F@H and GPU Acceleration

[Bastiaan_NL]

Hey guys,

 

there is an issue I've got with several apps in combination with F@H.

When the folding at home client is running and I start playing music on Spotify, open Steam to do whatever I need to do or have Corsair iCue running in the background I see the power consumption from the GPU drop drastically, which automatically increase the TPF and drops the PPD.

After looking into it I found out that it was caused by GPU acceleration which Spotify, Steam and iCue use (and many other apps).

For Spotify it was easy, you can simply uncheck the box and problem solved.

But for iCue and Steam I've not been able to fix it.

 

Does anyone know if there is a fix, that I can force F@H to use the card as much as it wants?

There must be something that tells F@H to slow down so the other software can use the GPU.. ​​​​

 

 

Here is a little example.

First block is idle

Second block is folding with nothing else running

Third block is steam and folding

Fourth block is back to folding.

[axipher]

Aside from setting the Folding@Home client to run at "Full" instead of "Medium", you would need to go in to those apps and turn off hardware acceleration if they let you.

 

Steam, Chrome and Discord all let you disable Hardware Acceleration in their settings. Keep in mind for Chrome that means YouTube and other video sites will use purely CPU to decode the video, so a 4k YouTube video might need 20-50% of your CPU depending on the CPU. It uses 40% on my Mobile i7-8850H to watch a 4k YouTube video.

[Bastiaan_NL]

Aside from setting the Folding@Home client to run at "Full" instead of "Medium", you would need to go in to those apps and turn off hardware acceleration if they let you.

 

Steam, Chrome and Discord all let you disable Hardware Acceleration in their settings. Keep in mind for Chrome that means YouTube and other video sites will use purely CPU to decode the video, so a 4k YouTube video might need 20-50% of your CPU depending on the CPU. It uses 40% on my Mobile i7-8850H to watch a 4k YouTube video.

 

Thanks for the reply!

I have the client at Full, also set the priority in task manager "above normal".

For any app that I could find the setting I have it turned off, but for the ones I can't find the setting it's a pain in the behinds..

Edited April 18, 2020 by Bastiaan_NL

[axipher]

 

Thanks for the reply!

I have the client at Full, also set the priority in task manager "above normal".

For any app that I could find the setting I have it turned off, but for the ones I can't find the setting it's a pain in the behinds..

 

So for work, there are a few older software for industrial PLC's and other instruments and control devices that are overly reliant on GPU acceleration, so I actually use the free version of VMWare Player with a Windows 7 VM to run that stuff without killing my main system's GPU performance.

 

I also run things like Discord and Chrome in the VM so that it's not installed directly on my work computer.

[Bastiaan_NL]

Sounds interesting, might give a VM a try.

Will have to look into it though, doing anything software related has been too long.

I prefer the hardware side of pc's

[ENTERPRISE]

Vm's via VMWARE are very simple. Aside from downloading and installing VMWARE, you will want to download an ISO of the operation system you are going to use in the Vm.

 

These are readily available on the internet but for the sake of simplicity you can download Windows 10 ISO here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10ISO

 

If you are going for Windows 7, I use this as my source: https://www.heidoc.net/joomla/technology-science/microsoft/67-microsoft-windows-iso-download-tool

 

Fantastic tool and can also Grab Windows 10 if needs be.

 

Once you run VMWARE it guides you through the process, much of it is self explanatory. The good thing is you get to configure the Vm as if you are building a PC...sort of, as you can configure what anount resources it uses from your hardware, what it can and cannot use etc. You will have some fun.

 

Vm's are a big part of I.T life, so gaining experience with it will help for the future. Once you install one, I promise you, you will think of other things you could do in a VM rather than doing it on your host operating system

[Bastiaan_NL]

Thanks a lot! Giving it a try as we speak ?

 

Once you install one, I promise you, you will think of other things you could do in a VM rather than doing it on your host operating system

?

[ENTERPRISE]

No probs bud. If you get stuck then give us a shout

[Bastiaan_NL]

I've got the VM running, did a few tests and it seems to be working properly ?

This wont be a fix for every gpu using app, but at least I can run a bunch of them off of the VM!

Thanks again guys :cheers:

[axipher]

I've got the VM running, did a few tests and it seems to be working properly ?

This wont be a fix for every gpu using app, but at least I can run a bunch of them off of the VM!

Thanks again guys :cheers:

 

No problem, VM's are definitely underrated, and in a growing computer and software controlled world, I feel everyone should strive to have some basic IT training.

 

We use so many VM's at work for different software packages that need certain versions of Windows, or use weird versions of .NET or VBA that can be broken by newer official versions Windows Updates or other programs being installed that have newer versions bundled with them.

[ENTERPRISE]

Another great thing about VM's is they are super easy to restore should something untoward happen. In the business world it is better to part out your I.T services across VM's. The good thing is if one goes down, then you are only missing 1 or 2 business services as opposed to all of them if you were keeping all your services on the host OS or a single VM. Also worth noting that in the server world, you cannot install some applications alongside a domain controller (such as some backups applications) as such VM's come into play as you can have the DC on one VM and the backup application on another VM, while all on the same physical system. Negates the needs of having to have 2 or 3 physical machines, you now only need the one machine with a few VM's running.

[Bastiaan_NL]

 

No problem, VM's are definitely underrated, and in a growing computer and software controlled world, I feel everyone should strive to have some basic IT training.

 

We use so many VM's at work for different software packages that need certain versions of Windows, or use weird versions of .NET or VBA that can be broken by newer official versions Windows Updates or other programs being installed that have newer versions bundled with them.

I've been using a VM before, but that is about 10 years ago.

In the ship diesel engine world there is no need for IT training ?

And yes, I like learning things like this and using them or playing with it, who knows when you need it for real!

 

Another great thing about VM's is they are super easy to restore should something untoward happen. In the business world it is better to part out your I.T services across VM's. The good thing is if one goes down, then you are only missing 1 or 2 business services as opposed to all of them if you were keeping all your services on the host OS or a single VM. Also worth noting that in the server world, you cannot install some applications alongside a domain controller (such as some backups applications) as such VM's come into play as you can have the DC on one VM and the backup application on another VM, while all on the same physical system. Negates the needs of having to have 2 or 3 physical machines, you now only need the one machine with a few VM's running.

I didn't think of it that way, but that's a good reason to use them.

Makes a system safe and easy to work on and saves some money too!