Folding@Home GPU

[Dave Baumann]

No, is not ready yet, but they still appear to be working on it and getting closer:

http://folding.stanford.edu/FAQ-highperformance.html

April 2006 We and our collaborators have submitted our first folding on GPU papers to the Supercomputing 2006 meeting. The results will be publically available at a later date. We are now working to refine the algorithms as well as make the code suitable for running on FAH. One of the big challenges for FAH deployment will be the differences in drivers on donors machines. However, we now have a plan for this and so we are starting to make plans for porting to FAH. We note that the port may take a while to debug (and we will want to do a great deal of internal testing before releasing such a different type of port).

[Geo]

Sweet. Do we think we'll be able to use a single-gpu for this? What I have in mind is, say, my X1900XT doing regular business stuff with the 2d engine (browsers, office apps, etc) while the 3D core cranks away at FAH. It hasn't been clear to me if that scenario would work --the references I've seen seem more aimed at using your second SLI/Xfire gpu for this kind of thing.

[RancidLunchmeat]

Huh. Interesting. So if this goes through, it would be useful to upgrade the 5200U that's currently in my folding computer to the 5900NU that's just sitting in a box doing nothing?

[poopypoo]

awesome, but all of a sudden the power draw on my folding pcs will triple >_<;;;

[Gnerma]

My X1800 GTO is waiting hungrily. I've (http://vspx27.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=userpage&username=Gnerma) been a FAH beta tester for going on three years now so hopefully the testers see the GPU client this year.

[ivzk]

Is GPU folding only going to be available on the x1800 and above cards on the ATI side? I have a x800xt I wouldn't mind putting to good use as my gaming time has dropped quite steeply.

[Dave Baumann]

I should imagine it will operate on all of the X1000 series. just that X1800 was released first. Folding@home requires FP32 processing which negates proir processors because of the FP24 ALU's.

[ivzk]

Thanks Dave

[Gnerma]

May 2006 We have started building a GPU cluster to test the GPU port of FAH/Gromacs and to get some initial results to make sure that everything is working well. Before putting this into FAH, we need to make sure that both the science is validated (we get the right answers, only quicker!) and that the GPUs are up to being run 24x7 on FAH. I'm most concerned about the latter point and so this "burn in" test will be important. Assuming all goes well, we'll start the porting to FAH, with the hope (but not an official release date) to release this by the end of the 2006 calendar year.

[Dave Baumann]

I can't remember where it was but someone has run some tests on an X1900 and found out that all the ALU's running at full pelt exceeds the thermal capabilities of the PCB! I suspect that there may also be longevity issues all around when applications are making use of the processors outside of games (I'm keen to see what manufacturers do when Vista is actually shipping here).

[Rys]

That was one of the guys working with Mike at Stanford. At least he reported the fact. But then I don't think the F@H shaders would execute in such a time span either.....

[Jawed]

It was Jeremy Sugerman:

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showpost.php?p=749972&postcount=52

And Mike followed up:

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showpost.php?p=750534&postcount=65

They're running "multi-minute" single pass shaders and running for days at a time. So I guess that was a report about actively testing GPGPU F@H.

Jawed

[Guden Oden]

Everybody's just talking about ATi in this thread, what about us with NV cards? I sure hope my 6800 can do it... And I hope F@H backs off the GPU when I start a 3D application, ugh! :)

Also, I hope the GPU and CPU can run side-by-side, that'd be real sweet.

[Geo]

August 2006 We're running on the cluster and starting to ramp up. Vishal's new method to build cores should yield a FAH core soon, but it will take a lot of Q&A (GPU folding is much more sensitive to machine configuration) so it will still take some time before we release the core. It's pretty exciting for us to see the calculation racing away on the GPU cluster! Prof. Pande also formally announced FAH's GPU client at his award lecture at the Protein Society meeting, with a great response for the GPU work. We will be making a more formal announcement of the GPU client and some other surprises relatively soon. Note the update above regarding GPUs -- we currently plan to support only recent generation ATI GPUs (see above).

We are beta testing the ATI GPU client software internally at the moment and will likely announce an open beta in four to five weeks (end of September).

Won't be long now!

[Arwin]

Would that maybe also mean we might see an 360 Live Arcade version? That wouldn't be a bad idea, would it?

[mckmas8808]

Would that maybe also mean we might see an 360 Live Arcade version? That wouldn't be a bad idea, would it?


What about a PS3 verison? You know the PS3 already has this right?

[Arwin]

What about a PS3 verison? You know the PS3 already has this right?

If you had checked that other thread you would have known. ;)

I'm already such a big PS3 fan, I thought that once in a while I give some kind attention to the 360. ;) The 360 has ATI graphics, so it seemed more on-topic than bringing in the PS3 which already has a thread of its own.