Thank you for using the Lunatics Installer. Please read these notes before continuing. More extensive notes can be found in the [BOINC_Data]\projects\setiathome.berkeley.edu\docs folder and online in the respective Lunatics and SETI NC threads. Should you have any questions or problems - ask! Post in the Seti Number crunching forum: http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_forum.php?id=10 New this time - March 2012 -------------------------- All Astropulse applications updated to support the new AP v6.01 tasks. These applications will continue to run the legacy v5.05 tasks as needed. Please watch out for -------------------- Development work on SETI@Home Version 7 is under way. It will probably take several months to test and refine the applications, but once v7 is released, you will NEED TO UPGRADE AGAIN. Please keep an eye on the Message Boards. Release history --------------- v0.40 Support for AP v6.01 v0.39 Upgraded all MB applications v0.38 Added ATI support, upgraded CUDA application v0.37 Upgraded CUDA application to support Fermi-class GPUs v0.36 First public release Notes and recommendations ------------------------- ATTENTION - running this installer will remove ALL manual edits to app_info.xml. This includes, but is not limited to, beta applications, variables, entries, and options. If you have made such alterations, they need to be redone after using the installer, preferably before restarting BOINC, or you could lose work. CPU apps - MB: AKv8b2: AP: upgraded to r555/r557 If you have any doubt at all about what instruction sets your CPU supports, download CPU-Z from http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html You will usually find that the SSSE3x application is fastest on the Intel processors which support SSSE3x, except on dual-core CPUs with especially fast memory subsystems. We have indication, that on Intel i3, i5 and i7 processor series SSE3 may be the fastest variant. ATTENTION: If you have an AMD CPU running under 64 bit, you HAVE to choose the MB application labeled 'AMD', as the others will not work. If you are running an AMD CPU under 32 bit non-AMD labeled apps may or may not work. If the app is incompatible, you are likely to see tasks erroring out very quickly with 'output file absent' recorded in the log. The new r555/r557 AP applications support AP v6.01 and v5.05 work. If your CPU is only capable of SSE choose the r555 SSE application. If your CPU supports AVX (Intel Sandybridge and AMD Bulldozer, Windows 7 SP1) choose the r557 SSE2 build as it is faster. If you have a CPU with SSE2 and above but not AVX the r557 MAY be faster. We have indication that on most hosts r557 is faster but no guarantees. As always - your mileage may vary. NVidia GPU (CUDA) app - x41g_cuda32 For compatible cards see http://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-gpus Requires minimum CUDA 3.2 capable NVidia driver: 263.06 (260.99 on notebooks) Download drivers from http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us (or your national equivalent) Should run on all NVidia CUDA cards with at least 512MiB video RAM. Actual free memory required is in the region of 200-235MB, depending on driver and OS flavour. Running on a 256MiB card is just possible, but you will have to free up as much VRAM as possible, e.g. by disabling Aero. Used video RAM can be checked with GPU-Z downloadable from http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/2039/TechPowerUp_GPU-Z_v0.5.5.html Watch closely on GPU-Z and in BOINC manager if the application finds enough memory. Symptoms of insufficient memory are - in BOINC manager: tasks start up and run a few seconds then go to 'waiting to run' and the next task tries to start until practically the whole cache is waiting. - on GPU-Z: the sensor for memory shows used VRAM ramping up and almost immediately dropping again. Attention atm it appears that permanent insufficient memory throws the app into an infinite loop. In this case you will have to abort and uninstall. If in doubt ask for help on NC: http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_forum.php?id=10 To multithread on Fermi cards, find all instances of 1 in app_info.xml and decrease to 0.5 or 0.3. Again, if you are uncertain of how to do this correctly, ask on the above mentioned forum. x41g_cuda32 has been tested with and is safe to use on GTX 680 (Kepler) GPUs. ATI MB apps - r390; AP apps - r555 We offer the application in two different variants, depending on card: plain - for most HD4xxx owners and those with HD5xxx, HD6xxx and HD7xxx cards who suffer from driver incompatibilities. HD5 - for most if not all owners of HD5xxx GPUs, HD6xxx and HD7xxx GPUs. The ATI MB application will not work on ATI cards with workgroup size 128 (e.g. HD43xx). To check workgroupsize run CLinfo, downloadable (at present) from {http://boinc.berkeley.edu/dl/clinfo.zip} It will, however, probably work on HD53xx & HD63xx with workgroup size 128. If you have problems running the HD5 flavour (anything from reduced performance to BSOD), you should run the plain variant. Minimum required driver: Something that is OpenCL capable. You can check with GPU-Z (see above). Catalyst 10.7b with SDK Catalyst 10.10 Accelerated Parallel Processing (APP) Technology Edition The following drivers are known to be incompatible with the app: 11.10 and 11.11. On some drivers the app shows increased CPU usage. Drivers from 11.12 onwards work. First official driver for HD7xxx is 12.3. The recommended apps (r555 for Astropulse, r390 for MultiBeam) need OpenCL support from the ATI driver - for recent driver versions, look for a driver *with* APP or OpenCL listed. For compatible drivers see http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/Pages/index.aspx For cards, see http://developer.amd.com/gpu/AMDAPPSDK/pages/DriverCompatibility.aspx On most systems GPU-Z (see above) will tell you if your setup supports OpenCL. For cards without OpenCL support (from HD2xxxx on) use the 'hybrid' r555 Astropulse application. NB this is a combined CPU/GPU application and will only use the GPU for some of the calculations, while doing the rest on a CPU core. Minimum driver version Catalyst 9.x. General Notes: With Windows Vista and Windows 7, do not install BOINC in 'Service' or 'Protected Application Execution' mode for GPU crunching, and do not connect to a Vista/7 computer with Windows Remote Desktop while it is running a GPU application. Switching users can also cause the GPU app to fail [BOINC versions before 6.12.28] Tuning cmd line parameters: For AP: If you get lags or worse driver restarts, decrease unroll. If you run stable you can try to increase it. ffa_block should be a multiple of ffa_block_fetch. Start low e.g. -ffa_block 4096 -ffa_block_fetch 2048 and try increasing if it runs fine. Sticking to the power of 2 line at first can help. There will be a system specific best combination - too low slows you down, too high slows you down as well. Remember AP runtimes depend on blanking % so only compare runtimes on similar blanking %. For MB: other way round - if you experience lag or driver restarts increase -period_iteration_num In memoriam the Lunatics Installer Dudes and Dudette Jason G Richard Haselgrove Miep 20 March 2012