ATI and Folding working on F@H 1.2.1: Performance, stability updates

Theo Valich — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 12:00:44 +0000

Catalyst 8.12 drivers are set to debut next week, and as you probably know, this is no ordinary update. AMD GPG is bringing its STREAM middleware platform and updated libraries to every user of their GPGPU-enabled products (R520 “Fudo” chip aka Radeon 1800 and newer).

As a part of AMD STREAM, ATI will release its own video transcoder for free. Given the limitations and performance that Badaboom has, I wonder did ATI decided to do something more in “formats supported” area.

On the Folding@Home front, there are great expectations from this upcoming driver, especially if you own Radeon 4800 series product. ATI worked hard to remove the driver overhead which keeps the CPU core to 100% per GPU, and as a result, folding smaller proteins should improve by some 20%.

Looking at a bigger picture, ATI’s GPGPU engineers are working night and day on the upcoming OpenCL platform, so the future of CAL and other proprietary standards is up in the air. It is obvious that any pre-4800 hardware suffers from serious drawbacks in the architecture, but 4000 and beyond has the potential to “rock on” in the GPGPU world. Radeon 4000 series finally brought several key features that Nvidia featured from GeForce 8 and beyond, so we are going to have a heated GPGPU battle in 2009.

One thing is certain, though. As soon as Catalyst 8.12 appear (according to our sources, look for Terry “Saint Catalyst Claus” Makedon coming down the chimney around December 10th), go to game.amd.com and download the drivers. There is a myriad of improvements, and you should check out Catalyst 8.12 driver with updated Folding@Home core, currently in version 1.2.1.

You can try the 1.2.1 client right now, but expect a final version showing up around the release of Catalyst 8.12. December is going to be an exciting month for ATI’s F@H community.

The post ATI and Folding working on F@H 1.2.1: Performance, stability updates appeared first on VR World.

Folding@Home team update, new stats page ;)

Theo Valich — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 13:43:38 +0000

I’ve been a fan of distributed computing since late 1990s, with SETI@Home running on every computer that I ever had. However, the real attractive proposition to me was running distributed computing applications on graphics cards. GPUs are much more efficient in stream computing than any CPU you could find, and I’ve tried DC apps on computers with DEC Alpha, Intel Pentium onwards, AMD K6-II onwards etc etc., but biggest jump in performance was Folding@Home on ATI Radeon X1800XTX graphics card.
With the launch of this blog and the new website, I’ve decided to launch a new group, number 69864. Current name is the name of this blog, but as soon as I am able to disclose the name of the new company, you’ll be the first to know
I invite you all to join team 69864, and in near future this will be much more than just a group. As the new website develops, so will this team. So far, my goal is to enter Top 1000 by end of 2008, and we’re on good way to achieve that.
If you are interested, the site to download CPU clients is here, while the GPU clients are here. If you have Nvidia-based graphics card (compatible from GeForce 8000 and above), then download this version. I’ve tried both console and the regular version, and there isn’t much difference in performance. Of course, unless you leave the display version running.
Performance-wise, Nvidia is destroying ATI at this moment, which is something I already addressed here. Let’s hope ATI will optimize Folding performance in their upcoming drivers. We doubt this will happen before the release of next generation of Radeon hardware, but who knows.
After you install the client, the configuration is really easy. If you have higher-performing hardware, then always use the large packet option, as shown in picture below.

Initial option screen... put your name in, and the group is 69864 ;-)

If you have 256MB or more video memory, check this box

MachineID is important if you plan to run more than one client (multi-GPU setups, CPU/GPU combo etc.)

After configuration, you’re good to go. The stats page is located at KakaoStats.com – yes, Kakao means Cocoa in Croatian ;-). You can also see the official one here, but the official stats page isn’t always available, since F@H servers suffer from tremendous load.
Let’s fold together and hopefully simulate enough nanoseconds that become seconds that become minutes, hours, days, years… who knows, our CPU or GPU time might help scientists tofind cure for Alzheimer or Parkison’s disease (focus of F@H group at Stanford). We might even help ourselves in the future.

Unofficial stats over at KakaoStats.com - enjoy this one even if you don't use our group #.

Pay it forward. You’re free to ping me at theo.valich @ gmail.com for a chat or if you have any questions. Always glad to help

The post Folding@Home team update, new stats page ;) appeared first on VR World.

VR World » distributed computing

ATI and Folding working on F@H 1.2.1: Performance, stability updates

Folding@Home team update, new stats page ;)