# Ati Back in the Game



## thraxed (Sep 21, 2009)

As you can see with cat 9.9, AMD added an option to force your maximum desktop clock speeds.  (Note if ya put vista in test mode and remove CCC and install a new beta of ati tray tools, it too will allow ya to push the clock speeds further then what CCC will allowing higher ppd).  Though with a crappy overclock in the screenshot, my ppd and folding times are not bad and rank well with most nvidia cards.  9.9 seems rock solid for folding, best time I still find with 9.3 dlls.   If i get 2 384 packets they fold in synch  about 6400 ppd avg wo the smp fold which is only using 4 threads @ 9:30 sec a fold at no overclock which seems a lot faster then vmware folding.


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## audiotranceable (Sep 21, 2009)

Why does Ati get lower points. My 9600GSO is 3K to 3.5K


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## 1Kurgan1 (Sep 21, 2009)

He just explained why. They get lower points because on the desktop they run in 2d mode at lower clocks, this will now force them into 3dmode and the higher clocks for a much higher score.


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## audiotranceable (Sep 21, 2009)

1Kurgan1 said:


> He just explained why. They get lower points because on the desktop they run in 2d mode at lower clocks, this will now force them into 3dmode and the higher clocks for a much higher score.



ah I didn't see that at the time


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## Solaris17 (Sep 21, 2009)

1Kurgan1 said:


> He just explained why. They get lower points because on the desktop they run in 2d mode at lower clocks, this will now force them into 3dmode and the higher clocks for a much higher score.



although that still isnt entirely accurate as its known that nvidia cards pull more ppd in genreal.


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## thraxed (Sep 21, 2009)

Well everything been based off previous cat drivers which sucked for folding and stability.   With a good overclock on a card, your ppd should be about 8-12k on a 4870x2.

(ATI uses v1.17, Nvidia v1.15), the community witnessed further fall in number of completed packets per day. If you’re not familiar with Folding@Home packets, every package features certain number of mathematical simulations for tested protein – in case of Nvidia, packet consists out of 25 million, while ATI’s one features 10 million operations. However, due do different type of mathematical operations, Nvidia’s packet usually will result in 480 points, while ATI’s 10 million will return 548 points (or recently introduced ATI packets with 338 points).

I  don't know if that really makes a difference in point accumulation overall and scores.


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## newtekie1 (Sep 21, 2009)

1Kurgan1 said:


> He just explained why. They get lower points because on the desktop they run in 2d mode at lower clocks, this will now force them into 3dmode and the higher clocks for a much higher score.



That isn't true, F@H triggers the 3DClock.  My HD4890 runs at 1000/1000 sitting at the desktop with F@H going.  Even at those clocks, it is outpaced by a single 9600GSO.  A 4870x2 isn't going to see 1000Mhz on the core.  ATi cards are just bad at folding.


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## thraxed (Sep 21, 2009)

newtekie1 said:


> That isn't true, F@H triggers the 3DClock.  My HD4890 runs at 1000/1000 sitting at the desktop with F@H going.  Even at those clocks, it is outpaced by a single 9600GSO.  A 4870x2 isn't going to see 1000Mhz on the core.  ATi cards are just bad at folding.



Yeah but this wasn't true for those with crossfire or x2 cards, clock wouldn't trigger past the stock of 504/500 on our secondary gpu  Which started the who ATi cards are bad for folding plus stability issues it was a mess in the beginning.  Notice the screenshot it show the secondary core running at the exact same speed as the primary, this is new to 9.9 cats.






If your 4890 is getting dusted by a gso then you've configured something wrong.  Try the 9.3 dlls with 9.9 cat, had a thread here on how to do it pictures and all, but it never stuck around, there the best IMO. http://hotfile.com/dl/13124728/bcb9d77/GPU.rar.html If ya need the 9.3 dlls. My 4870 single core gets the same ppd result as  According to Nvidia PPD charts, and If you pop my results in, it fits right in between gtx285 gtx295 810/910 clock speed at a price of $300 (well what i bought card for).  I'm sure default manufacturer OC card like an ASUS top card would show better results then mine:/  Not as economical as a GSO, but neither is my machine.  So I cant really agree with ATi cards are just bad for folding.


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## Homeless (Sep 21, 2009)

That's an incredible chart


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## newtekie1 (Sep 21, 2009)

thraxed said:


> Yeah but this wasn't true for those with crossfire or x2 cards, clock wouldn't trigger past the stock of 504/500 on our secondary gpu  Which started the who ATi cards are bad for folding plus stability issues it was a mess in the beginning.  Notice the screenshot it show the secondary core running at the exact same speed as the primary, this is new to 9.9 cats.
> 
> http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c241/legoman666/PPD-1.png
> 
> If your 4890 is getting dusted by a gso then you've configured something wrong.  Try the 9.3 dlls with 9.9 cat, had a thread here on how to do it pictures and all, but it never stuck around, there the best IMO. http://hotfile.com/dl/13124728/bcb9d77/GPU.rar.html If ya need the 9.3 dlls. My 4870 single core gets the same ppd result as  According to Nvidia PPD charts, and If you pop my results in, it fits right in between gtx285 gtx295 810/910 clock speed at a price of $300 (well what i bought card for).  I'm sure default manufacturer OC card like an ASUS top card would show better results then mine:/  Not as economical as a GSO, but neither is my machine.  So I cant really agree with ATi cards are just bad for folding.



Sorry, hadn't realized this was a x2 specific problem.

And no, there is nothing configured wrong.  No matter what I do, the HD4890@1000/1000 only pulls at most 3500PPD, matching the 9600GSO@600/1500/900.  The HD4890 of course cost me $260 and the 9600GSO cost me $40, both brand new.  And the HD4890 consumes more power and puts off more head than the 9600GSO...  Yeah, sorry to say, ATi cards are just bad at folding.

The only thing that might be holding my HD4890 back is the fact that right now it is paired with an Athlon X2 4200+, and the ATi folding puts a lot more pressure on the CPU.  But then again, that is just another reason that ATi cards are bad at folding.  I can run both my 9600GSOs and have next to 0 CPU load.  I run the single HD4890, and it loads a CPU to ~25%.

There is a reason that all the people out there putting up huge numbers with large folding farms use nVidia cards and not ATi.

And whoever put the average PPD of the GTX285 at 6000 was obviously on drug.  My GTX285 pulls between 8500-9500 PPD easily.


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## thraxed (Sep 21, 2009)

Well unless you configured it like I did, I'm sure there something wrong.  Try the link, as ya can see it contains different files then what you would normally have when  you download the client from @home.


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## [Ion] (Sep 21, 2009)

newtekie1 said:


> Sorry, hadn't realized this was a x2 specific problem.
> 
> And no, there is nothing configured wrong.  No matter what I do, the HD4890@1000/1000 only pulls at most 3500PPD, matching the 9600GSO@600/1500/900.  The HD4890 of course cost me $260 and the 9600GSO cost me $40, both brand new.  And the HD4890 consumes more power and puts off more head than the 9600GSO...  Yeah, sorry to say, ATi cards are just bad at folding.
> 
> ...



I had an HD2600XT (POS, don't buy), and when I tried to fold on it it loaded the CPU to about 20% on my quad.  All the while getting 400 PPD.  My current Geforce 9300 gets about 700-800 PPD, and uses anywhere from 1-2% of the quad.  I don't plan on folding on ATi cards as long as this problem exists.


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## Steevo (Sep 21, 2009)

ATI cards aren't bad at folding, tehy are more adapted to complesx use of multiple shaders, as opposed tio Nvidias use of simple shaders. ATI  requires more complex software, and thus is being limited to the current GPU client as it fits both Nvidia and ATI.



If they were to use the full amount of shaders by making new code ATI would outperform the nvidia client by 3-5X depending on card. Thus the use of 1600 shaders on the new 5XXX series, GPGPU will allow use of them natively and increase the performance of the client, and of other GPU accelerated software.



For right now the 1>5 configuratino is hurting ATI performance.


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## phanbuey (Sep 21, 2009)

From what I heard, optimizing code for ATI cards to run all 800/1600 shaders is brutally hard, since 4 of the shaders attached to each of the 160 ALUs are not full shaders, and are incapable of certain functions... So you have to find alternate ways of performing certain calculation just to load all 160 pipelines at once and have all 800 shaders and semishaders kicking.

I think one of the programmers described it as "trying to lick your own elbow".

CUDA is supposedly much easier to use (again, I don't know - just what I have read/been told, so take with an unhealthy dose of salt).  That might explain why there has been so little adoption of what is considered to be a very powerful architecture.


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## newtekie1 (Sep 21, 2009)

That is basically the same thing I heard.  So while ATi cards might have 800 "Shaders", they really only have 160 usable shaders, the rest don't really help much in the F@H world.  Add to that the fact that te Shader domain is locked to the Core clock, and you have poor performance.  That is why a card with only 96 Shaders can outperfrm a card with 800(160).


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## [Ion] (Sep 22, 2009)

Well, that would explain the "success" with the 2600, because it only has 24 real shaders.


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## audiotranceable (Sep 22, 2009)

newtekie1 said:


> Sorry, hadn't realized this was a x2 specific problem.
> 
> And no, there is nothing configured wrong.  No matter what I do, the HD4890@1000/1000 only pulls at most 3500PPD, matching the 9600GSO@600/1500/900.  The HD4890 of course cost me $260 and the 9600GSO cost me $40, both brand new.  And the HD4890 consumes more power and puts off more head than the 9600GSO...  Yeah, sorry to say, ATi cards are just bad at folding.
> 
> ...


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## bogmali (Sep 22, 2009)

Nice PPD there Matthew, is that OCed? Sorry for the TC folks


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