World Community Grid: Launch of Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) capability for the Hel

[John P. Myers]

How will statistics be updated for graphics card participation?
World Community Grid will award run time based on the elapsed time from when a work unit is started and when it finishes running. Credit and result counts will be awarded in the same manner as CPU participation.


Will there be a badge for graphics card participation?
No. Your contributions utilizing your graphics card will contribute to a specific research project and count towards earning a badge for that project.

Sounds like it's paying the same as CPU WUs?

[Mr. Hankey]

Sounds like it's paying the same as CPU WUs?

wow that sounds even worse.... If you have the same WU running on CPU and it take 24 hrs, but the GPU does it in 12 you are only going to get credit based on elapsed run time, or half the credit for the same WU? So while the project gets twice as much work done the crunchers get the same payout. So sad, this project could get so much more done if they were more equitable with the credit. I guess they have all the data they need, or more data than they can use at any given time?

This project sure makes some strange decisions. The project site deviation from the standard BOINC layout makes info way harder to find as well. Many people run this project off an on, but if the credits were good (or even comparable) people would park on this project.

[Mike029]

This project sure makes some strange decisions. The project site deviation from the standard BOINC layout makes info way harder to find as well. Many people run this project off an on, but if the credits were good (or even comparable) people would park on this project.

Agreed.

[nanoprobe]

No problem. We are glad your here and please continue to use the forums. Also if you are up to it could you post your results on your different gpus?

You'd like to see my WCG GPU results?

[nanoprobe]

wow that sounds even worse.... If you have the same WU running on CPU and it take 24 hrs, but the GPU does it in 12 you are only going to get credit based on elapsed run time, or half the credit for the same WU? So while the project gets twice as much work done the crunchers get the same payout. So sad, this project could get so much more done if they were more equitable with the credit. I guess they have all the data they need, or more data than they can use at any given time?

This project sure makes some strange decisions. The project site deviation from the standard BOINC layout makes info way harder to find as well. Many people run this project off an on, but if the credits were good (or even comparable) people would park on this project.

You'll get the same amount of credit whether it's a CPU result or a GPU result and since the GPU is much faster you're daily results will be much higher. My first 12 hours produced 73,000+ boinc credits which is equal to about 421,000 WCG points. Why the BOINC credits are only 1:7 I have no idea but since points is not my motivation it doesn't really matter to me.

[Rattledagger]

wow that sounds even worse.... If you have the same WU running on CPU and it take 24 hrs, but the GPU does it in 12 you are only going to get credit based on elapsed run time, or half the credit for the same WU?

No, it's the same credit per wu, regardless of CPU or GPU, meaning going by your example the GPU will get 2x credit/day compared to the CPU.

In reality the speedup is much higher, for my Ati-HD5850 running on i7-920 the speed-up is around 22x, and this means GPU gets roughly 22x more credit/day compared to a CPU-core.

[Mr. Hankey]

No, it's the same credit per wu, regardless of CPU or GPU, meaning going by your example the GPU will get 2x credit/day compared to the CPU.

In reality the speedup is much higher, for my Ati-HD5850 running on i7-920 the speed-up is around 22x, and this means GPU gets roughly 22x more credit/day compared to a CPU-core.

Well that is much better. Thank you for clarifying.

[Al]

Is this normal? Wus on my 5870s get to 99.415% in 3m20s. Getting the rest of the way to 100% takes an additional 1m10s. Seems a little odd, but I've never run these wus before. Gpu usage is at 0% for the last minute ten.

Is there an app_info for hcc that might help with this behavior?

[Rattledagger]

Is this normal? Wus on my 5870s get to 99.415% in 3m20s. Getting the rest of the way to 100% takes an additional 1m10s. Seems a little odd, but I've never run these wus before. Gpu usage is at 0% for the last minute ten.

Yes, this is normal. The start and the end of each wu uses only the cpu with the end being longest and it taking 1+ minute is normal.

As for app_info.xml, JanusBK using nvidia posted a file over at the WCG-forums, see http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/fo...ad?post=395470
Obviously the app_info.xml won't be usable for Amd-cards, but it atleast shows it can be done, and can give a boost in production.

[Al]

Thanks! I'll look at the app_info tonight.