Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
Not many on [H] are crunching PG these days. You can see that in our overall participation in the PG Challenge series events. But, there are a few regularly crunching this monthly. And there are only a few projects that won't qualify. So, this is a good reminder of this event that runs through February - thank you!Not wanting to go off topic in the PG challenge series thread (which TdP is not included in) anybody else gonna chase more badges this year?
They sure are. They're a great way to encourage participation as well IMOGood work all around
Holdolin I'm coming for you though, got another 7950X and a 4070S on the way. These monthly challenges are fun!
And unlike other DC projects I've done, it is awesome being able to see that you're finding primes and actually doing stuff beyond making amorphous progress but it's not clear what you're doing.They sure are. They're a great way to encourage participation as well IMO
OMG just don't tell my wife. She already calls me a bad influenceMay or may not have made some bad choices inspired by Holdolin . Found a "cheap" 4090 and have that on the way too . We'll see how it chews through tasks when it gets here.
For a GPU, I would think GFN-17. Meets the 1M digit cutoff for a mega, but a "smaller" mega so odds of finding one seem better. For a CPU, I'd expect PPS for the same reason.I'm split 50/50 PPSE and GFN 16 at 2 each.
Wrapping up a system on F@H today. May move it to GFN 17, maybe. What's the best shot at a Mega?
Ya, that's what I have my systems hunting. Damn those are big numbers lol.For a GPU, I would think GFN-17. Meets the 1M digit cutoff for a mega, but a "smaller" mega so odds of finding one seem better. For a CPU, I'd expect PPS for the same reason.
I feel ya. Got half a dozen 4090's runnin GFN-17 and I aint hit a prime in a week. Just bad luckI dunno what's up with my GPUs, but just having (what seems like) unbelievably bad luck with finding anything with them. 19.5k GFN-16 tasks, 17k GFN-17 tasks, and not a single prime from them. Everything is still just the PPSE tasks.
I dunno what's up with my GPUs, but just having (what seems like) unbelievably bad luck with finding anything with them. 19.5k GFN-16 tasks, 17k GFN-17 tasks, and not a single prime from them. Everything is still just the PPSE tasks.
I think it's because wareyore is stealing all of our primes...I feel ya. Got half a dozen 4090's runnin GFN-17 and I aint hit a prime in a week. Just bad luck
I'm still ahead of him by 3 right now, but losing ground. 4090 supposed to be here this afternoon, and then it can start earning its keep.I think it's because wareyore is stealing all of our primes...
I'm just running straight GFN-17's. I started TdP on the 16's, but my cards spent waay to much time doing nothing. The 17's seem to keep the cards busy most of the time and in scouting my peers it seems few are running 4090s so my theory is if I get handed a prime to crunch I should be the finder and somebody else the checker. See, IMO being the fact this is TdP the object of the game is to get the prime first, which to some extent means taking a, how shall I say, less than ideal approach to computing. Thus, I have my cache set to next to nothing with the idea as soon as a given number is handed to me, I'm ready to crunch it. While it might be a bit more efficient to run 2 concurrent 17's, for the here and now it's about speed more than efficiency. If this is a little less than clear please ask for any needed clarification, as this is a pre-coffee postHoldolin What subprojects are you running on the 4090s/how do you have them configured? I am running a mix of GFN-16 and GFN-17 and struggling to keep it busy. I have tried running everywhere from 1 WU at a time to 12 at a time (I tried 1 at a time, 2, 4, 8, and 12), and the most I've managed to get out of it is ~55% of TDP (240W or so) and a claimed 90% GPU utilisation (both as reported by GPU-Z and by nvidia-smi). It seems like if it's barely cracking 200W (216 right now as I type this up) that it's probably leaving the GPU far more idle than it's reporting, and I'm not getting good utilisation out of it. Are you running bigger GFN projects? Are you seeing a higher apparent load? I (very briefly) had it running a mix of GFN-16/17 & PPS-Sieve last night until the PPS-Sieve tasks ran out, and in that configuration it was doing somewhere around 420-440W, so I know that PG is capable of forcing more out of it.
I believe it doesn't work like that. I am pretty sure that with the proof tasks (which I was asking about in the main forums: https://www.primegrid.com/forum_thread.php?id=10463) then everyone is "first" -- it just depends on whether you're lucky enough to get the main tasks, or the proof tasks. The proof tasks as you said though do run the GPUs very nearly idle (they're so short that by the time that the GPU has gotten fired up & running, they're done -- I am quite literally seeing runtimes of 1-4 seconds for the GFN16/17 on the 4090)I'm just running straight GFN-17's. I started TdP on the 16's, but my cards spent waay to much time doing nothing. The 17's seem to keep the cards busy most of the time and in scouting my peers it seems few are running 4090s so my theory is if I get handed a prime to crunch I should be the finder and somebody else the checker. See, IMO being the fact this is TdP the object of the game is to get the prime first, which to some extent means taking a, how shall I say, less than ideal approach to computing. Thus, I have my cache set to next to nothing with the idea as soon as a given number is handed to me, I'm ready to crunch it. While it might be a bit more efficient to run 2 concurrent 17's, for the here and now it's about speed more than efficiency. If this is a little less than clear please ask for any needed clarification, as this is a pre-coffee post
lol yep. I was JUST reading that on their forums and made a second post. Now at least I know what these super short jobs my CPU is getting. I do PPS on my daily driver's CPU when I'm not actually working on it.I believe it doesn't work like that. I am pretty sure that with the proof tasks (which I was asking about in the main forums: https://www.primegrid.com/forum_thread.php?id=10463) then everyone is "first" -- it just depends on whether you're lucky enough to get the main tasks, or the proof tasks. The proof tasks as you said though do run the GPUs very nearly idle (they're so short that by the time that the GPU has gotten fired up & running, they're done -- I am quite literally seeing runtimes of 1-4 seconds for the GFN16/17 on the 4090)
FWIW I've found that running PPS/PPSE on my main systems make no noticeable impact on overall responsiveness. The "bigger" tasks (like SoB/ESP) seem to be hammering the CPU in a way that does make things noticeably laggy, but PPS fades into the background fine. At least on Windows. Harder to tell on the Linux boxes since I use them over SSH & don't feel responsiveness hits in quite the same way.lol yep. I was JUST reading that on their forums and made a second post. Now at least I know what these super short jobs my CPU is getting. I do PPS on my daily driver's CPU when I'm not actually working on it.
I'm feelin the same. About the only thing I've noticed is if I start doing heavier work, my crunching slows down a bit, as it should. Even then, I'm only talking a few seconds per WU. Not a big in my book. I've also spent a day testing the effectiveness of enabling SMT. After about a thousand WUs each way, I've shown ~4.5% output increase with SMT enabled. While not exactly thunderous gains I'm looking at what happens when you start adding that to multiple systems, especially if I were to start building threadripper-based systems. The 64-core systems with that 3D cache have enough cache to run 64 PPS/PPSE concurrently without a prob. Why? Because according to Michael over on their site, they have a 10 year cache of PPS work. Sounds like a challenge to meFWIW I've found that running PPS/PPSE on my main systems make no noticeable impact on overall responsiveness. The "bigger" tasks (like SoB/ESP) seem to be hammering the CPU in a way that does make things noticeably laggy, but PPS fades into the background fine. At least on Windows. Harder to tell on the Linux boxes since I use them over SSH & don't feel responsiveness hits in quite the same way.
I don't have any of the 3D-cache EPYC CPUs because I'm not made of that much money, but I do have a couple of older EPYC-based systems. This one has been chewing through 128 PPSE tasks at a time:The 64-core systems with that 3D cache have enough cache to run 64 PPS/PPSE concurrently without a prob. Why? Because according to Michael over on their site, they have a 10 year cache of PPS work. Sounds like a challenge to me
Edited to add:
I didn't' wanna say much about a challenge in their forums, as I'm not getting the sense they enjoy a little trash talk like we do 'round here hehe
Interesting. I wonder if my systems have just been too badly starved for memory bandwidth, but I've mostly found that if I disable SMT that it seems to result in better output (half as many tasks, but each one takes less than half the time). Now that I have a second 7950X system, I am hoping to do some more apples-to-apples comparison between one with HT on and the other with it off.I'm feelin the same. About the only thing I've noticed is if I start doing heavier work, my crunching slows down a bit, as it should. Even then, I'm only talking a few seconds per WU. Not a big in my book. I've also spent a day testing the effectiveness of enabling SMT. After about a thousand WUs each way, I've shown ~4.5% output increase with SMT enabled.
That would be my thinking. Not having the 3D cache, you're pushing some of the work out into RAM which is much slower. This is why I spend so much of my day perusing forums and doing general research. When I started back with PG, I spent like days going through the forums. It's great they give so much info to us as donors, such as how much cache a given WU requires. That lets us plan our builds and configs accordingly. A great example is the thread on ARM crunching. It's actually more simple on the Rapi than the Opi, as with the Rapi you just set the thread count to 4 and walk away. If you do that with the Opi, you end up in the mud as the system sees 8 cores and will try to do 2 concurrent WUs and that just chokes things. You also have to create/edit and app_config.xml to limit it to 1 concurrent task. Sorry, I know I get long winded but I like not only the science we're crunching for, but the science of how to get the most we can out of each system we have. I'll hush now hehe.Interesting. I wonder if my systems have just been too badly starved for memory bandwidth, but I've mostly found that if I disable SMT that it seems to result in better output (half as many tasks, but each one takes less than half the time). Now that I have a second 7950X system, I am hoping to do some more apples-to-apples comparison between one with HT on and the other with it off.
In my days of running WCG I discovered that memory bandwidth is pretty much irrelevant. I had a couple of systems running 64 or 80 WUs (2x 16-20c CPUs + HT) on 1 stick of RAM per CPU, or even one stick of RAM shared for both CPUs. PG does not like that, lol. It does make it interesting when there is more to optimise and try to min-max.That would be my thinking. Not having the 3D cache, you're pushing some of the work out into RAM which is much slower. This is why I spend so much of my day perusing forums and doing general research. When I started back with PG, I spent like days going through the forums. It's great they give so much info to us as donors, such as how much cache a given WU requires. That lets us plan our builds and configs accordingly. A great example is the thread on ARM crunching. It's actually more simple on the Rapi than the Opi, as with the Rapi you just set the thread count to 4 and walk away. If you do that with the Opi, you end up in the mud as the system sees 8 cores and will try to do 2 concurrent WUs and that just chokes things. You also have to create/edit and app_config.xml to limit it to 1 concurrent task. Sorry, I know I get long winded but I like not only the science we're crunching for, but the science of how to get the most we can out of each system we have. I'll hush now hehe.
To answer my own question...the larger tasks do a better job keeping the GPU full. GFN-21 task is running it at nearly 100% of TDP indefinitely:I'm just running straight GFN-17's. I started TdP on the 16's, but my cards spent waay to much time doing nothing. The 17's seem to keep the cards busy most of the time and in scouting my peers it seems few are running 4090s so my theory is if I get handed a prime to crunch I should be the finder and somebody else the checker. See, IMO being the fact this is TdP the object of the game is to get the prime first, which to some extent means taking a, how shall I say, less than ideal approach to computing. Thus, I have my cache set to next to nothing with the idea as soon as a given number is handed to me, I'm ready to crunch it. While it might be a bit more efficient to run 2 concurrent 17's, for the here and now it's about speed more than efficiency. If this is a little less than clear please ask for any needed clarification, as this is a pre-coffee post
Thanks for posting the info. When TdP is over I'll prolly give my GPUs a bit meatier set of tasks as well, but for now imma just let things sail as-is.To answer my own question...the larger tasks do a better job keeping the GPU full. GFN-21 task is running it at nearly 100% of TDP indefinitely:
View attachment 634854
I'm still putting it back on GFN16/17 for now because I'd rather have a shot at more primes for the duration of TdP, but after the contest finishes I'll play around a bit with the AP27 & otherwise toss it on larger GFN tasks.