GPU Configuration Advice

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Squirrel118
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Feb 24, 2022 12:39 pm

GPU Configuration Advice

Post by Squirrel118 »

My laptop specs are Ryzen 5 3500U and Radeon Vega 8 APU. F@H is assigning proteins which rewards around 3000-5000 credits to my cpu and 75,000 credits to my gpu, and estimated completion time is around 18 hours and 4 days respectively. My gpu only completes around 50% of the project before time runs out, thus it seems that it's not rewarding any or part of the points for that. Is there a way to sort of swap the tasks given to my hardware?
JimboPalmer
Posts: 2573
Joined: Mon Feb 16, 2009 4:12 am
Location: Greenwood MS USA

Re: GPU Configuration Advice

Post by JimboPalmer »

Welcome to Folding@Home!

You may want to pause the CPU and run a Work Unit on the GPU alone. ( This is easy in the Advanced Control called FAHControl in the start menu)
If that works, you just disable the CPU and get the benefits of the GPU, if it still won't complete, you can disable the GPU in F@H and save power.


https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/r ... ga-8.c3042
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BobWilliams757
Posts: 493
Joined: Fri Apr 03, 2020 2:22 pm
Hardware configuration: ASRock X370M PRO4
Ryzen 2400G APU
16 GB DDR4-3200
MSI GTX 1660 Super Gaming X

Re: GPU Configuration Advice

Post by BobWilliams757 »

Good advice above. These processors loose efficiency when folding on both CPU and GPU at the same time, and it's not really a predictable performance drop. I think it varies with the atom count of the WU's, as well as which ones as just processor hungry and such. Almost all the time, overall PPD efficiency and power efficiency increases, but which side takes the hit (CPU or GPU) seems to vary. With the A8 core now, it seems the GPU usually takes more of a performance hit.

Vega 8 running without the CPU folding should be decent, probably good for 65-70K PPD on average, depending on the WU's you get. With all the higher atom count WU's these days, sometimes PPD will drop quite a bit though. They really like the small atom count GPU units, but they seem few and far between.
Fold them if you get them!
Squirrel118
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Feb 24, 2022 12:39 pm

Re: GPU Configuration Advice

Post by Squirrel118 »

Thanks Jimbo and Bob, I'll spend a few days testing it out, so I'll update you after that. Are there any particular parameters I can set or something to boost efficiency or reduce power consumption, things like that?
JimboPalmer
Posts: 2573
Joined: Mon Feb 16, 2009 4:12 am
Location: Greenwood MS USA

Re: GPU Configuration Advice

Post by JimboPalmer »

Not inside F@H for the GPU, on a CPU you can diminish the the number of threads to reduce power and heat. From F@H’s perspective a GPU is on or off.

Outside of F@H, MSI Afterburner can tune GPUs.

https://www.msi.com/Landing/afterburner/graphics-cards
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psaam0001
Posts: 383
Joined: Mon May 18, 2020 2:02 am
Location: Ruckersville, Virginia, USA

Re: GPU Configuration Advice

Post by psaam0001 »

One bit of advice (this applies to desktop CPU's with the AMD iGPU): Don't try folding on that AMD iGPU, and an NVidia card together. I have found that the results are not very good at this time.

Paul
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