Best ways to optimise and make folding efficient and fast
yagga
Havn't you heard? ... New
I would like any and all input on what I need to do to make my folding efficient and fast. I am running a P4 HT Northwood system and that is all I am interested in now, but comparisons are good too.
Some points of interest, gromacs vs folding cores, different core types, what's a tinker, what how and when info about tags, et cetera.
I know there was some information in the sticky, but I didn't really understand it, basically I need to be treated like I have never heard of these things. I have heard of them, just never understood them.
Some points of interest, gromacs vs folding cores, different core types, what's a tinker, what how and when info about tags, et cetera.
I know there was some information in the sticky, but I didn't really understand it, basically I need to be treated like I have never heard of these things. I have heard of them, just never understood them.
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Comments
Tinkers: These work very well on Athlons.
Gromacs: These work very well on Pentium 4s.
Preferred Tags:
I get good production with -forceSSE -advmethods and -service on my Athlons. It makes sure that SSE is always being used (Fast), special extensions are being used (Also fast), and that it doesn't shut down when I log off (The -service flag).
The flags Thrax mentioned are good ones to use.
If its an HT P4 run 2 clients, the second must be a console version. Put second client in its own folder. Use the -local switch as well as the others. Say yes to adv options when setting up and make sure to give it a machine ID of 2 since the first client will have an ID of one.
Can I also choose whether I want tinkers or gromacs? Is that the option when you first start the client up and type in your name, team, etc?
Is there any difference with the folding/genome option? Is one better than the other?
I've always used them on shortcuts, but I can't say how it's done when you install as a service as I've never set mine up that way. My rigs only use 1 profile and are never logged off. Someone who has the client running as a service can fill you in about that.
No, there is no option to just run Gromacs. By running the -advmethods switch, you do seem to still get mostly Gromacs but it's not guarranteed.
With GAH set in options, you will draw work with no deadline, Timeless Tinkers or Timeless Gromacs work. Presently the problem with that setting is that there are only a limited number of these timeless wu's in the pipeline, so you still have a good chance of getting regular production work, which includes plenty of Tinkers. You can get up to 10 wu's at a time with it set up with gah set, so I've heard. Since all my rigs have net access, I haven't set any clients to work under this option.
Also, no preference and FAH option won't matter then, just leave it as no preference?
Marc, it matters on a P4 just like on an AMD. If it gets shut down inappropriately, the next time the client starts it will start without using SSE/SSE2 unless you have -forceasm.
True, there's no 3DNow! on Intel procs, but if you shut down an AMD without shutting the client being shut down first, it will start using no assembly optimizations, just like an Intel. The client doesn't default to using 3DNow!, it defaults to no optimizations.
The -forcesse switch came about soley due to the lockup problems some XP procs were having while using SSE to process gromacs work. Since not all XP's were affected, Stanford introduced the -forcesse switch to make the client use SSE instead of 3DNow!. Since they fixed that problem with the way the core was using SSE, there is no need for any proc to run 3DNow! if it also supports SSE. As a matter of fact, the support for the -forcesse switch has been dropped altogether in the beta version 5 client, so you better get used to using the -forceasm switch for in the future.
so in one simple list, which and all flags can be used which won't slow folding down on Intel, and on AMD (in a separate list)
And if I don't log off the computer than the -local won't help at all?
And does -service actually make it turn on automatically when the pc is started?
As for the flags ...I only use -service on my amd.
Basically, how would I go about setting up a service without 3rd party software on the P4 HT machine? I read one quide but in the command prompt I was supposed to type cd\fold and it said it couldn't find the directory.
I don't know if this should go in a new thread or if it can be resolved quickly, but I think I am good on the tag business, for the tweaks anyway. Anything that relates to the service I might need a brain refreshment for.
KF
The -service flag allows the client to keep running after you log off, but you must install it as a service for that to happen. You can use srvany to set up multiple clients, because programs like FireDaemon let you set up only 1 service if you use the free version.
-verbosity 9 helps, because when you run it as a service the window isn't there, so looking into the log lets you see what you've missed, if anything goes wrong.
-local makes the client work out of it's own directory. if you have multiple clients on one computer, this is required.
Worked PERFECTLY from the start, great link! Now I might have to get my friends pc running it as a service, maybe when they arn't looking?
How would I go about uninstalling the service? I would also like to point out that I stopped the service and started the folding up manually and it restarted at the zero mark again, does something like this normally happen? There was some error, too, on one of the 2 clients.
look in your folder for a file called remove_service.cmd
with the new core_78 v1.66 ...when you stop the client and then restart it always shows zero mark but the next mark usually shows the correct mark unless you just started afresh wu. So yes it may be normal.
What kind of error?
And with the restarting I lost my previous wu.
I forget the error, because I wanted to just fold, but I have never got it before for any other reason.