Can I increase priority?
entropy
Yah-Der-Hey (Wisconsin)
Can i increase [email="f@h's"]f@h's[/email] thread priority? and i don't mean by right clicking it in task manager, as apparently that doesn't work. basically, when i'm asleep or at school or whatever, i want my comp to have a migraine from crunching wu's. since the only things i ever leave running are ad blocker, av, msgr, mbm5 and [email="f@h"]f@h[/email] in one form or another, i think there's a lot of untapped potential. or wouldn't making it a priority decrease wu time?
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people also normally leave it at low priority so that f@h does not steal cpu cycles from programs that need it (eg games, video editing etc)
hope that helps..
When you are assigned a Gromac it will automatically download core 78 for you.
gromacs are better on yours ...simply add the -advmethods flag to request more gromacs. In your shortchut properties where you see the path and client add like this "c:\f@h\FAH4Console.exe" -advmethods ...if you don't have the quotes then don't worry about them just put the -advmethods afterwards with a space.
You are right marc, BUT, most home users do other things with their computers. IF you want your box usable, since the clients are made to be low or dile-only priority processes unless you force them to be servcies and use console clients totally, two at 100 with normal or higher priority set in the Tesk Manager can steal performance away from the things most users also want to be able to do.
On my Prescott, I ended up experimentally doing this:
One client, run as console, is set to 98%. One client, again a console, is set to 97%. Both run as normal or lower process priority as set in task Manager. IF I set higher percentages OR higher priorities, I can only fold and do nothing else reasonably well and the clients break if swapped to HD for more time than 1.5 times the frame calc time for any one WU. I played a LOT with client settings, and that is why my pointages fluxed. I started with a graphical client and a xconsoel, and get better performance out of two pure clients run as consoles on the Prescott than with one graphical and one console, and overall more stable performance with the limits as above. AND, I do not use the default XP theme, I use the old classical theme that is much less graphics intense as the normal theme uses lots of vector things by default.
If the FPU side of any processor pipe is loaded, your performance of other things than folding which use vectors will suffer, and most fonts these days are vector fonts, lots of the default or third party XP themes use vector graphics by default, and Double Gromacs work will suffer a lot. Gromacs work will suffer some (not as much as far as pure drop in productivity).
Tinker will suffer least with more vector things in use by user at same time, BUT on a Prescott Tinker calcs are MUCH slower than on older boxes given the free time slice rates available on Prescott and Northwood and Opteron and Athlon FX. All these are more capable of FPU than ALU pure math, proportionately in terms of the deliberate design in them to process vector stuff better.
Enter in teh effects of the efficiency adjustments being introduced to folding and the vector advantages and the tinker disadvantages, and you get this:
Lower efficency and longer production yeilds more less effective WUs for this processor family, all teh 64 bits do this, and the advanced 32 bits do this. How??? If efficiency goes down, you get smller WUs that are gromacs, not SSE2 tuned, and more cdependent on more primitive vector methods. The more you get, the lower your efficiency and the poorer your stable production and your proiduction will trend DOWNWARD as folding adjusts dynamically to give you simpler things to calc when your computer produces less work. Older boxes will be both more stable for pure folding and over longer times will produce more than new boxes that sometimes fold or fold unstablely, UNLESS the new pure folding boxes are tuned to keep effieiency overall high. I get an average efficiency after almost two seeks of folding on prescott of about 96 percent with two clients on mostly.
I do desktop publishing, have an accounting program that I set up to use minimal graphics, and I do many other things that need the FPU side of my CPU. I get medium suized Gromacs overall, and USE the -advmethods switch with version 4.01 of the windows console client in the simplest way I have been able to figure out, and have minimal GUI graphics load also. BECAUSe of efficiency, I have found my production goes up with a 98% settign and a 97% setting compared to playing with settigns when running apps, and lets me do what I need to do on my other-work-also boxes.
Funny thing, comparing processes across platforms of O\S, Linux folds better than XP per pipe. If the O\Ss folding prod was the same, I should be getting 3X the Northwood-on Linux prod for total prod per day, but I get about 2.2-2.5X (in total prod) over three day chunking on average. Both boxes have Intel CPUs, same BIOS rev on same mobo rev and subrev and model and the PRESCOTT box has faster RAM adn amore effective video card-- neither box has more internal things than other, both have same models of HD in them. I have stripped autorunning of about 1\4 the services that prove to improve folding by over a day's run time with experimental testing of shutting off service process trees, on the Prescott box. And, I tune for useablility for what I need to do AND points balance. Both boxes are running stable enough that they can fold about 23.5\7 now.
If I wanted a dedicated folding box, it would have Linux on it. System overhead averages .1 PERCENT of the Northwood's time slices. I set this up to compare Northwood versus Prescott, and Linux versus XP. AMking XP less FPU using increases prod, and I have the same graphics ability as to usablility on Linux while at same time uasing the most resource hungry GUI avilable for Linux (KDE). And Linux on Northwood still outproduces with one pipe what one pipe of Prescott produces with XP running. Next step will be to convert to Linux on the Prescott, after I find a good way to run Windows apps within LINUX. Enterprise folks are using CrossoverOffice to do this now-- but I do not right now have the funds to license that product yet on top of what I need to license Windows software legally to do what I have to do effectively now. Then I will have straight apples-to-apples, but so far the trending favors Linux vs XP.
Um, do not delete-- there is a way to get the client to edit it for you. Run either console with the -local -configonly switches once, then change what you want, machine ID might be under advanced options, so if you do not see it before you get the qusetion about advanced options, tell it y or yes to go into those. With that switch with only on the end, it exits after a config, so just restart it and things will progress from there with new info written right-- and since it will read old file as it goes, yhou will not have to retype all the info again, just tap enter key if things are right and chenge what you want changed.
The problem is folding uses machine ID to track points too, if you have two consoles runnign and buith have same ID for machine, you may only get one console's worth of points sometimes-- let's just say, use unique machine IDs per console or client on your folding ID, or risk not getting all the points you deserve as the acceptance servers might get a tib confused, along with the stats server at folding.
In theory you can edit the client config if you leave all the special characters in and do not let your editor save as anything except DOS ASCII, but easier to learn how to configure client now. NICE thing is a machine ID change while a WU is partly done will not trigger a WU reload and loss of partly folded one, and deleting things CAN make this happen, and a corrupted client.cfg can really make for a mess. Try never to delete the client.cfg file, and if you can make the console client do it at least partly for you with a program flag, why not, it is easier. While you are at it, double-check yourself as to folding ID entered right and spelled right, and team number right, OK???
While there IS a way to run this and continue folding, I tend to just config, then restart client. Last time I put the -config switch in a .bat I forgot to take it out-- then later did it in a shortcut, but that is a different story.... Silly me immediately got out of the console window (this was a linux box and that O\S has so many console ways and means it is not funny-- linux does not care what extension a runnable file has, so long as you tell Linux it IS executable locally to machine), then went on my way, came back to the console which I had used three hours later and found the client patiently waiting for the answer to the first config question.... Let's say I was much newer at folding then and had just plain brain-farted that....
Figured I would toss that last part in for grins, one of the fun things about folding is ribbing each other SOME and learning about each other's mistakes so as not to make them also....
Sorry John should have taken time to read your post first.
if you have more than one instance of f@h on each single machine then you name them
machineID=1
machineID=2
machineID=3 and so on in that order on each machine up to 8 which is max.
as for the rest you should be ok.
"[settings], username=Leonardo,team=93, asknet=no, machineid=1, local=46, [http], active=no, host=localhost, port=8080, usereg=yes,[clienttype] type=1..."
Edit "machineid=~" to the number you wish for both client.cfg files.
Ok, I actually use CMD.exe windows and the client logs to track. I have never run the screensaver. The reason it still works is this: consoel and client will recreate the client.cfg for itself if you delete it, with a default config. problem is, that default rebuilt config can yeild this:
Points go to:
ID: Anonymous
Team: Default
Machine ID: 1
Screensaver works for mostly glitz, and with consoles the easiect way to t alk at them is in a CMD.exe session in Windows of 2000 or XP type, or a COMMAND.exe session for earlier Windows.
What I have, normally, on my taskbar, is TWO minimized CMD.exe widnow markers. I click those boxes to open, and clcik the box on taskbar to minimize (clicking the taskbar thing is a TOGGLE action, on to off, or off to on, on gets nomral window disoplayed, off gets you a box that is raised-edge and minimizes the CMD.exe Window.
The screensaver, to display the WUs, actually uses vector graphics time on the CPU to do so. Consoles cannot use this time. Consoles fold faster if no screensaver is used, by a bit that adds up as you fold for longer times. While it is nice to hae, when I tune my boxes, they do not run screensavers all the time, they run them for a while and then the BIOS adn XP's power management shut down the screensaver. Then the clients have the extra edge of not competing with a screensaver and being able to use the tiem the screensaver needs from the CPU in order to function.
Some day, will post an exact procedure to set up consoles and run in such a way as to use minimal overhead and run just multiple consoles ALMOST without using the FPU side of the CPU at all due to folding client O\H, and do so automatically, as I have found such a way-- in essence, it is a way that will let you have things run on any user login, not get the console shutting down when XP logs you off and goes to the login screen, and let you look in on your pure console runs with a click for each console. I do not use Firedaemon, and the bats load up and open one CMD.exe Window each after a reboot or an XP restart. Technically, I could start them minimized, but like to see visually that they have loaded and are folding before I minimize them.
Actually, almost no matter how long my XP has been not showing a screensaver or just running with no user input, I also never get an XP user login screen here. It just comes back up right to desktop. Since the box runs 24\7, I figured I might just as well REALLY DETAIL TUNE it for fast-response 24\7 use.
If anyone wants this excruciatingly precise install outline, just ask, I will put a higher priority on making a web page on my site that outlines this exact process. I have XP Pro, and all Home needs to do is be able to is run multiple CMD sessions at once AND be able to run consoles for all users for this to work. Then you all can just link to it when you want it. I know this install process works for Pro. You do not need a third party thing to run two consoles with XP Pro. Period.