Automatically assign thread priority?

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ProDigit
Posts: 242
Joined: Sun Dec 09, 2018 10:23 pm

Automatically assign thread priority?

Post by ProDigit »

Is there a way to program into FAH, to automatically set thread priority depending on the slider?
(BOTH IN THE DESKTOP CLIENT, AS IN THE NACL?)
Mainly for Windows, as the largest performance gain is measured there.
Under Linux, I haven't seen much change by setting thread priorities.

In low loads, nothing needs to change.

On medium load, CPU thread priority (Core A7?) in Windows should be normal or '0'.
In Windows, it's currently set to the lowest setting. Setting it to Normal, should not introduce any noticeable lag.
GPU priority could be either normal or high, neither one will affect usage in Windows, (save for when 3D gaming while folding).

On full load, should set CPU thread priority to 'above average' (core A7?), and GPU under 'high thread priority'.
When CPU thread priority is set to high instead of above average in windows, some computers may lag; while there's no real noticeable performance dip, when setting GPU threads (core A9?) to high.

Setting CPU thread priority to high in WIndows, can add up to 10% of PPDs.
bruce
Posts: 20910
Joined: Thu Nov 29, 2007 10:13 pm
Location: So. Cal.

Re: Automatically assign thread priority?

Post by bruce »

FAH was designed specifically to run in the background and use your computer's UNUSED RESOURCES. Ideally, it would NEVER use resources that a 15-year old computer would need to run some process that the owner of that computer intended to run. That design goal means that FAH automatically assigns itself to the lowest priority possible. FAH's official position is that you bought your computer for some other reason ... you should not purchase equipment specifically to run FAH.

You don't fit that profile (which is fine) but you're not going to convince FAH to change their original design goals. Nobody is going to complain if you tweak your own computer to run the way you want it to -- and we'll even help you. There's already a 3rd party app that will do what you want.

Clean out the unnecessary processes that run at mid-range priorities. (Unfortunately for NaCl, FAH should be running at a lower priority than the browser.)
ProDigit
Posts: 242
Joined: Sun Dec 09, 2018 10:23 pm

Re: Automatically assign thread priority?

Post by ProDigit »

Not sure how it runs on other machines, but even on high, my Xeon switches just nicely between programs.
Then again, I have 10 cores, 20 threads.

The majority of users now are GPU folding on modern hardware. That's where FAH gets most of their work done with.
I think FAH should target that audience.
In the past mentions were made, not to support Intel IGPs, because the points they make would be too little, and the hassle to change the program too great.
Many people are running FAH client full on. Especially if you see the top 100 list. There's no way they get a trillion PPDs running it on slow hardware.

My computer is 90% of the week unused. So it is idle, and has 100% unused resources, 90% of the week.
Optimizing the program with a minor tweak, to improve performance on mining PCs that now fold, is a good investment, and should cost next to no programming time. Perhaps 1 full day at most.
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