Linux VS Windows; Does OS matter for F@H?

[Gorgon]

15 hours ago, TVwazhere said:

So The folding month has ended, which means I'm going to be looking to start benchmarking Project ITNOS on a Window 7 HDD install, and maybe within a months time I'll try switching to Linux....

 

Man am I gonna need help when that day comes  

Happy to help. I've just ordered a new motherboard for Fold8, my new 2-slot folding rig. Hope to have the CPU and memory to get started within the month so I'll be writing up the Linux install using Ubuntu 18.04.

[TVwazhere]

I've begun gathering data for the Windows 7 HDD install

https://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/user_summary.php?s=&u=812207

 

I have both cards undervalued heavily for reduced power consumption. My main concern is replicating these setting in Linux, as I've read that Overclocking (or under clocking) isnt as straight forward as 

>download MSI afterburner

>input settings

[Gorgon]

On 12/3/2018 at 9:25 AM, TVwazhere said:

I've begun gathering data for the Windows 7 HDD install

https://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/user_summary.php?s=&u=812207

 

I have both cards undervalued heavily for reduced power consumption. My main concern is replicating these setting in Linux, as I've read that Overclocking (or under clocking) isnt as straight forward as 

>download MSI afterburner

>input settings

If you have X-Windows installed you can use the NVIDIA X Server Settings Utility to adjust Fands, Power Limits and Clocks like in Afterburner. On the command line the nvidia-settings utility can be used once you master its syntax.

[Gorgon]

I have a EVGA GTX 1060 6GB SC ACX 2 card installed on my new motherboard and Win 10 Pro 64 installed.

 

It is running at 2012-2025 Shader Clock and +800MHz Memory Clock. 3 WUs are completed already and I have it monitored by my Zabbix server. I have HFMnet running on my Desktop also monitoring the card so that will collect the PPD and points for the WUs completed.

 

I'm going to run it until tomorrow then install Ubuntu and run that with the same offsets for a day or two.

[TVwazhere]

On 12/8/2018 at 8:35 PM, Gorgon said:

I have a EVGA GTX 1060 6GB SC ACX 2 card installed on my new motherboard and Win 10 Pro 64 installed.

 

It is running at 2012-2025 Shader Clock and +800MHz Memory Clock. 3 WUs are completed already and I have it monitored by my Zabbix server. I have HFMnet running on my Desktop also monitoring the card so that will collect the PPD and points for the WUs completed.

 

I'm going to run it until tomorrow then install Ubuntu and run that with the same offsets for a day or two.

I actually had to lower some of my settings on my 970, under clocking so aggressively made it shut down a few times and restart going back to stock settings (which means more power consumption. I'm now only about 1250 (down from 1300 listed in my build log)

 

After fixing the stability though, I'm running a very solid average of 325k PPD (The exact average is 324,496.66 repeating)

 

I dont expect much fluctuation so long as everything is stable, but I want a solid amount of data to be sure.

[Gorgon]

Short Answer: No

 

Hardware:

Gigabyte Z370XP SLI

Pentium G5500

4GB G-Skill RipJaws V DDR4 2400 (Running at 2133MHz)

EVGA GTX 1060 6GB ACX2 Short-Board (06G-P4-6163-KR)

300W Power Supply

 

Windows 10 Pro 64-Bit versus Ubuntu 18.04 Desktop

Graphics (Shader) Clock 2012-2025MHz; Memory Clock +800MHz

 

 

The slightly slower times in Linux can likely be accounted for as the GPU clock in Linux was closer to 2012MHz where under Windows it was fairly consistently at 2025.

[TVwazhere]

11 hours ago, Gorgon said:

Short Answer: No

 

This is a very informative set of data, as I'm currently not tracking which projects my cards are doing (which is probably a better way of determining the actual differences between OS's vs. PPD averages) I'm going to continue tracking PPD anyways just in case

[Gorgon]

2 hours ago, TVwazhere said:

This is a very informative set of data, as I'm currently not tracking which projects my cards are doing (which is probably a better way of determining the actual differences between OS's vs. PPD averages) I'm going to continue tracking PPD anyways just in case

HFMnet is your friend

[TVwazhere]

3 minutes ago, Gorgon said:

HFMnet is your friend

Currently only using the F@H client (When I'm at my PC, real time) and XOC (when I'm not, every three hours) to keep tabs on my system. 

[Gorgon]

2 hours ago, TVwazhere said:

Currently only using the F@H client (When I'm at my PC, real time) and XOC (when I'm not, every three hours) to keep tabs on my system. 

HFMnet records all the WUs in a database you can query and export as csv files to import into Excel

[Gorgon]

How to Install HFMnet

 

[TVwazhere]

On 12/13/2018 at 1:51 PM, Gorgon said:

HFMnet records all the WUs in a database you can query and export as csv files to import into Excel

December stats are in. I averaged 327,453 between 12/4 and 12/31. @FloRolf just for the initial stats tag

I'm actually going to run a month of clean W10 on an SSD (as opposed to cluttered W7 on a 5400rpm HDD) to see if theres a difference, and then switch to linux for Feb. Mostly doing this because the last weekend of December I was gone and didnt get back til after New years, so I didnt wanna cram learning a new OS in. The last week of January I have off and I'll be home for all of it so I'll have plenty of time to adjust. 

 

@Ithanul I believe you stated recently that certain version of Linux like Ubuntu dont work with F@H?

 

[FloRolf]

1 hour ago, TVwazhere said:

December stats are in. I averaged 327,453 between 12/4 and 12/31. @FloRolf just for the initial stats tag

I'm actually going to run a month of clean W10 on an SSD (as opposed to cluttered W7 on a 5400rpm HDD) to see if theres a difference, and then switch to linux for Feb. Mostly doing this because the last weekend of December I was gone and didnt get back til after New years, so I didnt wanna cram learning a new OS in. The last week of January I have off and I'll be home for all of it so I'll have plenty of time to adjust. 

 

@Ithanul I believe you stated recently that certain version of Linux like Ubuntu dont work with F@H?

 

 

Thanks, keep me posted Bro

 

[Guest]

Generally speaking Linux should perform better for anything that isn't a videogame for a variety of reasons (raw CPU performance is better, maybe better memory handling and cpu schedulers???) but the ideal combination depends also on which software and hardware you are using as NVIDIA drivers are a bit of a pain 

If you are using ubuntu make sure to have the latest graphics drivers from the dedicated beta repository https://launchpad.net/~graphics-drivers/+archive/ubuntu/ppa since they are very old...
or if you are using AMD the latest mesa ones https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat/+archive/ubuntu/updates + kernel

 

[TVwazhere]

12 hours ago, Lukyp said:

If you are using ubuntu make sure to have the latest graphics drivers from the dedicated beta repository https://launchpad.net/~graphics-drivers/+archive/ubuntu/ppa since they are very old...
or if you are using AMD the latest mesa ones https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat/+archive/ubuntu/updates + kernel

Ubuntu is the "household name" I hear thrown around for Linux distros so for now that's gonna be the one I lean towards for now. 2019's gonna be a whole new learning experience for me.

[Gorgon]

On 1/2/2019 at 2:33 PM, TVwazhere said:

 

@Ithanul I believe you stated recently that certain version of Linux like Ubuntu dont work with F@H

 

They mentioned a lack of Python libraries in the then current version of Ubuntu.  Current versions have them.

 

Ubuntu works just fine.

 

I was planning a Linux build guide but haven’t done it for several reasons:

1. My testing showed that all other things being equal a Pascal card can perform just as good under Windows 10 as under Ubuntu 18.04
2. There is currently an issue with the 410.73 Nvidia Driver where when you have cool bits enabled you can’t use the command line to set the Graphics (Shader) or Memory Clocks offset for RTX Cards but it works for Pascal still. The NVidia GUI has to be used.
3. Theres already several pretty good guides out there. The one I found the most useful was Hiigaran’s (no I’m not a Brony)

Honestly, the only reasons I’m using Linux is I like a command line and I can turn off forced updates and, yes, the best reason I can instrument the hell out of it and graph data.

[Mattias Edeslatt]

That is some stat-pr0n right there 

[TVwazhere]

Halfway through January update. So far relatively on track. Sadly I had to tweak my 750ti more than I'd lie to since it was still experiencing fails when the power limit was at 77% (where the car would actually hit a voltage limit) I've since set it to 85% where it doesnt hit a voltage limit (GPU power is around 80% and the voltages are a few mV higher now) I dont think it's enough at this point to make a huge PPD difference, but i Did want to note the settings change from December. Jan 6th had to be omitted from the data due to the crash. 

 

If I had to draw a conclusion right now, an old win 7 on an HDD and a new win 10 on an SSD has a small, almost negligable difference in PPD, and @Gorgon's tracking of WU time/ points between Win 10 and Linux seems to support this. 

On 12/12/2018 at 9:08 PM, Gorgon said:

Short Answer: No

I still want to do a Linux install for February, because why the fuck not?

[TVwazhere]

Well shit

 

This is what I get for not having F@H remote client working, I have to manually check which I've been too lazy to do since it seemed stable. Perhaps we had a brief overnight power outage Monday from the Northeast storm....

 

Edit* As it turns out, the whole site is not logging any points gained for anyone. Crisis averted

Edited January 23, 2019 by TVwazhere

[TVwazhere]

I'm late with this (Blame Kingdom hearts 3 and the 56 hours I logged as of Saturday  ) @FloRolf

 

 

So the conclusion between Win 7 HDD and Win 10 SSD is...... Negligable. Note that while the average is almost 20k higher in the month of January, it omits any score under 150k. Including Jan 6th and Jan 24 would bring the average to 330,685 and adding Jan 24th (a day of down time) bring the average down to 319k. Also note the Total points for Each month were about 300k apart, meaning that 1/23 day being a goose egg made the difference in total points, (Though ironically anything under 330k for that day would actually bring the average down.)

 

Now to finally get my ass in gear and do what the title says.... Linux. Might take me a while to get set up though. 

[TVwazhere]

On 2/4/2019 at 3:56 PM, TVwazhere said:

Now to finally get my ass in gear and do what the title says.... Linux. Might take me a while to get set up though. 

Well It's been almost two months since I switched around storage and OS. Shame to say I just got too busy with other things in life and lost track of this project. However I imagine the conclusion would have been in line with what @Gorgon saw which was by work unit, there's little to no difference in PPD. I now realize my original test methodology was flawed in assuming each day would have a WU that was easy/difficult to complete as a WU one month from now (since WU's change over time). @FloRolf sorry if it wasnt as conclusive with evidence as promised  

[Gorgon]

12 hours ago, TVwazhere said:

Well It's been almost two months since I switched around storage and OS. Shame to say I just got too busy with other things in life and lost track of this project. However I imagine the conclusion would have been in line with what @Gorgon saw which was by work unit, there's little to no difference in PPD. I now realize my original test methodology was flawed in assuming each day would have a WU that was easy/difficult to complete as a WU one month from now (since WU's change over time). @FloRolf sorry if it wasnt as conclusive with evidence as promised  

Don't give up on Linux yet though. If you have a system that you can fold on 24x7 and don't need for other uses (i.e. gaming ) then Linux is easier to maintain in the long run.

 

The flip-side is, depending on your existing knowledge, it can be a steep learning curve.

[TVwazhere]

8 hours ago, Gorgon said:

Don't give up on Linux yet though. If you have a system that you can fold on 24x7 and don't need for other uses (i.e. gaming ) then Linux is easier to maintain in the long run.

 

The flip-side is, depending on your existing knowledge, it can be a steep learning curve.

I'm not going to give up on linux as a whole, I just wont be measuring the performance differences since I feel there's been a more scientific conclusion drawn already