Platform prejudice?

[Kililea]

Why are Mac systems given aprox 1/10th the credit of Windows systems?
I've been monitoring this the last week, and on average Mac systems get 1/10th the points compared to Windows. It has nothing to do with how long jobs take, I'm looking at roughly equivalent times (though this one job that is going to take 2 weeks and only credit 900 points for it seems an issue).
Comparing 4 core i7 chips (8 virtual cores) of same generation and looking at individual job credit as well as average points per day.

[Joe_H]

Not a prejudice, the result of the fact that Windows and Linux computers can process WUs on GPUs, Mac systems can't. GPUs are very fast processing this kind of work compared to CPUs, and the bonus structure for quick returns favors that.

On comparable CPU based WUs, the Mac's get basically the same points on the same hardware.

Your next question would be the oft asked "Why no GPU folding on Mac's?" Basically it comes down to the following:

As originally planned the client would support GPU folding on all three OSs.

Apple shipped a broken OpenCL implementation for a number of years before including a fix in an OS update.

By that time few supported and usable GPUs were available in the current and recent generation Mac's.

Limited development resources for software were applied where they could get more science for the expenditure of time and money.

[foldy]

Have you set your passkey on both machines? And you can run GPU folding on Mac if you dual boot to linux.

[ipkh]

Apple handicaps the Mac greatly when it comes to Fold At Home.
First, newer macs do not have discrete GPUs, which generate the most points.
Second, Apple has favored Metal for Graphics and Compute work and has discontinued support for OpenCL as used by the Folding At Home project.
Third, even the GPUs Apple does put into Macs are not supported by Folding At Home due to the aforementioned lack of OpenCL support.
In essence the Mac can only be used for folding when using the CPU, which provides valuable results in line with any other computer.

[Roadpower]

Processor prejudice, oh my. I should point Louis Rossmann to this thread.

[Kililea]

Interesting.... I've seen like 2 jobs actually use the GPU slot on the Windows system, and none have used it on the Macs, despite the fact they all have nVidia cards. Granted the Mac GPUs are older, but if the Win one isn't actually doing any work I'm not seeing how this has an impact? But, I get the impression that indeed the code base simply does not run nearly as well on MacOS compared to Win, which confirms the platform bias if only that code wasn't optimized for Mac (which is nothing unusual of course). However, what still puzzles me is the jobs seem to take about the same amount of time typically. So are the jobs that the Mac gets just smaller and take longer making them seem the same as the ones on Win but therefore worth less points?

[ipkh]

Appke has the final say on any driver installations. They have to sign the kernel driver. When they stopped updating OpenGL years ago to support the Metal API, opencl likewise languished.
On Windows, the manufacturer (Nvidia, AMD and Intel) provide the OpenCL implementation in their driver package. Apple doesn't seem to have the same setup and only the libraries Apple provides are supported.
In present times, Apple only uses custom AMD cards and writes the drivers. Since they don't want to support OpenCL,OpenGL or Vulkan they dont build them in. This is the major downside to a closed ecosystem.
To use an Nvidia GPU on a mac, you'll need to install linux.

[Joe_H]

Up until the latest versions of OS X, for nVidia you just downloaded the drivers from them, not Apple. That ended when Mojave was released, the drivers from nVidia only support up to the GTX 10 series cards, and up to the latest security patch for High Sierra. Apple software engineers were directed to not update the necessary framework files needed to allow nVidia drivers to work in Mojave and on.

OpenCL is still part of the macOS, and still works - for now. When Apple will remove it from the OS is known only to them. But that is the uncertainty that makes planning on use of OpenCL open to question.

[Kililea]

Looks like it's more than just a platform question. Not only do Apple systems seem to get a fraction of the credit for the same work as Windows (again unless by some oddity Mac gets smaller WU that therefore lead to this idea since the WU data size isn't disclosed), but there have to be other such credit disparities it seems, maybe processor based. Simply, how else does one explain that some people get 4x as much credit for the same number of WU? When looking at a team list, it really just makes no plain sense. Sure I'd expect some variance, bonuses and all, but this is really wild. I also can't figure out how some people rack up several million credits per day. I mean maybe they have a room full of i9 systems with RTX cards but...

At any rate, are you saying I can install drivers on Mac from nVidia for older cards and then those folding slots would actually be used? (GT 650) Or is that just too old to be used at all? My GTX1060 only gets a job once in a while where the i7 CPU slots on all systems are constantly getting jobs.

[uyaem]

I mean maybe they have a room full of i9 systems with RTX cards but...

No need for that, it is really down to how well GPUs are suited for this kind of work.
For comparison, I'm getting around 350k-400k PPD from a single, four year old nVidia GTX 1060 6GB that runs around the clock, compared to 15k-18k PPD on an Intel i7-2600k.
And since GPU folding is not supported for Mac thanks to the drivers...

[bruce]

GPUs on OS_X are not supported. It's a long story and I won't bore you with the details.

Folding with CPUs is supported and you'll earn the same points for completing the same assignment as would a person folding with the same CPU on Windows or on Linux.

The assignments for GPU are much more challenging in terms of processing requirements compared to the assignments on CPUs. Moreover the slowest GPUs that are supported on Windows or Linux are computationally equivalent to many CPUs. Since many GPUs are able to fold more complex proteins, the points earned are higher.

If higher end GPUs are ever supported, they would need OpenCL (not Metal) and given the nature of recent announcements from Apple, that's not too likely to be supported in the future.

[Joe_H]

Not only do Apple systems seem to get a fraction of the credit for the same work as Windows (again unless by some oddity Mac gets smaller WU that therefore lead to this idea since the WU data size isn't disclosed)

Let's stop right there. For the same WUs on the same hardware, the Mac's will get the same points as Windows systems. In fact, depending on the current state of the CPU scheduler in Windows, OS X and Linux systems may complete CPU work slightly faster and get a slightly higher point award. And yes, OS X, Windows an Linux systems all get the same CPU projects and WUs assigned to them.

Only Windows and Linux systems get GPU project assignments, there is no folding core available to fold on OS X. And the aggregate point you are looking at do not distinguish which of those points were from CPU or from GPU processing.

Why do those GPU WUs get so many points? Because among a number of things, they are bigger in terms of number of atoms, bigger in terms of number of time steps done, and the GPUs are fast at the type of calculation needed among other things. Now take look at the Project Summary page and see the number of atoms listed for each project. The page doesn't list number of time steps, but that can be seen in the logs. Typical numbers for total steps for CPU projects might be from 125k to 1000k, many GPU projects are 1000k and higher.

At any rate, are you saying I can install drivers on Mac from nVidia for older cards and then those folding slots would actually be used? (GT 650) Or is that just too old to be used at all? My GTX1060 only gets a job once in a while where the i7 CPU slots on all systems are constantly getting jobs.

No, that is not what I am saying. That was a response to someone who mentioned not being able to use nVidia on an OS X system. nVidia cards past those supplied by Apple could be used in Mac Pro models prior to the 2013 with the drivers supplied by nVidia.

Theoretically, if they had reopened development of a GPU folding core for OS X after Apple fixed the bugs in their OpenCL, that would be true. But that did not happen. Again, due to Apple decisions, that would only apply up to OS X High Sierra, the latest two OS's Mojave and Catalina would not support use of nVidia GPUs. The GT650 gets some legacy support from Apple since they OEM'd it, but not much else. At about the minimum for folding it might have been usable.

[Kililea]

Maybe I'm not saying something clearly, or not understanding what you're saying. Ok so I get that there are newer power powerful GPUs that are apparently cranking out more credit heavy jobs than my GTX 1060, so I won't try to speculate about the jobs I have run vs what someone else may have run, and CPU vs GPU (when most are the former not the latter), but man the 28 million credits for 300 WU is something to behold compared to my 1 mill for 120 WU.

Anyway, if I compare two machines that are the same generation i7 4 core both running a CPU job for ~2.5 hours, the Windows one always gets ~10x more credits than the Mac. I think I'm comparing apples to Apples, but is there still something I'm missing?

[Joe_H]

Your 1060 is immaterial to the issue of the Mac getting less points, comparing CPU jobs to GPU is an apples to oranges comparison. But it is part of the mixed up and jumbled way you have been presenting your case. To be clear, Mac's can not fold on a GPU while running OS X. Period.

Now we get to the gist of your case, you say you have two actual machines that are near identical hardware wise and the Mac was getting 1/10 the points. That can come from the client not being set up properly or missing a passkey. Or there is something not right with the WU, some WUs from a project were sent out last week with nearly 100x the steps they should have had due to a setup error on the server.

If you want actual analysis of the problem, post the first 200 lines of the log for each, and a section showing the WUs that are not given similar points.

I do know what I am talking about from direct experience. My son's Mac Pro has done folding both under OS X and under Windows when he booted into that for certain games and other software. I have folded WUs under both Linux and OS X on the same system, a Hackintosh that I built to replace a 2009 iMac as my main desktop.

[JimboPalmer]

I have seen people post that you need a passkey to get those points, I have not seen any hint you have a passkey.

https://foldingathome.org/support/faq/points/passkey/