# How to improve your speed, PPD, and stability for gpu folding(ATI)



## thraxed (Jul 4, 2009)

I've had quite a headache trying to fold 24/7 on my 4870x2.  Was getting plagued with errors.  So here what found works best.  First of is to replace amd dlls in the folding dir(assuming nvidia has a similar way).  You can either install the drivers, or run the setup to extract the files you need.  Once you have the drivers installed you can copy the files from your windows folder.  Or navigate to where the driver install extracted and navigate to:

9-6_vista64_win7_64_dd_ccc_wdm_enu\Driver\Packages\Drivers\Display\W76A_INF\B_81503

In here you need 2 files aticalcl.dl_ & aticalrt.dl_ (you can use the 64bit versions too) Copy these to your folding dir, and open up a command prompt window here and type the following  (make sure you've deleted the amd dlls first):

expand aticalcl.dl_ aticalcl.dll
del aticalcl.dl_ -y
expand aticalrt.dl_ aticalrt.dll
del aticalrt.dl_ -y
ren aticalcl.dll amdcalcl.dll
ren aticalrt.dll amdcalrt.dll

Now here what makes it work, you have to use environment variables, which can be reached by going to your computer properties (Advanced System Properties) and goto the advanced tab, down at the bottom you'll see Environment Variables....  Add the following variables to System Variables:

Variable=Value
CAL_NO_FLUSH=1
BROOK_YIELD=2
FLUSH_INTERVAL=128
CAL_PRE_FLUSH=1


Then reboot your machine and Happy Folding.  I here this helps for smp folding as well.


----------



## MoonPig (Jul 4, 2009)

You might want to add pictures to help people out. Just a thought.


----------



## oily_17 (Jul 4, 2009)

Saw a post on this but they stated that you needed to use Cat 9.4 drivers and didn't mention copying the files across to the Folding folder.

Also some had to play about with the FLUSH_INTERVAL= ?? setting.


----------



## thraxed (Jul 4, 2009)

Alright here a screenshot to hopefully make this a little less painfull.


----------



## oily_17 (Jul 4, 2009)

thraxed - does this lower your CPU usage with using the 9.6 drivers as well ??


----------



## thraxed (Jul 4, 2009)

Now whats interesting is you can mix the dll so use 32bit for one fold and 64 bit for the other.  So you can fold 2x clients on one gpu.  Yeah does lower my cpu usage as well as raised my pdd a 1000 pts.


----------



## oily_17 (Jul 4, 2009)

Nice..thanks for posting this.

Will try this out when I get my 4870's back running, just waiting on some WC connections for them.

Will be nice not using all of two cores while Folding


----------



## BUCK NASTY (Jul 7, 2009)

thraxed said:


> Now whats interesting is you can mix the dll so use 32bit for one fold and 64 bit for the other.  *So you can fold 2x clients on one gpu*.  Yeah does lower my cpu usage as well as raised my pdd a 1000 pts.


Are you referring to X2 GPU's only? I can fold 2 clients on one GPU core, but combined PPD is always less than folding a single client. I am also only referring to *Nvidia Clients.*


----------



## thraxed (Jul 8, 2009)

BUCK NASTY said:


> Are you referring to X2 GPU's only? I can fold 2 clients on one GPU core, but combined PPD is always less than folding a single client. I am also only referring to *Nvidia Clients.*



Nah it should work with any ati card.  Though the environment variables should help improve nvidia clients.


----------



## thraxed (Jul 10, 2009)

Just thought I add my best combo for 9.6 folding  Use Cat 9.1 (aticacl.dl_ & aticalrt64.dl_) for Gpu 0 and 9.6 both 64 bit versions seems to work the best, still can get gpu 0 to be stable, but atleast it works for atleast 24 hours to get a couple folds in.   Anyone have a better solution for gpu0 folding?


----------



## stanhemi (Jul 11, 2009)

thraxed said:


> Just thought I add my best combo for 9.6 folding  Use Cat 9.1 (aticacl.dl_ & aticalrt64.dl_) for Gpu 0 and 9.6 both 64 bit versions seems to work the best, still can get gpu 0 to be stable, but atleast it works for atleast 24 hours to get a couple folds in.   Anyone have a better solution for gpu0 folding?




try with this flag maybe

first gpu: -gpu 0
second gpu: -forcegpu ati_r700 -gpu 1


----------



## thraxed (Jul 11, 2009)

i even tried forcing it as an ati_600 lol, thats the config I'm using for gpu0, just seems anything about >9.4  wont fold stablely on gpu 0.


----------



## stanhemi (Jul 11, 2009)

i read somewhere it only possible with xp are you using xp or vista?

edit: seem like a lot of people having issu with the second gpu of the 4870x2


----------



## thraxed (Jul 11, 2009)

To lazy to sign up for an ati developer account but was thinking maybe there a solution with stream sdk kit.


----------

