HOW-TO: Multi NV GPU2 Clients on 2+ GPUs
Welcome to this mini-guide to running the Folding@Home Nvidia GPU2 Client on your multi-GPU setup.
With the release of Client Core 1.0.7, this process became a little easier - however there are still several things to be aware of.
First of all, this new core will not yet download automatically - you have to go to the above topic and get it yourself, then copy it into the %AppData% FAH folder and overwrite the old core.
Secondly, if you are on Windows Vista, you will need to connect a monitor to each card you want to fold with, and extend the desktop onto all of those monitors.
This is the consequence of a Microsoft policy, and Nvidia can't fix it without breaking that policy. More information here.
I'm currently looking into finding a way to get around this, but be aware that I will be on holiday from the 4th of July (this Friday) to the 5th of August.
This means I won't have a CUDA-capable computer to test with, but I'll try to figure something out regardless.
If you're on Windows XP or have at least two monitors to play with, take the following steps to get multi-GPU support working:
(If you already had a go at this with core 1.0.7, make sure you don't have the NV_FAH_DEVICE environment variable set.
This setting will overwrite the -gpu parameter. If you don't know what I'm talking about, don't worry about it)
1: Switch from Multi-GPU to Multi-Display mode: (this may require a reboot)
2: Make as many copies of the Folding@Home-gpu folder in %ProgramFiles%/%ProgramFiles(x86) as you have cards:
(note: %ProgramFiles(x86)% is only used on 64-bit versions of Windows; don't confuse the two!)
3: Make as many copies of the Folding@Home-gpu folder in %AppData% as you have cards:
(note there will be more folders in there than just the FAH ones - I edited mine out for simplicity)
4: The client.cfg (located in the %AppData% folders, but only after you've run the client at least once) will set your machine ID to '2' by default.
You will need to change this so that FAH will be able to communicate with the server properly. (for instance just use 2, 3, 4 and 5 if you have Quad SLI)
5: Make shortcuts to the copies of FAH you made in %ProgramFiles%/%ProgramFiles(x86)%:
Note the '-gpu 0' parameter: change this to '-gpu 1' for the second card, '-gpu 2' for the third and so on. There needs to be a space between the -gpu part and the number.
Don't forget to set the 'Start in' location as above! (but use the appropriate copy)
And you're done!
PS: in this guide I chose to rename the original FAH folders to 'Folding@Home-gpu 1' for the sake of consistency. This isn't necessary, I just think it looks less confusing.







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(ATI's 3870x2 still can't use the 2nd core)




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