Extra Processor Ghost

[Nflight]

Spooky it is to have a third process running on my BOINC platform when you only have 2 processors on the computer! Now for all you super nerds just how can that be?

It has only happened since I updated to the BOINC platform 6.6.20 Could there be a third processor I never knew about working diligently on garnering me more output? Or could it be some glitch in the system as I do have a Nvidia GPU but not of one that is capable of CUDA?

I have been over working on the mind numbing wait, mind noodling, oh come on that Mindmodeling@home Beta project. Maybe it infected my system with little green men or something? Can anyone give me some insight into how this works with 3 when I only have 2 in my box?

[vaughan]

Hey that's a great discovery Nflight. Does it actually crunch? I mean, do you get 50% extra tasks crunched or is it split 1/3rd to each pseudo/real core?

My Opteron 165 has a CUDA capable 9800GTX GPU and it shows the 2 CPU cores and 0.1 core for the GPU crunching on GPUgrid, so that is 2.1 processors. Mystery how you achieved 3.

[Nflight]

Hey that's a great discovery Nflight. Does it actually crunch? I mean, do you get 50% extra tasks crunched or is it split 1/3rd to each pseudo/real core?

Yes Vaughan it actually crunches, (about an extra 33% umph) all three of them are moving me up the ranks pretty quickly. Could it be over the course of the last 4 years that an extra core grew from the original 2 cores?

I am perplexed

[Beerknurd]

I am having sorta the same issue... I don't have an extra processor on my quad-core but for some reason the Dimes client running on my quad now has taken on extra duties... Have a look at my output... Why is my quad cranking out so many Dimes WU's all of a sudden?? I am only running 1 client... ???? I can't figure it out, but I even installed some windowz updates and restarted... But as soon as my client started sending results there was the higher output again... The higher output makes me wanna crank up the virtual machines and try to catch up with Vaughan... But keeping up with 15 VM's is a pain in the butt...

[NeoGen]

There is a type of boinc projects that take little cpu processing and that makes them run on the side because their cpu needs are not too intensive.
For example FreeHAL@Home runs perfectly as a third project on a dual core machine because it takes almost no cpu.

I have it on my boinc but unfortunately it is not stable. Because of problems in their network one has to reset the project every now and then to be able to get workunits.

[Gipper]

http://boinc.berkeley.edu/cuda.php

Found the explanation at the above link. I updated to 6.6.20 and updated my video driver and now have 50-60 of the CUDA workunits for SETI.

A few drawbacks that I see with this:

1. They have not separated the ability to use the CPU and GPU for a task in the BOINC client. You can either download workunits for both or none at all.

2. This only works with NVIDIA GPU's. No ATI support is mentioned.

[Nflight]

Thanks for the help Gipper, it is still perplexing.

Yes NeoGen I have been running some FreeHal@home and yes that is when I see the triple play. But right now I am running Genetic Life & Mindmodeling and I am still seeing the triple play. Bizarre !

[Nflight]

That perplexing situation is going overboard, I now have 1 instance of FreeHal, one instance of Hydrogen, and two instances of Geneticlife@home all running all incrementing those time clocks.
Who needs to upgrade, I have one goofy footed Dual core who thinks its a Quad core!