WOOT! Got my SMP2 going!

Man, this has been a real odyssey for me. I folded with the Stanford passkey for 10 WU's with a VM that I'm sure of but it took six more WUs for the bonus to kick in.:confused :celebrate

Anyways, I went from #70 producer spot on MG's to #19 in one fell swoop today after quite a lengthy absence!:-D Actually, that shouldn't happen but so be it. More folks should fold.

So folks who have quad equivalents or better than the Q6600 should at least fold them with a passkey and an OS key(which everyone should have anyways). This is the only way one can get the bonus points.

I am currently running my Q6600 at a mild 2.7GHz OC(2.4 stock) and getting between 3 and 4K PPD, with SMP2. I'll know the difference better later as I'm going to stay here until the end of the month as a week should give me a fair estimate of what's to come.

BTW, HFM is the only monitoring program ATM that calculates bonus points for the a3's, even if you're not eligible for them, you need ten WU's first.

http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/4955/q6600smp2.th.png

 

Awright augie.:celebrate
I wonder why the bonus didn't kick in after 10 WUs? Maybe something tied to the servers at Stanford?:confused They've had their ups and downs here lately.
Now we just need to get some other people interested in this new client. It can produce alot more points (and science) for Stanford.:cool

 

I decided to give the SMP a go too!

Took a good while and was a big step for me considering my folding experience (very limited).

Its set up now and runs 3x as fast as before. I'm on 5.5K PPD on my CPU and 2.5 on GPU! it peaks at around 9k PPD in total according to HFM.

I am flying up the ranks, went from 333rd to 248th in 2 days!

:-D

Burrell

 

Damn, missed edit time, after re-reading..

ohh, whats this about Bonus'?

Sounds good.

 

The bonus is paid out to the folks who have the faster CPUs(like I said in my first post) who can meet the tight deadlines, which means running 24/7 too. Now, to get the SMP2 bonuses, you first have to have your OS password protected and enter same when setting up SMP2, secondly you have to get a passkey from Stanford which will be e-mailed to you and entered also when setting up.

Decent detailed instructions from Stanford are here. You must say yes to -advmethods. You will have to then fold 10 WUs for real measly points and the 11th should finally give you the bonus as shown in HFM.(check my screen pic above). If you are already folding in a VM, then add the password and passkey and you'll get way more points on your way to 10 WUs than I did( check my stats).

Be aware that only CPUs that are equivalent to or better than a Q6600 need apply.

I've written this with the goal of eventually making it a guide suitable for new folders so throw all your constructive criticisms this way.

@ burrell This is much easier to set up than having a virtual machine running a 64-bit Linux and having to learn same OS while learning how to set up the client. I've enjoyed learning a bit of Linux but I've had my :banghead moments too.:-D

 

Same here on the :banghead moments.
Going along and then you get to a point and go "Where in the whiz do they hide it?"

 

Augie, I am lazy, is the SMP2 just a newer version of the SMP, where you set up 4 instances of folding, one for each CPU?? Pretty much when the GPU folding kicked in, I stopped even worrying about CPU folding. But, with points like that, I could fold on the Q6600 for most of the day. :-D

 

Hey Fred,
SMP2 will recognize as many cores as you have available so you would only have to set up 1 instance. Just use the -smp flag and it will do the rest.
Some caveats -
Windows user account has to have a password.
You have to use a passkey from Stanford in configuration (as augie stated)
You have to fold 10 units with the passkey before you can hit the bonus points.
You have to say yes to -advmethods in configuration.
Read through augie's previous post and look at the Stanford set up instructions.
Should be no big deal to set up for you since you've done multi GPU set ups.

 

Well, for some reason -smp didn't work for me, could be PEBKAC, but I'll test that out at another time. What I did was to add

Code:

-smp 4 -verbosity 9

in 'extra paramameters'. However, from what I've been reading I shouldn't have to do that. Anyways, it's another option one can use instead of just having the code in the shortcut.

 

Meh, now the a1 scourge is back again!:cry At least everyone should be getting them by now. It really hurts when I finally OC'd my Q6600 to 3GHz and I see this.

 

Oh man, that just (can't put in appropriate verbiage w/o getting banned).

Pande needs to get more a3 WUs in the pipeline as I'm sure the ease of install will make this client more user-friendly (and used) as opposed to a VM or nix.

 

I believe the x64 client does better points wise than the x32 client.
SMP guide (and can be used for SMP2) if you have better than a Q6600 processor. Here's the link from Stanford for the installation guide - http://folding.stanford.edu/English/WinSMPGuideMPICH

I can't remember what type of card you have Halo, Nvidia right?
You can adjust the process in several different ways depending on the card type, more so with the ATI. Nvidia you can change the process priority or use % and lower it to see if that helps with response to programs or gaming.

 

Sorry Halo, I keep forgetting Stanford puts that on a different page.
The MPICH version is for x64.
http://folding.stanford.edu/English/DownloadWinOther

 

That's excellent Halo! :major Yes, the GPU folding is the best PPD unless you're running an OC'd i7 SMP2. Agreed on the labeling by Stanford, really minimalistic. Just like my posts.:-D

 

Hehehe, normally a good strategy with folding but SMP2 is quite easy compared to the gymnastics we had to go through before. I can't blame you for going slowly since if you get in trouble at least you'll probably have a good idea why. Now's the time to check the stability of your GPU folding and the temperatures.

 

Great, now let's see how far you can OC it!:-D

 

@ Halo (how many hours do you keep your computer on,curious)

concerning your GPU Client and my experience using 8800GS card I have installed.

When I game online or wish to have full power (capt. I'm giving it all I've got) I shut off my cpu and gpu clients via services (mms.exe in XP Pro SP3) as I have them set to Manual so on boot up once all is settled I then manually start them myself via right click.

I have been using the 186.18 Nvidia drivers for some time now as very stable for me,but realize from reading around the net that the 195.62 Nvidia drivers are also stable as posted in many forums,so I really need to update my gpu driver.

Which entails going into control panel clicking on add/remove programs,scrolling to Nvidia drivers,clicking on remove and specifically choosing only to uninstall the display driver once done a reboot and install the newer Nvidia driver.

I hope this isn't to much of a thread hijack as I only desire to assist.

 

Yup, those drivers are good unless someone is running RivaTuner, which those drivers like to break. That's for the OC'ing crowd who don't have the 196.21's yet.

 

Thx. I needed that info concerning the Nvidia drivers as I have that version on one of my 4 computers and was going to down grade to the 195.62 version,that saves me a reboot or two.

Reason I asked about how long you kept your computer on is cause most of the GPU WU's are 2 to 3 days until their dead line,I guess Stanford desires the results quickly?

My computer(s) stay on 24/7 got the folding bug.

 

If you are talking about this one it is not 64bit but it will run on a 32bit or 64bit OS in 32bit mode
Windows XP/2003/Vista/2008 SMP client console version 6.29 beta for MPICH (32-bit or 64-bit)

The 6.29 beta version for Deino MPI will not run on a 64bit OS it is 32bit only

 

The reason it took more then 10 WU to get the bonus is you probably had some a1 fahcore WUs mixed in with your a2 and a3 WUs. The a1 WUs don't count as part of the 10 needed to start getting the bonus.
http://foldingforum.org/viewtopic.php?f=58&t=13160

You can turn off the bonus in HFM if you are not eligible for it in the Edit -->Pref -->Options dialogue box. I don't know why it is on by default, there are many more folders that don't get the bonus then there are that do get the bonus.

 

This may be a silly question, as it will most probably say it clearly somewhere in HFM, but how much is the bonus?

 

Depends on how much faster your machine completes the WU before the deadline. My i7 at 3.6 Ghz runs about 40 minutes a frame, so completes in about 2.8 days and gets about 55,000 points per WU. More overclocking would yield more points.
There is a computation for the SMP2 Core A3 WUs that has been the basis for the bigadv points - LINK to FAH Forum Post

 

Aah, that makes sense then and I still get an occassional a1 now too, I hope they get done soon.

I should have known that about HFM, I never go through all the options on anything!:-o Thanks for the info.