Folding Forum

hi everyone

apologies if this is in the wrong place, please redirect as needed. i am looking to use my single GPU for folding but i notice that when F@H is active my windows desktop is very laggy. scrolling in web browsers, moving windows around, etc is very choppy. ive used my CPU for years folding at 100% 24/7 and never had this issue. id like to run folding at home 24/7 with the GPU but the computer is annoying to work with when F@H is active. is there anything i can do (other than getting another gpu) that could help fix the lag? im not gaming, its purely for office work and web browsing.

thanks in advance.

What GPU do you have? Is it Windows 10?

sorry, forgot to include that. its windows 7 with a GT1030. i know its not the best video card but im averaging 50k PPD for only 30 watts which is way better than my i7 3770k running at 50% load 24/7 (other 50% cpu utilization given to world community grid). id be happy to upgrade the GPU down the line if i knew i could use the computer with F@H running and not have problems with lag. would windows 10 help? im probably going to upgrade to that shortly.

should also add that i only have enough space for 1 GPU so its sort of all or none...otherwise id get a good GPU and fold on that while keeping the 2nd for the monitor.

Historical background.

Computer scientists have been making CPUs multitask since the 1950s. They are getting better and better at it. You need a hardware timer interrupt, so the OS can check periodically to see if any other task wants the CPU, and a Operating System written to allow tasks to be interupted. (This adds overhead, so tasks do not complete quite as fast)

Graphics cards typically lack hardware support for multitasking. (Pascal was the first Nvidia cards to include even minimal support, it does not seem to allow different programs to run at the same time, but different parts of the same program)

In depth https://www.anandtech.com/show/10325/th ... n-review/9

For F@H we want the graphics process to 'win' but the compute process to be from a different program.

So currently, we do not execute any graphics white computing is taking place on the card.

You may find that by setting your GPU Slot to On Idle, you can do smooth graphics and only compute when you are away.

ahh. ok then sounds like im shafted with a 1 GPU setup. i take it a higher performing card wont matter either since the better card would still be maxed out running F@H, just performing better.

thanks for the info.

Yes, I use a GTX 1050ti, which uses one slot and no additional power but the fins are larger than the 1030. I get 150,000 PPD, but still jerky graphics.

A fast GPU only needs a small time to render the desktop - so there is only minimal lag when FAH is running. I can use my PC without problems when gtx 1080ti is folding. But I disabled gpu hw acceleration in my internet browser and video players and maybe switch Windows 7 theme to non aero. If you run your PC 24/7 then the FAH idle option is a workaround.

thanks guys! thats excellent info for me all around...much appreciated. sounds like i should get a better gpu and try it out...worst case set to idle. thanks for the info on hardware accel too.

Here's a discussion from a number years ago.

I find that using the CPU for screen rendering is often faster than waiting for the GPU to be idle. The CPU rendering is adequate for systems that don't have a GPU, and it does get priority from the OS.