Just bought a new PC (Q6600, 9800GTX+). I usually let BIONC run all the time, but with CUDA Apps and the noisy fan of the 9800GTX+ Graphics Card the PC becomes very loud. The CPU Fan is really quiet, it is just the GPU Fan. If i turn of BOINC, the GPU Temp drops and the GPU Fan falls silent.
So I wonder, if it is possible to run CUDA apps only after a specified time (away time), while the CPU Apps stay active all the time?

Not in the present BOINC version. Perhaps in a future version, if you make it a request.

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I've made ticket [trac]#801[/trac] with the enhancement request.

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Considering how much electricity GPUs use (and consequently how much they heat), sometimes I wonder if they really are faster than CPUs (if measured in performance per watt).

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Considering how much electricity GPUs use (and consequently how much they heat), sometimes I wonder if they really are faster than CPUs (if measured in performance per watt).

Umm yes have to agree with you on that. A 9800GT can pull up to 105 watts. Thats as bad as a quad core, which slower will do 4 at a time in about double the time for the same wattage (well for seti anyway).

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MarkJ

After using GPUGrid for a while, i think this request could be "optimized".
I replaced my old 9800GTX+ with an Asus EN98000GTX+ Dark Knight, which has a silent FAN on it. So i could run BOINC allways, but there is one situation where i dont want to have any crunching application in my GPU Memory: When I am gaming.
I found out, that with <exclusive_app> in cc_config.xml (http://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/Client_configuration) there is a option to stop BOINC from crunching, if there is a game executable running. This is definitely a good start.
But i have some suggestions:
1. It should be configurable with the BOINC Manager
2. An option which just stops crunching on the GPU would be nice
3. An integration with the BOINC account managers, so the user could setup some template configurations, share them among themselves, and activate them on their BOINC clients.
4. The "exclusive apps" should be categorized (eg. Games, Movie Players, CAD Applications)


What do you think?

Flow

1. It should be configurable with the BOINC Manager

Make the code, send it to the developers and they'll see if they want to add it. It's how it goes in BOINC world. ;-)

2. An option which just stops crunching on the GPU would be nice

Already requested in ticket [trac]#842[/trac]

3. An integration with the BOINC account managers, so the user could setup some template configurations, share them among themselves, and activate them on their BOINC clients.

You should ask the Account Manager maintainers for that.

4. The "exclusive apps" should be categorized (eg. Games, Movie Players, CAD Applications)

Why? Now you just fill in what application should be exclusive. Isn't that easier? How many different exclusive_app flags do you want to choose from in the end? And what then if your app isn't among them, turn back to just the exclusive_app flag that we started off with? Then we can just stay at that on and wish for the exclusive_GPU_app flag as extra.

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2. An option which just stops crunching on the GPU would be nice

Already requested in ticket [trac]#842[/trac]

I was not aware of that ticket. But it goes into the right direction. BOINC needs separated settings for CPU and GPU crunching. And options to suspend working (on CPU and/or GPU) if some defined executables are running.

3. An integration with the BOINC account managers, so the user could setup some template configurations, share them among themselves, and activate them on their BOINC clients.

You should ask the Account Manager maintainers for that.

I think the BOINC dev´s first need to implement the basic options.

4. The "exclusive apps" should be categorized (eg. Games, Movie Players, CAD Applications)

Why? Now you just fill in what application should be exclusive. Isn't that easier? How many different exclusive_app flags do you want to choose from in the end? [...]

Well, my ideal conception would be a menu in BAM with predefined "exclusive app" templates, which could contain for exmaple, well-known game .exe files. So that lazy persons (like me), could just select the template in BAM, instead of searching and defining their game files. Which could be a lot, at least in my case. ;-)
The "exlusive_app" templates should also be separated between CPU and CoProcessor/GPU crunching.
IMHO the exclusive_app tag in cc_config isn´t really the right way to handle this situation.

Flow

2. An option which just stops crunching on the GPU would be nice

Flow

There is a cc_config option to prevent using the gpu. From the wiki

<no_gpus>
If 1, don't use GPUs even if they're present. New in 6.6

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MarkJ