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Number crunching :
Will switching from 32-bit OS to 64-bit OS help?
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Marcusjohn Send message Joined: 27 Mar 00 Posts: 5 Credit: 3,952,387 RAC: 2 |
I have also run every version of windows since dos 2.0. Windows 7 is much more stable than Vista, which wouldn't install nor use my home internet at the time. I do get bluescreens, but it almost always comes down to a hardware problem, such as memory, video, or an old motherboard. I keep my systems for a very long time and use them for family units. Windows 8 just wasn't productive for me. The interface was weak, and designed for people who only use one tile at a time. I use a lot of windows, and run VMWare workstation to keep older systems running. But I think the future is Linux. It has so much more potential. It is very stable. I have run every version of Ubuntu. Linux has much better tools. It has more system tools than one can count. And Google search solves almost any problem. Windows problems are hidden in proprietary routines that are opaque to all analysis except for inputs and outputs, using things like process explorer. But, what is faster for crunching, Windows or Linux? I like Ubuntu. It works for me. I just don't know which is faster for science. Windows is faster for getting simple things done. But, if I needed 100,000 blades running servers, for a big cluster, there is only one answer. Windows licences are very expensive. Linux claims it for sure. John. |
Jorge Send message Joined: 20 Nov 03 Posts: 37 Credit: 14,722 RAC: 0 |
No need to worry about Windows updates if you have Windows 7 or greater. In the first year of the Windows 10 release, the OS will be a free upgrade. No need to buy it. The same goes with future versions. Once it is available, it should come with a "Security Update" or other notice through the update system on Windows 7, 8, 8.1. |
Jorge Send message Joined: 20 Nov 03 Posts: 37 Credit: 14,722 RAC: 0 |
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Wedge009 Send message Joined: 3 Apr 99 Posts: 451 Credit: 431,396,357 RAC: 553 |
I won't get into the subjective debate of what is the 'better/best' operating system. But from my experience in contributing to S@h, I notice the optimised applications for Windows are generally better maintained - there are more people available to test and compile the applications for Windows than for Linux. Edit: Maybe not such a big deal for most of you, but from what I've seen it's very difficult to get both AMD and NV's proprietary drivers to co-exist on a Linux system - necessary for BOINC to use the GPUs. This is not an issue with Windows. Soli Deo Gloria |
Mr. Kevvy Send message Joined: 15 May 99 Posts: 3776 Credit: 1,114,826,392 RAC: 3,319 |
Now that I think of it, there are two problems that I constantly and regularly used to have with the "Beater Crunchers" with XP that I have yet to experience once since reimaging them with 7 (32-bit for both) and that did actually negatively affect crunching performance. Your mileage may vary of course... personal experience only: First, every few weeks, they would exhaust some sort of system resource (I don't think it was memory... handles perhaps?) and every work unit would crash, menus wouldn't display properly, and I'd even get "Access Denied" trying to reboot. This was a definite detriment to crunching as it would lose all the work units in progress (very sad with the AP ones with >10 hours on them) plus being unable to do anything more and sitting idle if this wasn't caught. It happened on all of the XP boxes and pretty regularly. Of course as luck would have it the cycle time was just shy of the monthly "Patch Tuesday" which is the only time they were ever rebooted, and mostly then just to power down to blow the dust out of them. So my long uptimes with heavy processing was exposing some bug that most others would never see. Secondly, every few days, the wireless LAN/WiFi drivers would fail and the machine would no longer be able to connect to upload/download work until the connection was disabled and re-enabled. This also happened on all of the WiFi XP boxes, though all of their WiFi cards and thus drivers were different. Again, long uptimes were probably exposing a bug that shorter sessions would obscure. Of course, in a perfect world, these bugfixes would have just been rolled into XP and it would have continued on its merry way. But Windows isn't Linux, and Microsoft eventually decides that the bugfixes are going to go into the newer OS to encourage paid upgrades and because fixing an old OS just isn't as profitable. |
jason_gee Send message Joined: 24 Nov 06 Posts: 7489 Credit: 91,093,184 RAC: 0 |
Yeah, one of the most important features going from XP through Vista to 7 and onwards, and the most costly, is the WDM (Windows driver Model) and its display specific variant WDDM (Windows Display Driver Model). That's the invention that 'the others' don't have, that enables multiple driver stacks, and some level of automated recovery / fault tolerance. The cost of these features is high, including the complete mirroring of VRAM in physical host memory, and a lot of extra transfers. It's those particular features that enable the display driver to be restarted in the event of a failure, and to continue on as before. Failures happen in consumer gear not necessarily though any fault of your own, but obscure things like cosmic ray strikes, power fluctuations and all sorts. While I certainly think the implementation might be less than optimal in many situations, I haven't seen a BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) without a genuine hardware fault, since moving to Win7. If uptime is king, then the fault tolerance wins for me. [Edit:] ---> 32 bit ? well 4Gig Video RAM equipped cards need more than that, simple as that really. "Living by the wisdom of computer science doesn't sound so bad after all. And unlike most advice, it's backed up by proofs." -- Algorithms to live by: The computer science of human decisions. |
Mr. Kevvy Send message Joined: 15 May 99 Posts: 3776 Credit: 1,114,826,392 RAC: 3,319 |
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jason_gee Send message Joined: 24 Nov 06 Posts: 7489 Credit: 91,093,184 RAC: 0 |
Thanks for the explanation. :^) Well lets do some very rough math then for the 32 bit OS case. 32 bit address space, then you have roughly 3.5 Gig starting addressable physical memory ( some areas of the 4 Gig Space are for IO mapped to memory etc) Next, in a desktop configuration, half of that will be 'kernel space' and the other half 'user space'. That gives you ~1.7Gig Kernel and User. Now the WDDM model needs to mirror 2 Gig VRAM (in your max case) . Obviously there is going to be some limit on the 'shared memory' area there, and so usable VRAM. Since Win7 kernel needs really at least a half a GB (give or take depending on other factors) then the kernel would probably start struggling if you go much over a GB of VRAM usage. "Living by the wisdom of computer science doesn't sound so bad after all. And unlike most advice, it's backed up by proofs." -- Algorithms to live by: The computer science of human decisions. |
Jimbocous Send message Joined: 1 Apr 13 Posts: 1855 Credit: 268,616,081 RAC: 1,349 |
XP-32 drivers certainly exist for the first round of mid-range Maxwells - I'm running three GTX 750 Ti cards in old hosts upgraded from 9800 GT doorstops (four times the productivity at half the power)... Hey Richard, what NVidia driver are your running for your 750ti's, if I may ask? Just picked up a couple, and have concerns from another thread about some of the more recent drivers. Thanks! |
Grant (SSSF) Send message Joined: 19 Aug 99 Posts: 13761 Credit: 208,696,464 RAC: 304 |
My GTX 750Tis are running OK with 344.11 on 1 Win7 & 1 Win Vista system with no issues. Make sure you run the CUDA50 application. Grant Darwin NT |
Terror Australis Send message Joined: 14 Feb 04 Posts: 1817 Credit: 262,693,308 RAC: 44 |
My GTX 750Tis are running OK with 344.11 on 1 Win7 & 1 Win Vista system with no issues. I have 2 GTX750Ti's running quite happily with 344.11 on an XP_32 Pro system. It's had one BSOD in 6 months and that was due to temperature in the shack. Edit: Does it really matter if the OS can't access all the GPU memory ? If it's a dedicated cruncher you only use ~300MB per unit. T.A. |
Jimbocous Send message Joined: 1 Apr 13 Posts: 1855 Credit: 268,616,081 RAC: 1,349 |
344.11 Thanks, guys. Appreciate it. Checked Richard's rig, and it looks like he's still back on 335, but it sounds like 344.11 will be great for the 7x64. Still running 331.65 on the XP32 boxes, and probably no real reason to change that, as stable as they've been. Later, ... |
Wiggo Send message Joined: 24 Jan 00 Posts: 35067 Credit: 261,360,520 RAC: 489 |
344.11 If it works then don't change it unless you actually need to. ;-) To many people here get caught out by wanting to run the latest drivers with no good reason to at all. :-( Cheers. |
Jimbocous Send message Joined: 1 Apr 13 Posts: 1855 Credit: 268,616,081 RAC: 1,349 |
344.11 Roger that. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!! |
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