I am using the GPU process (system tray) to fold on the GTX285 and the SMP to fold on the Q6600 (which I've overclocked). This is all running on Vista 64 bit. Until I recently bought the GPU I was folding on an ATI GPU which kept one of the 4 CPU cores running hot... I set the affinity of things to keep the SMP process on 3 cores away from the GPU core so as not to slow that down. Now I've noticed that this GTX285 GPU core doesn't really tax the CPU core it's assigned to - it rarely does anything. Should I now remove the affinity locking and allow the SMP cores to run on the same core as the GPU one if they want or should I still keep them separate (although my 4th core seems a bit idle...!)? Any help would be appreciated please! Thank you.
I would remove the affinity lock in the GPU client config. and let the both the GPU and SMP client use all four cores. I would also download PriFinitty2 and set the GPU client and cores to above normal use. This way the GPU client will take preference over the SMP client for the best ppd. Have you tried setting up a couple of VMWare machines and running two instances of the Linux smp clients (removing the windows smp of course)? This would probably use your machine to it maximum potential.
Many thanks for the advice. I'll up the priorities to avoid too much interference from the SMP cores and see how that goes. I've not dabbled with VMware and linux - I also use the machine for gaming, so I like the ease of being able to stop / start folding without too much effort. I've also never tried vmware / linux, and don't want to get sucked into a further use of my time folding! Thanks for your advice - I'll make the change tonight and see how things go...
I'd never used VM or Linux before, but the prospect of some extra ppd persuded me to have a look. If you feel like a boost in the future have a look at this guide. http://www.planetamd64.com/index.php?showtopic=29163
Dude you have to switch to vmware, its so quick and easy to do and will up your ppd rate for 20mins (if that) of your time... Follow this guide here: http://www.maximumpc.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=92133
Vmware SMP clients really are quite straightforward to set up. I game on a rig with where four of them are normally running. Takes about a minute to close them down and about 3 minutes to fire them back up again.
Ok - you've convinced me. I'll take a look into it at the weekend and see what I can come up with. Thanks for the link to the guide - I'll start there and let you know how I get on...
Just to add to the previous posts - ATI cards for some reason have a much higher cpu usage during gpu folding then nvidia cards. i usually fold my smp at 75% across all cores so the gpu have some space to breath on any core of its choosing. (for nvidia cards more for ati) i have noticed this on my setups so that part is normal. i have also heared vmware clients are the way to go for smp- havent tried that yet though.
