Message boards : Number crunching : sorry if this has been already covered...GPU?
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Gerry

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Message 27547 - Posted: 28 Jun 2015, 12:09:02 UTC

possible to use GPU to process LHC@home tasks? my crossfired 290x's are being used for SETI atm but id rather concentrate on LHC if possible.thanks
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Profile Magic Quantum Mechanic
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Message 27548 - Posted: 29 Jun 2015, 0:53:57 UTC - in response to Message 27547.  

possible to use GPU to process LHC@home tasks? my crossfired 290x's are being used for SETI atm but id rather concentrate on LHC if possible.thanks


Yeah that has been talked about here before a couple times.

http://lhcathomeclassic.cern.ch/sixtrack/forum_thread.php?id=3845&sort_style=&start=0

I use all my GPU cards at Einstein so I rather go the way Cern likes using the Virtualbox for all the projects ( LHC,vLHC,Atlas,and CMS-dev)

They have been spending the last 4+ years to make it work its best.

Stopping the *snapshot* and the latest wrapper sure has been working too.
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Eric Mcintosh
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Message 27549 - Posted: 29 Jun 2015, 6:54:52 UTC

Yes; we at lhcathomeclassic/SixTrack have colleagues (also volunteers)
developing a GPU version. Results are numerically identical so maybe this year.....
Eric.
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Gerry

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Message 27550 - Posted: 29 Jun 2015, 15:55:00 UTC - in response to Message 27549.  

so i wait i guess?
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alvin
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Message 27551 - Posted: 2 Jul 2015, 6:03:03 UTC - in response to Message 27547.  
Last modified: 2 Jul 2015, 6:03:39 UTC

possible to use GPU to process LHC@home tasks? my crossfired 290x's are being used for SETI atm but id rather concentrate on LHC if possible.thanks

So you don't want talk to aliens any time soon?
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Gerry

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Message 27552 - Posted: 2 Jul 2015, 13:58:41 UTC - in response to Message 27551.  

my wife is a physicist,LHC takes priority..but until GPU is available it will be doing SETI,CPU doing LHC(if they ever get more tasks up) :) as you can see by my results...
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alvin
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Message 27553 - Posted: 2 Jul 2015, 15:18:39 UTC - in response to Message 27552.  

my wife is a physicist,LHC takes priority..but until GPU is available it will be doing SETI,CPU doing LHC(if they ever get more tasks up) :) as you can see by my results...

oh it definitely will be more tasks - this project is about beam focusing and at least Atlas and vLHCathome projects you might be interested too
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Message 27554 - Posted: 2 Jul 2015, 19:31:33 UTC - in response to Message 27552.  

Einstein@home is using GPU and is a physics project, searching for gravitational waves but also pulsars, both in the radio and the gamma-ray ranges. These latter use data from the FERMI space telescope.
Tullio
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Message 27568 - Posted: 14 Jul 2015, 11:48:00 UTC

Yes; we at lhcathomeclassic/SixTrack have colleagues (also volunteers)
developing a GPU version. Results are numerically identical so maybe this year.....
Eric.


Hello Eric,

Can you give us an educated guess of a possible introduction of this GPU app?

Thank you
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Eric Mcintosh
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Message 27570 - Posted: 18 Jul 2015, 13:08:05 UTC - in response to Message 27568.  

Hi Filipe; I am awaiting a visit from my colleagues......
I'll try and remember to update you as soon as possible. Eric.
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Message 27571 - Posted: 19 Jul 2015, 18:00:09 UTC - in response to Message 27570.  

Hi Filipe; I am awaiting a visit from my colleagues......
I'll try and remember to update you as soon as possible. Eric.


When Tasks become available for GPU processing what will be the trade-off between GPU and CPU Tasks?

I process SETI@Home which makes both GPU and CPU Tasks available. The SETI GPU Tasks have been "sliced" into something that runs about 15 CPU Minutes on my GPU while their CPU Tasks run much longer (hours). I believe they have done this because BOINC wasn't able to manage the GPU and do Tasks switching. (Maybe this is still the case.) So, if you got a GPU Tasks that ran hours (Enigma@Home?) it would capture the GPU and hog the processor.

Also, I have only one GPU in this system so for me it makes sense to do GPU work for only one Project. I suppose if your system(s) have a number of GPU installed then it makes sense but there is still the question of Tasks switching of GPU WU.

Will the GPU LHC@Home Tasks be "sliced" so that they play nicely with others or are we going to get GPU Tasks that run hours?

Tom
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Richard Haselgrove

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Message 27572 - Posted: 19 Jul 2015, 23:08:46 UTC - in response to Message 27571.  

I process SETI@Home which makes both GPU and CPU Tasks available. The SETI GPU Tasks have been "sliced" into something that runs about 15 CPU Minutes on my GPU while their CPU Tasks run much longer (hours). I believe they have done this because BOINC wasn't able to manage the GPU and do Tasks switching. (Maybe this is still the case.) So, if you got a GPU Tasks that ran hours (Enigma@Home?) it would capture the GPU and hog the processor.

Somewhat of a misunderstanding there. Exactly the same SETI tasks are sent to CPUs and GPUs (a few special cases round the fringes) - there is certainly no "differential slicing".

If tasks take 15 minutes on GPU, but hours on CPU - then your GPU is faster. That much faster.

You can confirm this by checking validated tasks. It's possible to see workunits validated with one tack computed by a GPU, its 'wingmate' computed by a CPU.

There's also no problem with task switching with a GPU. The only weakness is that "leave applications in memory while suspended" can't be implemented on GPUs: there is no mechanism for temporarily paging GPU VRAM to hard disk. So GPU applications only make sense if the science applications have a viable checkpointing mechanism which can still be implemented for the parallel-processing GPU app. Provided that's in place - no problem. But task switching does create more of an overhead if the entire app, dataset, and checkpoint has to be reloaded at every switch. I lengthen the task switch interval on machines which might suffer from that - but in general (the exception being GPUGrid), GPU apps are so fast that they never even reach the default 1 hour TSI.
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Message 27574 - Posted: 22 Jul 2015, 18:17:54 UTC - in response to Message 27572.  

I process SETI@Home which makes both GPU and CPU Tasks available. The SETI GPU Tasks have been "sliced" into something that runs about 15 CPU Minutes on my GPU while their CPU Tasks run much longer (hours). I believe they have done this because BOINC wasn't able to manage the GPU and do Tasks switching. (Maybe this is still the case.) So, if you got a GPU Tasks that ran hours (Enigma@Home?) it would capture the GPU and hog the processor.

Somewhat of a misunderstanding there. Exactly the same SETI tasks are sent to CPUs and GPUs (a few special cases round the fringes) - there is certainly no "differential slicing".

If tasks take 15 minutes on GPU, but hours on CPU - then your GPU is faster. That much faster.

You can confirm this by checking validated tasks. It's possible to see workunits validated with one tack computed by a GPU, its 'wingmate' computed by a CPU.

There's also no problem with task switching with a GPU. The only weakness is that "leave applications in memory while suspended" can't be implemented on GPUs: there is no mechanism for temporarily paging GPU VRAM to hard disk. So GPU applications only make sense if the science applications have a viable checkpointing mechanism which can still be implemented for the parallel-processing GPU app. Provided that's in place - no problem. But task switching does create more of an overhead if the entire app, dataset, and checkpoint has to be reloaded at every switch. I lengthen the task switch interval on machines which might suffer from that - but in general (the exception being GPUGrid), GPU apps are so fast that they never even reach the default 1 hour TSI.


Thank you for the info. I had assumed that the CPU vs. GPU Tasks under SETI were different and targeted to one processor or the other.

My comment on Task switching was based from a number of years ago when I ran some Enigma@Home and SETI@Home GPU Tasks at the same time (switched). The Enigma Tasks would seize the GPU and then no SETI GPU Tasks would get switched in. So I guess I'll try doing some GPU work for Enigma again and see what happens.

Thanks again.
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Dirk Broer

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Message 27575 - Posted: 23 Jul 2015, 19:45:50 UTC - in response to Message 27574.  

So I guess I'll try doing some GPU work for Enigma again and see what happens.


Nothing. Enigma has no GPU application. You must have used Seti together with another project (e.g. Collatz).
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Message boards : Number crunching : sorry if this has been already covered...GPU?


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