# wcg and f@h different?



## freaksavior (Mar 25, 2011)

So I want to get my ppd numbers up, but I can't run it on all the computers in my house for various reasons (power, and usage) so I was thinking my gpu sits idle 95% of the day, why can't I run f@h on it or wcg on it. 

From my understanding, wcg is cpu only and f@h can be either. 

So if I run f@h, will it help my ppd for wcg or not?


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## Domestic_ginger (Mar 25, 2011)

No. WCG is Boinc based.

FaH is well.... Folding at home. ATI o NV card?

ATI card can help other boinc projs i.e. milkyway. Nv is best left folding. The openCL update of FaH should allow for decent returns using an ATI for FaH.


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## freaksavior (Mar 25, 2011)

My 5850  so ati


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## ERazer (Mar 25, 2011)

F@H doesnt run well on ati, its runs but not as good as nvidia

i prefer WCG due to fact they do multiple research


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## BinaryMage (Mar 25, 2011)

You can use your ATI card to run Milkyway@home, PrimeGrid, Collatz Conjecture, or DNETC@home using BOINC. If you want to run Folding@home with it, you can, it just probably won't be an as efficient use of it.


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## overclocking101 (Mar 25, 2011)

nvidia cards do much better at folding and crunching. sadly F@H is really it for ati except for the smaller projects some of those work.


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## BinaryMage (Mar 25, 2011)

overclocking101 said:


> nvidia cards do much better at folding and crunching. sadly F@H is really it for ati except for the smaller projects some of those work.



Folding, yes. Crunching, no. While less projects support AMD videocards (ATI is dead, sorry), the AMD videocards are much better at crunching. See these two pages on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Nvidia_graphics_processing_units#GeForce_500_Series and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_AMD_graphics_processing_units#IGP_.28HD_6xxx.29. Look under the GFLOPS section. For a good example, the HD6870, which is a $200 card, has 400 more GFLOPS of processing power than a GTX580, which is a $500 card.


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## cheesy999 (Mar 25, 2011)

freaksavior said:


> So I want to get my ppd numbers up, but I can't run it on all the computers in my house for various reasons (power, and usage) so I was thinking my gpu sits idle 95% of the day, why can't I run f@h on it or wcg on it.
> 
> From my understanding, wcg is cpu only and f@h can be either.
> 
> So if I run f@h, will it help my ppd for wcg or not?



we have a techpowerupteam for gpu grid (http://www.gpugrid.net/team_display.php?teamid=1111) which does smiler things to WCG but using nvidia cards and ps3's, and i know there are others, we may have a tpu team for some of these ones http://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/GPU_computing

these won't help your WCG points but they will help the team as a whole


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## BUCK NASTY (Mar 25, 2011)

We take the position that has the most productive approach for both the WCG and the F@H teams. If you have an i7, this will be a tougher decision. If your just running a quad or less, Boinc is your best option for the CPU and leave F@H on the GPU's. Now for an i7, F@H has a -bigadv work unit that produces in excess of *25K+ PPD*, but you will have to be clocked at 3.8Ghz or higher to get the bonus. The choice is yours to which project you are partial to.


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## Bow (Mar 25, 2011)

I am Crunching MilkyWay with my 2 6950, for TPU.


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## freaksavior (Mar 26, 2011)

BUCK NASTY said:


> We take the position that has the most productive approach for both the WCG and the F@H teams. If you have an i7, this will be a tougher decision. If your just running a quad or less, Boinc is your best option for the CPU and leave F@H on the GPU's. Now for an i7, F@H has a -bigadv work unit that produces in excess of *25K+ PPD*, but you will have to be clocked at 3.8Ghz or higher to get the bonus. The choice is yours to which project you are partial to.



okie dokie guys. Thanks for the help.  gpu will stay idle then.


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## Chicken Patty (Mar 29, 2011)

freaksavior said:


> okie dokie guys. Thanks for the help.  gpu will stay idle then.



Hey man, if you do decide to run it, try DNETC@HOME.  ATI does great at it, I did it for a bit and the WU's go like butter!  I mean I would rather F@H, I have my 5870 folding for the team right now!


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## BinaryMage (Mar 30, 2011)

DNETC@home certainly works well. You could also run PrimeGrid, Collatz Conjecture, or Milkyway@home on your AMD GPU. Or you can fold; I just find that my GPU (a HD4850) is much more efficient at crunching than folding.


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## Nick259 (Apr 20, 2011)

Does milkyway at home just use the gpu? I have an ati 4870 and since it's pretty bad at folding it's just idle atm. I would much rather put it to use for something like milkyway @ home.


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## Chicken Patty (Apr 20, 2011)

Try it with DNETC@Home, works great.


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## Nick259 (Apr 20, 2011)

What is DNETC@Home used for? I can't seem to find out what it's about on google. Also can someone tell me if the milkyway@home server is down? It is sticking at 0% for both work units downloaded and communication is always deffered.

And I can't seem to register on tpu's team as there is no option to join. I had to join evil ocuk's team instead


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## Chicken Patty (Apr 21, 2011)

Not sure what it targets the most but it works great for ATI cards.

I ran DNETC under another team, not TPU.  Where do you register, I don't even remember.


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## bogmali (Apr 21, 2011)

For all of you AMD/ATI GPU users, there is an updated F@H client that uses AMD cards more efficiently and puts out decent PPD from before. Link below.

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2257743&postcount=1514

Edit: Forgot to mention that it only works on 5 series cards and above.


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## BinaryMage (Apr 21, 2011)

Chicken Patty said:


> Not sure what it targets the most but it works great for ATI cards.
> 
> I ran DNETC under another team, not TPU.  Where do you register, I don't even remember.



dnetc.net is the website. DNETC used to be a great option for ATI/AMD cards, but unfortunately it is no longer, at least for the foreseeable future. http://boincstats.com/forum/forum_thread.php?id=6315


> I am sorry to inform You, that the projects will be unavailable for difficult to predict time, for reasons beyond their administrators.





> Server is evidence in the investigation of p2p (I know it's ridiculous). Someone thought that we had a torrent tracker on the server. Now police are looking for pirated Windows ect between DNETC workunits.
> 
> As soon as we get our server back project will back online.
> 
> Sesef



Who knows why, but it looks like DNETC's server is under investigation for P2P related stuff. It probably won't be up for awhile, an investigation like that can take forever.


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## Nick259 (Apr 21, 2011)

bogmali said:


> For all of you AMD/ATI GPU users, there is an updated F@H client that uses AMD cards more efficiently and puts out decent PPD from before. Link below.
> 
> http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2257743&postcount=1514



It's a shame that it only works on 5 and 6 series cards because it requires opengl 1.1 or something otherwise i'd run that. 3000 odd ppd for a 4870 just isn't worth it especially as it uses 100% of the gpu.

I'm trying to get milkyway@home running on my gpu but it keeps using my cpu. What options do I need to change to get it to run on the gpu because i can't find any? I'm running WCG simultaneously if that makes a difference? I have the 11.3 drivers but it the 4870 doesn;t show up in messages when BONIC starts up.


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## BinaryMage (Apr 21, 2011)

Nick259 said:


> It's a shame that it only works on 5 and 6 series cards because it requires opengl 1.1 or something otherwise i'd run that. 3000 odd ppd for a 4870 just isn't worth it especially as it uses 100% of the gpu.
> 
> I'm trying to get milkyway@home running on my gpu but it keeps using my cpu. What options do I need to change to get it to run on the gpu because i can't find any? I'm running WCG simultaneously if that makes a difference? I have the 11.3 drivers but it the 4870 doesn;t show up in messages when BONIC starts up.



First, make sure you have APP (Advanced Parallel Processing) drivers, Milkyway@home needs those. Second, make sure you have the latest client version. Third, check your BOINC preferences and make sure that your Milkyway@home preferences (http://milkyway.cs.rpi.edu/milkyway/prefs.php?subset=project have "Use ATI GPU" checked. If none of those steps work, post a screenshot of your Messages tab when you launch BOINC.

If you don't want your GPU used while you're playing games, BOINC can be set to only use your GPU at certain times.


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## Nick259 (Apr 21, 2011)

Are the APP drivers included with catalyst 11.3 or are they seperate? I have BONIC 6.2.28 and I have use ati gpu enabled. There doesn't appear to be a use gpu option in my bonic client.


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## BinaryMage (Apr 21, 2011)

Nick259 said:


> Are the APP drivers included with catalyst 11.3 or are they seperate? I have BONIC 6.2.28 and I have use ati gpu enabled. There doesn't appear to be a use gpu option in my bonic client.



Your problem is probably the fact that your BOINC client is ridiculously out of date. Get version 6.10.60 here. That client may not even recognize your 4870.


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## Nick259 (Apr 21, 2011)

That appears to have been my problem now it's running without any trouble. i thought the bonic client auto updated but even then i'm surprised I managed to download such an old version considering I only started crunching 1 year ago :S

When running WCG on 100% of processors with 90% of cpu usage before the pc still ran fairly smooth but while running milkyway@home along side it my pc now runs quite jerky even on desktop and typing on word. Even when I put it on 75% processors at 100% and task manager reports ~80% cpu usage it's a bit laggy. Is there any way I can set it to use 90% of the gpu instead? I had this problem with f@h and I found enabling aero worked but I have aero enabled. Gpuz reports almost 100% gpu usage btw.


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## BinaryMage (Apr 22, 2011)

Nick259 said:


> That appears to have been my problem now it's running without any trouble. i thought the bonic client auto updated but even then i'm surprised I managed to download such an old version considering I only started crunching 1 year ago :S
> 
> When running WCG on 100% of processors with 90% of cpu usage before the pc still ran fairly smooth but while running milkyway@home along side it my pc now runs quite jerky even on desktop and typing on word. Even when I put it on 75% processors at 100% and task manager reports ~80% cpu usage it's a bit laggy. Is there any way I can set it to use 90% of the gpu instead? I had this problem with f@h and I found enabling aero worked but I have aero enabled. Gpuz reports almost 100% gpu usage btw.



Well, you can uncheck "Use GPU while computer is in use," but I don't think you can limit BOINC to a certain percent of GPU usage... hopefully that feature will come in an upcoming version; it would be quite useful. I run BOINC continuously on my 4850 when the computer is on (unless I'm playing games) and I don't notice a huge difference, but I've probably just gotten used to it...


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