards : News : For Nvidia Fermi users

Author	Message
GDF Volunteer moderator Project administrator Project developer Project tester Volunteer developer Volunteer tester Project scientist Send message Joined: 14 Mar 07 Posts: 1957 Credit: 629,356 RAC: 0 Level Scientific publications	Message 17747 - Posted: 29 Jun 2010 \| 7:38:03 UTC
	In the next few days we will update the Fermi applications to CUDA3.1. If you have a Fermi card, please update your drivers to at least 257.21 for Windows and 256.35 for Linux. No action is required from users with other cards. GDF
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Retvari Zoltan Send message Joined: 20 Jan 09 Posts: 2343 Credit: 16,225,565,968 RAC: 1,955,187 Level Scientific publications	Message 17753 - Posted: 29 Jun 2010 \| 11:07:09 UTC - in response to Message 17747.
	I'm prepared, and curios about the performance gain.
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skgiven Volunteer moderator Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 23 Apr 09 Posts: 3968 Credit: 1,995,359,260 RAC: 0 Level Scientific publications	Message 17759 - Posted: 29 Jun 2010 \| 18:21:22 UTC - in response to Message 17753.
	Have been using 25721 for a while now, and it is stable for existing tasks! About half of the Windows users already have it installed. I sent a few messages to some that dont, to give them the heads up - and before people start asking why their Fermi tasks fail. If I remember correctly, it should bring about an 11% increase in performance. I am keen to hear how much performance gain their is with Win7. My GTX470 is OC'd to about the same as a GTX480 and had a RAC of 65K per day on Win XP. So that should go up to about 72K. A native GTX480 (with more shaders) should get about 77K on XP.
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coldFuSion Send message Joined: 22 May 10 Posts: 20 Credit: 85,355,427 RAC: 0 Level Scientific publications	Message 17760 - Posted: 29 Jun 2010 \| 19:41:47 UTC - in response to Message 17759.
	I too have a GTX470 which is OC (core/shaders/memory) to a GTX480 at reference specs Will be nice to squeeze out even more performance and credits.
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darwincollins Send message Joined: 6 Jan 10 Posts: 22 Credit: 105,944,936 RAC: 0 Level Scientific publications	Message 17767 - Posted: 30 Jun 2010 \| 4:13:31 UTC Last modified: 30 Jun 2010 \| 4:14:03 UTC
	For clarification... on the site: http://developer.nvidia.com/object/cuda_3_1_downloads.html We should select the 'Developer Driver', so as for Win7, then I would pick: "Developer Drivers for WinVista and Win7 (257.21)", right? Basically, there are a number of choices... say like, "NVIDIA Performance Primitives" and "GPU-accelerated" keeps getting my attention. lol Thanks
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coldFuSion Send message Joined: 22 May 10 Posts: 20 Credit: 85,355,427 RAC: 0 Level Scientific publications	Message 17768 - Posted: 30 Jun 2010 \| 7:29:10 UTC - in response to Message 17767.
	You only need to DL the developer drivers if you plan to do coding with the toolkit. For 99% of us we only need to install the latest WHQL drivers which has the support built-in for applications developed using the CUDA 3.1 toolkit
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skgiven Volunteer moderator Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 23 Apr 09 Posts: 3968 Credit: 1,995,359,260 RAC: 0 Level Scientific publications	Message 17770 - Posted: 30 Jun 2010 \| 9:42:02 UTC - in response to Message 17768.
	darwincollins, use this driver http://www.nvidia.com/object/win7-winvista-64bit-257.21-whql-driver.html
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roundup Send message Joined: 11 May 10 Posts: 63 Credit: 9,250,705,193 RAC: 55,689,923 Level Scientific publications	Message 17775 - Posted: 30 Jun 2010 \| 20:09:29 UTC - in response to Message 17770.
	Under Win7 and 257.21 driver the CUDA 3.0 tasks are about 8% slower than with 175.75 driver. I made the same observation with the recent 257 beta driver. I am looking forward to see the performace with CUDA 3.1 tasks.
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skgiven Volunteer moderator Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 23 Apr 09 Posts: 3968 Credit: 1,995,359,260 RAC: 0 Level Scientific publications	Message 17782 - Posted: 1 Jul 2010 \| 0:49:34 UTC - in response to Message 17775.
	On XP I saw no change, and I did measure it. Win7 and Fermi dont get on. I hope this improves, but if you are losing 8% and gaining 11% it is not a lot!
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roundup Send message Joined: 11 May 10 Posts: 63 Credit: 9,250,705,193 RAC: 55,689,923 Level Scientific publications	Message 17836 - Posted: 2 Jul 2010 \| 21:46:33 UTC - in response to Message 17782.
	With driver 195.75 my GTX470 crunches a 6083.41 credits CUDA 3.0 unit in about 13.000 seconds under Win 7. With driver 275.21 the same box crunches a 6083.41 credits CUDA 3.0 unit in about 16.000 seconds under Win 7. And the same setup for a CUDA 3.1 unit needs 17,764.17 seconds. This is more than 36% slower than CUDA 3.0 with the old driver under Win 7 :-(. Old OS (XP) is faster than new OS (Win7), old driver (195.xx) is faster than new driver (275.xx), old CUDA version (3.0) is faster than new CUDA version (3.1). Where is the progress??? I snagged another CUDA 3.1 unit. If this deliveres the same disappointing result, I will roll back to page 1 and reinstall the old driver, if you don't mind.
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GDF Volunteer moderator Project administrator Project developer Project tester Volunteer developer Volunteer tester Project scientist Send message Joined: 14 Mar 07 Posts: 1957 Credit: 629,356 RAC: 0 Level Scientific publications	Message 17838 - Posted: 2 Jul 2010 \| 22:11:08 UTC - in response to Message 17836.
	Well, it is faster in Linux. WIndows7 seems really disappointing then. Feel free to rollback, we will keep the CUDA2.2 application on for a long time still. gdf
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roundup Send message Joined: 11 May 10 Posts: 63 Credit: 9,250,705,193 RAC: 55,689,923 Level Scientific publications	Message 17843 - Posted: 3 Jul 2010 \| 5:49:40 UTC - in response to Message 17838.
	My second CUDA 3.1 work unit confirmed the above mentioned observation: Under Win 7 and driver 257.21 the unit was again more than 35% slower than a CUDA 3.0 unit with driver 197.75 for a GTX470. I am thinking about installing a linux on this machine.
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Betting Slip Send message Joined: 5 Jan 09 Posts: 670 Credit: 2,498,095,550 RAC: 0 Level Scientific publications	Message 17846 - Posted: 3 Jul 2010 \| 8:03:44 UTC - in response to Message 17838.
	My GT240's that have the 257.21 driver are slower for me and even worse I can't watch Iplayer anymore without staggering which I used to be able to. My dual GT240 machine takes about 1hr longer and affects my computer. I'm afraid rolling back drivers is not an option for me for several reasons I won't go into here, the one positive is that "auto_spawn" would not run on my dual GT240 but with 3.1 it does albeit slowly. When the owners of my two remote machines upgrade video drivers and get this performance hit, I fear they will discontinue GPUGRID entirely so at least for me this is a retrograde step any chance of an opt-out? ____________ Radio Caroline, the world's most famous offshore pirate radio station. Great music since April 1964. Support Radio Caroline Team - Radio Caroline
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skgiven Volunteer moderator Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 23 Apr 09 Posts: 3968 Credit: 1,995,359,260 RAC: 0 Level Scientific publications	Message 17850 - Posted: 3 Jul 2010 \| 11:42:14 UTC - in response to Message 17846. Last modified: 3 Jul 2010 \| 12:25:55 UTC
	It looks like GPUGrid is becoming more Linux orientated. This is mainly due to people moving from XP to Vista and Win7; and then finding poor driver support, which are written by NVidia as is CUDA. Apparently the situation has been exasperated by the slowdown in recent drivers and the latest CUDA 3.1 app which is slower on all Windows platforms! In short, Windows crunchers are having their input reduced through bad drivers, so many are being driven to Linux. This is not the only project that inherently favours Linux - The WCG presently only run one of their projects (CEP2) on Linux, and another (HCC) runs about twice as fast on Linux as it does on Windows. So there is another good reason to move to Linux. This is bad news for GPUGrid, and Microsft, but its not great for NVidia either, becasue there is another alternative - Buy an ATI card! NVidia need to sort their drivers out soon. I suspect NVidia are deliberately crippling the performance of their cards to offset the anticipated failure rate! On Win XP: 2604894 1655628 2 Jul 2010 8:51:01 UTC 2 Jul 2010 17:25:43 UTC Completed and validated 11,856.74 11,822.09 4,535.61 6,803.41 ACEMD2: GPU molecular dynamics v6.09 (cuda31) 2604886 1655623 2 Jul 2010 8:51:01 UTC 2 Jul 2010 17:25:43 UTC Completed and validated 11,880.26 11,866.20 4,535.61 6,803.41 ACEMD2: GPU molecular dynamics v6.09 (cuda31) 2601932 1653796 1 Jul 2010 20:58:32 UTC 2 Jul 2010 6:36:18 UTC Completed and validated 7,825.68 7,754.44 4,503.74 6,755.61 ACEMD2: GPU molecular dynamics v6.05 (cuda30) 2601402 1652181 1 Jul 2010 18:24:35 UTC 2 Jul 2010 6:36:18 UTC Completed and validated 8,334.76 8,250.66 4,535.61 6,803.41 ACEMD2: GPU molecular dynamics v6.05 (cuda30) That is 50% slower! As there are no CUDA 3.1 Linux work units, we dont know for sure if 3.1 tasks will actually be faster or slower.
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skgiven Volunteer moderator Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 23 Apr 09 Posts: 3968 Credit: 1,995,359,260 RAC: 0 Level Scientific publications	Message 17863 - Posted: 4 Jul 2010 \| 11:40:03 UTC - in response to Message 17850.
	Looks like some tasks are faster, while others are not, http://www.gpugrid.net/forum_thread.php?id=2213#17862
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GDF Volunteer moderator Project administrator Project developer Project tester Volunteer developer Volunteer tester Project scientist Send message Joined: 14 Mar 07 Posts: 1957 Credit: 629,356 RAC: 0 Level Scientific publications	Message 17865 - Posted: 4 Jul 2010 \| 11:52:24 UTC - in response to Message 17850.
	The good news is that I can reproduce the same problem on Linux. I have tested result 2601402 on cuda3.0 and cuda3.1 and the difference is similar to the one reported here. We will look into it next week. gdf It looks like GPUGrid is becoming more Linux orientated. This is mainly due to people moving from XP to Vista and Win7; and then finding poor driver support, which are written by NVidia as is CUDA. Apparently the situation has been exasperated by the slowdown in recent drivers and the latest CUDA 3.1 app which is slower on all Windows platforms! In short, Windows crunchers are having their input reduced through bad drivers, so many are being driven to Linux. This is not the only project that inherently favours Linux - The WCG presently only run one of their projects (CEP2) on Linux, and another (HCC) runs about twice as fast on Linux as it does on Windows. So there is another good reason to move to Linux. This is bad news for GPUGrid, and Microsft, but its not great for NVidia either, becasue there is another alternative - Buy an ATI card! NVidia need to sort their drivers out soon. I suspect NVidia are deliberately crippling the performance of their cards to offset the anticipated failure rate! On Win XP: 2604894 1655628 2 Jul 2010 8:51:01 UTC 2 Jul 2010 17:25:43 UTC Completed and validated 11,856.74 11,822.09 4,535.61 6,803.41 ACEMD2: GPU molecular dynamics v6.09 (cuda31) 2604886 1655623 2 Jul 2010 8:51:01 UTC 2 Jul 2010 17:25:43 UTC Completed and validated 11,880.26 11,866.20 4,535.61 6,803.41 ACEMD2: GPU molecular dynamics v6.09 (cuda31) 2601932 1653796 1 Jul 2010 20:58:32 UTC 2 Jul 2010 6:36:18 UTC Completed and validated 7,825.68 7,754.44 4,503.74 6,755.61 ACEMD2: GPU molecular dynamics v6.05 (cuda30) 2601402 1652181 1 Jul 2010 18:24:35 UTC 2 Jul 2010 6:36:18 UTC Completed and validated 8,334.76 8,250.66 4,535.61 6,803.41 ACEMD2: GPU molecular dynamics v6.05 (cuda30) That is 50% slower! As there are no CUDA 3.1 Linux work units, we dont know for sure if 3.1 tasks will actually be faster or slower.
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skgiven Volunteer moderator Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 23 Apr 09 Posts: 3968 Credit: 1,995,359,260 RAC: 0 Level Scientific publications	Message 17869 - Posted: 4 Jul 2010 \| 14:49:36 UTC - in response to Message 17865.
	Thanks,
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Message boards : News : For Nvidia Fermi users

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