Linux run times VM v Native and hyper threading or not.

after hearing of the big gains running universe on linux with the new glib (general libraries?) i downloaded a new Mint iso and fired up a vm. the gains were definitely noticeable over win7. I wasn't able to get both cpus running under a single vm so under advice i went native, didnt install just running live usb for now, the times are even faster.. 25-30% when i ran 12 WUs on 2x x5650s (12c/24t). after i ran 12 through at around 55mins each i went to 18threads, and my times were almost double. i dropped to 16, then 14 of the 12 physical. i was getting 90 mins per wu at 14threads, so i went back to 12 and it seems to be better credit overall.

anyone else able to share their experience with/without HT on native linux?

I can share one. Here's my average across 1xE5645, 3xX5650 and 1xX5675, latest 50 wus per machine and all batch 351...these do vary in run time. All machines are running hyperthreaded, 24 threads. Also, 2 of the 5650's are running 12 Kryptos each which also pulls the overhead of Vbox into the mix on those 2 machines, but should be a good representation. The average over 250 wus was 5755 sec/wu or about 96 minutes. Hope that helps.

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Originally Posted by Al

I can share one. Here's my average across 1xE5645, 3xX5650 and 1xX5675, latest 50 wus per machine and all batch 351...these do vary in run time. All machines are running hyperthreaded, 24 threads. Also, 2 of the 5650's are running 12 Kryptos each which also pulls the overhead of Vbox into the mix on those 2 machines, but should be a good representation. The average over 250 wus was 5755 sec/wu or about 96 minutes. Hope that helps.

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okay ill try all the threads. what are/is kryptos? edit: i guess it's a boinc project about the sculpture puzzle?

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Originally Posted by MindCrime

okay ill try all the threads. what are/is kryptos? edit: i guess it's a boinc project about the sculpture puzzle?

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Good guess!

Sent from my VS501 using Tapatalk

Ancient history cuz I haven't run a VM for crunching in quite a few years. Al taught me how and then later I setup dual boot on all machines ... no VMs since then.

At the time I had Intel 3930k machines and Intel dual Xeon X5675.

The 3930K running at 4.2G took a 12% daily credit hit running a VM versus running native Linux. The X5675 Dell machines took a 28% hit! VBox takes a serious hit running across 2 CPUs (it still does BTW). If you are going to run a 2 CPU system you are better setting it up using 2 VMs with each running 1/2 the threads available.

Run the Linux program "htop" and you can see the individual thread usage. Just type htop in the terminal and it will give you the command to use to install it. Takes maybe 15 seconds.

If you're low on disk space and don't mind giving up Windows, just install Linux and have it overwrite the windows install. Most sub/projects are as fast or faster under Linux, with only few exceptions, Gerasim being one. I did dual boots initially because I was nervous about using a new operating system, but Linux Mint is very familiar. My other concern was my AMD GPUs, I could never get them to run under Linux...still the case BTW. Fortunately I've moved to 100% NV and installing gpus is no longer a problem, though Opencl takes an extra step or two with the latest NV drivers. At this point all but 2 or my machines are either dual boot or Linux only and only because of work or financial software requiring Windows 10. All of my crunching machines run Linux almost 100% of the time and I'm pretty happy.

Agreed. I dual-boot all my crunchers now, and they run linux most of the time. The only place I use vbox is on my Macs, when I need linux.

One other thing with regards to to only running on 1 CPU ... unless VBox has changed it only supports 32 threads in a single VM. If you have more threads than that then run 2 BOINC instances with a VM on each instance.