Will VMWare really increase PPD

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holli4pirating

[H]ard|Gawd
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Nov 13, 2005
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I'm in the process of putting together my Q6600 rig (finally), and it's currently in the OC tweak and benching phase. At the moment, it's running at 410x9 for a cool 3.69. I'm pretty sure it's stable there, though I hope to push it higher when the AS5 cures.

I'm currently running XP Pro 32 bit, but will be moving to XP Pro 64 bit or Vista 64 bit once I get the rest of my ram (Fry's shipped me a 2 x 2 gig kit, and there was only one stick in the package, so I'm waiting for that to get straightened out). So I'm running 2 gigs of memory in without dual channel, but I will be moving to four gigs in dual channel.

Anyway, I've installed the SMP F@H just to see what it does, and it's running 7:50 ish frames for 3200 PPD, give or take. I've read that a bunch of people have gotten more PPD running 2 x VMWare with Linux. I'm curious if I'll see a change in PPD that would make it worth the time and disk space to set up the two virtual machines.

I'd appreciate any input, and if the consensus is that it will be worth it, I'll give it a shot. If it's more of a "try it and see" thing, I'll probably pass...esp since finals are going down.

 
Wow, I guess I'll go for it when this current WU is finished.

If I set up the virtual machines on this hard drive (running XP 32), will I be able to just copy them onto Vista x64, or will I have to go through and recreate them?
 
Yes, it's worth it:

aldamonsmpwindowsubuntu.gif



 
BLUEFISH44 said:
Is is just me or is anyone else having issues with vmware and vista 64?
Click to expand...

I had issues with VMWARE on Vista 64 Beta 2 Ultimate.

I got it to work, but the main catch was that I had to reinstall it everytime I rebooted the computer. My guess is that it uninstalled the device drivers upon reboot.... Also, you have to set it at bootup to allow the installation of unsigned drivers, as 64bit automatically does not allow it unless you override on boot...
 
If I install Vmware on a Windows machine with Linux clients, will I be able to use a monitoring program like FahSpy to view all my virtual clients from another Windows machine?
 
Its possible to monitor your Linux SMP from Windows machine - I am monitoring my Linux Q6600 rig using Fahmon - All I had to do was set sharing + install and setup Samba :)

 
APOLLO said:
If I install Vmware on a Windows machine with Linux clients, will I be able to use a monitoring program like FahSpy to view all my virtual clients from another Windows machine?
Click to expand...

Yes. You can setup a samba share on each linux client then FahSpy/Fahmon can see them.

 
Wow, VMWare on Vista Ultimate x64 is a pain in the ass. No signed drivers = must turn off detection on every boot.

I guess I'll just be running SMP in Vista for now...
 
I cant seem to get it to pick up SMP WU's on my Linux SUSE 10.3 installation in VMware here at home, It will grab a WU but its not a SMP WU, and yes to the best of my knowlage i D/L'd the right client. I was pulling my hair out at first but the console is now starting to make sense, but trouble shooting is likely a week out at the rate i'm learning. Any ideas?

As for VMware and Vista 64, right now i've given up till i learn more about linux. Which could take a while.
 
If used the FAH v6 client, you need to add the -smp flag to pick SMP wu. Without that flag, it will act as a regular console client.

 
Xilikon said:
If used the FAH v6 client, you need to add the -smp flag to pick SMP wu. Without that flag, it will act as a regular console client.

Click to expand...

Exactly, the Linux client is going to end up being one client for regular and SMP WUs instead of having two different clients. I assume this will completely take over after the SMP client is out of beta.

I currently use the following to start the console: "fah6 -smp -forceasm -verbosity 9"

That gets me SMP work units, keeps SSE going and gives me the most visual output in the client in case something goes wrong.

 
BLUEFISH44 said:
I cant seem to get it to pick up SMP WU's on my Linux SUSE 10.3 installation in VMware here at home, It will grab a WU but its not a SMP WU, and yes to the best of my knowlage i D/L'd the right client. I was pulling my hair out at first but the console is now starting to make sense, but trouble shooting is likely a week out at the rate i'm learning. Any ideas?

As for VMware and Vista 64, right now i've given up till i learn more about linux. Which could take a while.
Click to expand...

I also had problems when I started Ubuntu 7.10 - best solution was to copy paste text to terminal from here: http://folding.stanford.edu/English/FAQ-SMP#ntoc29

 
You can also use finstall, which will configure the client for SMP correctly if you add the -smp flag ;)

 
I've got it running on Vista 64 but I need to switch it to run with unsigned drivers every time it boots.
When I've got time, I will be switching that box back to XP pro.

Luck ............... :D
 
Tiger, I found a article that stated what Vista update was responsible for turning back on the digitally singned driver jazz at bootup, If memory serves me correctly its KB932596.
http://edinkapic.blogspot.com/2007/08/windows-update-kb932596-and-vmware.html linky

And thanks to Xilikon,Rebel44(no relation),SmokeRngs for the help with the SMP flags and such, you have been a geat help and if i didnt have to go out and shovel snow i'd be trying it right now.
 
Got it going turns out the -smp flag was what i was missing. Thanks again guys. could not have done it with out your help.

well atleast not today anyway.:D
 
If you want to disable Digital signature requirement for drivers
Remove updates KB938979 and KB932596
Open command line "as administrator"
Type: bcdedit /set loadoptions DDISABLE_INTEGRITY_CHECKS
Restart PC

Some users also reported that its not working in their case unless they also uninstall update KB938194
I tried this in September and it was working - but they may have released another update to block this;). Its also likely that it wont work in Vista SP1.
 
Great to see everything works fine :)

/me will soon prepare to go shovel :(

 
What can one realistically expected productionwise employing VMWare in a Windows host with a quad running 2.4-2.5GHz?

 
APOLLO said:
What can one realistically expected productionwise employing VMWare in a Windows host with a quad running 2.4-2.5GHz?

Click to expand...

And for comparison purposes what might one get just running SMP Linux w/o VMWare or windoze?
 
[BRO]Alaskan;1031807277 said:
2800+ PPD
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Hmm...That's only about 200PPD more than what I'm getting now running two Windows clients. Seems a lot of trouble for a 200PPD increase, but at the end of the month I guess it adds up. Since I'm more interested in the science, I might not bother unless I acquire a second quad just to fool around with Linux and alternate configurations. Thanks for the reply. :)

Gnewbury also has an interesting question if anyone knows the answer. I'm curious to know as well.
 
gnewbury said:
And for comparison purposes what might one get just running SMP Linux w/o VMWare or windoze?
Click to expand...

Probably not much more, if any....I would guess that most of the improvements to be had are purely based on the fact that Linux SMP only runs on 64-bit OSs, so the improvements are really based around 64 bit instruction improvements....maybe another couple hundred PPD tops.
 
schenksmill said:
Probably not much more, if any....I would guess that most of the improvements to be had are purely based on the fact that Linux SMP only runs on 64-bit OSs, so the improvements are really based around 64 bit instruction improvements....maybe another couple hundred PPD tops.
Click to expand...
That's why I was asking - no OS cost (generally about $100) gives more $$ to hardware.
My son just picked me up a Fry's Q6600, 2GB RAM, ECS POS m/b for about 3 bills.
I'd like to add a PSU, a pizza box, a 1GB thumb drive and make a minimalist folder. Might even hook up a keyboard and monitor occasionally :)


 
APOLLO said:
What can one realistically expected productionwise employing VMWare in a Windows host with a quad running 2.4-2.5GHz?

Click to expand...

You can see the performance difference between Windows SMP and VMWare/Ubuntu in the screenshot I posted:

http://www.damontech.net/aldamonsmpwindowsubuntu.gif

VMWare/Ubuntu is 15-19% faster than Windows SMP on the same work unit. As you said, that adds up. It's like having an extra P4 in the farm. If I had 4GB of RAM on each system, I'd be running dual VMWares in a heartbeat.

 
I get the speed up just because the SMP client does not scale well going from 2 to 4 cores.
Running on 2 cores my 250's pull in ~1,100 PpD.
So in theory my 4 cores on my 285's should pull in just over double that or ~2,400 PpD.
In fact running on 4 cores I only pull in 1,700 PpD.
Running 2 VM's ups my PpD to ~2,300 Ppd which is close to the max speed.

I see the same effect running on my 4 core Intel CPU's as well.

The only trouble I'm having with my VM's is the clock runs slow.
So FahSpy reports it running at 1,700 PpD as opposed to ~1,100 PpD.

I've got my disk image down to only 1.07 Gig so with a little work-pruning you should be able to install a working OS at under 1 Gig.

Luck ............... :D
 
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