-forceasm & -advmethods flags
SimGuy
Ottawa, Canada
I know it's been asked a thousand and one times, but I'm going to ask it again.
What the heck are the "-forceasm" and "-advmethods" flags for? I know how to implement them, but I'm wondering what exactly they do and should I be running them on my folding systems?
Thanks. I'm back in the fold now, hoping to make back the ground I've lost over the last 4 months of non-production.
What the heck are the "-forceasm" and "-advmethods" flags for? I know how to implement them, but I'm wondering what exactly they do and should I be running them on my folding systems?
Thanks. I'm back in the fold now, hoping to make back the ground I've lost over the last 4 months of non-production.
0
Comments
"C:\Blah\FAH\F@H.exe" -advmethods -forceasm
Forceasm forces SSE on 3.25 and it forces 3DNow! on program version 3.24 (so 3.25 is alot faster on AthlonXPs due to the SSE speed boost)
ADVMethods signs you up for the higher point wu's but they are realistically beta work units and are potentially unstable and dangerous (so they say, but they never are).
NS
You will not get any beta WUs using advmethods.
There is a different flag for that.
On my AMD systems, I'm going to want to use -forceasm to force 3DNow (they are Slot A Athlon's, not XP's).
Right?
How do I put those flags to use?
Yes for 1, no for 2.
If you are using 3.25 then it will force SSE which they dont have. Just dont use -forceasm as I believe 3.25 does 3DNow! by default.
If not then just use 3.24 and use -forceasm with that instead.
NS
When you set up FireDeamon to do it, it will ask you what extra flags you want to use, just enter the "-whever" in there (without quotes).
NS
I'm using 3.24 and I'll get those flags in pronto.
Are you sure about that one?
I used to use those flags on these systems back with 3.14 and it worked with the enhancements
Er..... no you dont.
-advmethods and -forceasm have worked for a long time.
NS
Also, -forceasm on 3.25 forces the Athlon CPUs to use SSE instead of 3DNow!.
So, yeah, they'll work on previous versions, but not the way you want/expect.
Ah, you didnt say that before, but yeah, the one WU thing is annoying. Though I already stated the SSE thing.
There has been an issue with Linux for a while which they havnt fixed where 3.25 doesnt run (meaning you have to use 3.24) so XPs are stuck with just one SSE WU then 3DNow unless you restart it all the time. They really need to get it sorted out.
NS
It wouldn't be a secret then would it.
-forceasm = ?
-advmethods = ?
I have both switches enabled. Should I leave them on, or turn any off?
Thrax: leave them both on!
If you start dropping WUs on your Athlons then turn forceasm off.
It does help the cause b/c Stanford can release newer WUs quicker. But there are sacrifices as well.
Forceasm - forces assembly optimization on ALL CPUs. AMDs and Intels should use some optimizations without any flags at all until they run into stability. Then they will run with standard loops until forced on again. Thats why you use -forceasm, to make it turn back on.
AMDs - for 3.24 it runs default 3dnow! loops even with -forceasm. Thats because of some cores had problems with SSE optimzations, esp Bartons and Tbred Bs. Then stanford came out with v1.48 and v1.49 core_78 and v3.25 clients. The new cores made -forceasm force SSE on the first WU with client 3.24 and then 3dnow! on everyone after. The only way to get AMDs to run SSE all the time is with the 3.25 beta client and -froceasm. The ONLY change to 3.25 from 3.24 is the AMD and SSE thing. The ONLE THING!
Taken from Stanfords beta page: