I believe Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge have the first version of AVX but that version isn't sufficient here. Only Haswell has the more recent version which is required here.

I believe recent AMD models have the latest AVX as well. Search Wikipedia for Intel AVX and you'll get the article I read a few weeks ago which explains the history of AVX and proposed additions/enhancements to it.

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Why not build a single app and do a test for AVX (like Primegrid did with the LLR program)? Instead of having to force users to mess with their projects?

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Why not build a single app and do a test for AVX (like Primegrid did with the LLR program)? Instead of having to force users to mess with their projects?

Because it can not be one app. The only way is to have wrapper and app and we do not want this solution.

I think this is a basic problem of boinc client for now. I absolutely don't know why developers didn't add this capability to the client for so long time.

I notice in the Boinc "Notices" that Seti has released GPU support for Intel GPUs that support OpenCL 1.2. According to Intel,

http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/sb/CS-033757.htm

The 3rd Generation HD Graphics 2500 supports OpenCl 1.2, so that's Ivy Bridge. If Seti can support OpenCl 1.2 apps on Ivy Bridge, why can't Asteroids?

I notice in the Boinc "Notices" that Seti has released GPU support for Intel GPUs that support OpenCL 1.2. According to Intel,

http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/sb/CS-033757.htm

The 3rd Generation HD Graphics 2500 supports OpenCl 1.2, so that's Ivy Bridge. If Seti can support OpenCl 1.2 apps on Ivy Bridge, why can't Asteroids?

The topic of this thread is AVX. OpenCL has nothing to do with AVX. Try one of the threads related to GPU. And what makes you think Asteroids can't support OpenCL? Hmm??? That's all been explained already in threads related to the topic.

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I notice in the Boinc "Notices" that Seti has released GPU support for Intel GPUs that support OpenCL 1.2. According to Intel,

http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/sb/CS-033757.htm

The 3rd Generation HD Graphics 2500 supports OpenCl 1.2, so that's Ivy Bridge. If Seti can support OpenCl 1.2 apps on Ivy Bridge, why can't Asteroids?

It's on our todo list after OpenCL for AMD GPUs.

And what makes you think Asteroids can't support OpenCL?

It was a rhetorical question. Another poster has reported that it is on the "to do" list so I assume they'll get to it when they can.

I'll look for the other threads you suggest.

Thanks

The latest development version of Windows BOINC 7.3.10 detects the AVX feature of my Ivy Bridge according to the log, but it seems I still run the SSE3 versions of the app. I read that only Haswell supports the AVX app of Asteroids@home, is that true? Would it be possible to have an AVX app for earlier Intel processors as well?

The detection depeneds and sending apps what client detects. If it detects AVX (avx, not avx1.0) then you should get also AVX version of the app. But you have new version installed so the scheduler will send you also AVX and SSE2 then to compare which is faster. I will try the latest version if it detects AVX still as avx.

Its in the current alpha client builds (7.3.10, maybe one before).

10/03/2014 9:13:12 PM | | Starting BOINC client version 7.3.10 for windows_x86_64
..
10/03/2014 9:13:12 PM | | Processor: 8 GenuineIntel Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3770 CPU @ 3.40GHz [Family 6 Model 58 Stepping 9]
10/03/2014 9:13:12 PM | | Processor features: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss htt tm pni ssse3 cx16 sse4_1 sse4_2 popcnt aes f16c rdrandsyscall nx lm avx vmx smx tm2 pbe fsgsbase smep

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The latest development version of Windows BOINC 7.3.10 detects the AVX feature of my Ivy Bridge according to the log, but it seems I still run the SSE3 versions of the app. I read that only Haswell supports the AVX app of Asteroids@home, is that true? Would it be possible to have an AVX app for earlier Intel processors as well?

I just read over at PrimeGrid that they are doing something with the AVX stuff too, you might look over there. I do not know if it is implemented yet though, I don't have one of those so only sort of read the stuff.

The latest development version of Windows BOINC 7.3.10 detects the AVX feature of my Ivy Bridge according to the log, but it seems I still run the SSE3 versions of the app. I read that only Haswell supports the AVX app of Asteroids@home, is that true? Would it be possible to have an AVX app for earlier Intel processors as well?

Haswell has AVX 2 whereas Ivy Bridge has only AVX 1. The AVX app requires AVX 2 to achieve full speed which means on your Ivy Bridge the AVX app will not perform as well as it can. IIRC HA-Soft once said the SSE3 app usually performs better than the AVX app on Ivy Bridge therefore you get the SSE3 app.

I imagine an AVX app for earlier CPUs is possible but since they don't have AVX 2 it would never approach the performance achievable on Haswell.

I installed a Haswell 4771 recently. The A@H run times with the AVX app are very impressive. Thanks to the A@H team for doing a great job optimizing their app, wish all projects could do the same.

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I was running the AVX's on my 4770QM Laptop (ID66226) & it did improve the run times dramatically but now have stopped & gone back to the sse3 Wu's. Main reason being every one of the AVX's that I ran on it had gone into the Validation Inconclusive Pool, from there 7 have been Marked Valid & 5 Marked Invalid. At about a 42% Failure Rate it isn't worth it, maybe a Haswell Laptop isn't made to run the AVX, I don't know, I did update to the v7.3.10 & am running Windoze 8.1 ...

Also with the v7.3.10 Client I never got any AVX Wu's until I put the AVX Portion of the app file in the Asteroids Directory, maybe that was the problem ?

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Also with the v7.3.10 Client I never got any AVX Wu's until I put the AVX Portion of the app file in the Asteroids Directory, maybe that was the problem ?

I dunno. I'm running BOINC 7.2.33 and I didn't do anything special. After I brought my Haswell online I got a mix of SSE3 and AVX tasks (as expected) but soon the SSE3 tasks stopped coming (as expected) and it's been only AVX tasks ever since. A small percentage, nowhere near 42%, are invalids.

I don't see why AVX would be different on a laptop CPU compared to a desktop model. It should work for you too. Since it's a laptop it makes sense to suspect heat related problems. I'm not sure but I suspect AVX works the CPU harder and causes it to run hotter than normal. The reason I say that is because the temps on my cores seem to have risen considerably since I stated getting only AVX but the ambient temperature has also risen so I'm not sure.

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I dunno. I'm running BOINC 7.2.33 and I didn't do anything special. After I brought my Haswell online I got a mix of SSE3 and AVX tasks (as expected) but soon the SSE3 tasks stopped coming (as expected) and it's been only AVX tasks ever since. A small percentage, nowhere near 42%, are invalids.

That's because there is a difference between linux and windows in avx detection in boinc core.

Z

I'm running without the app file now & all I got was the sse3 Wu's ... I don't think heat is the problem, the laptop throttles it's self, but then the throttling could be the problem too. It's a 3.4 CPU running Ht Mode & half the time it run's under 1000mhz. I've done everything I know of to try to keep it running at a higher speed but nothing seems to work ...

I previously posted it was a 4770QM but that's wrong, it's a 4700QM ...

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There is a reason why it's throttling itself and I suspect the reason is that it's overheating. Or you have your battery/power saving prefs set to throttle the CPU down after so many minutes of inactivity.

Solutions to any given problem can be elusive. We doubt the cause is this or that because it seems unrelated or because we don't like the consequences if it happens to be the cause. In your case maybe you don't want to admit it's a heat problem because then you have to go through the troublesome process of getting the temps down?

I find if I fix the basics then other seemingly unrelated problems also disappear or at least the path to fixing them becomes more apparent. If I were you I would make getting the machine to run at its rated speed priority #1. You might need to add a laptop cooler or pull the guts out of the case and drill 1,000 holes in it for better air circulation, add fans, who knows. Whatever it takes is what you have to do because if the hardware isn't running right the software running on it won't run right either. I don't know of many people who can crunch on a laptop properly without adding additional cooling. Laptops are built for small footprint, portability and image, not for crunching. You can make them crunch well but usually that requires extra cooling.

You could test to verify. Install decent temp and clock monitoring software and start with a small CPU load (i.e. no tasks crunching). Then slowly increase the load in steps by allowing 1 more task to run per step. Watch the temps and clocks as the load increases. I bet you'll see the temps increase to the point where it downclocks itself. But that's fodder for a different thread, this one's for AVX related topics.

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My new AMD A10-7850K with Steamroller cores seems to be so far a little faster with the AVX version. Unfortunately, he gets currently only SSE2 WUs.
Perhaps this will change when the whole pending jobs are valid.
SSE2/3: ~ 9300 s
AVX: ~ 8900 s

Haswell can crunch one task in abou 720s with avx version.

Hello !

Do you mean : Faster than the GPU APP ????

Intended to do some tests on AVX this week-end, but as the project is down for maintenance, I took some time to read the forums, and I found the above post ...

Will post the results here, but I cannot believe that 1 task can be crunched in 720s, faster than a CUDA task crunched by a GTX TITAN.

Hereafter the details of the crunchbox :

MB = Asus Z87 Pro
CPU = i7 4770K @ max 4.4 - HT OFF !
WC = Nepton 140XL
GPU = GTX770 Gigabyte 4 Go
RAM = 2 x 8g Corsair Vengeance 1600 etc
W7U (Unfortunately, have not installed Ubuntu on this crunchbox, yet)

Kind Regards,

Philippe

Meanwhile we have increased wu's lenght. Now it's about 3500s.