What's going on is: I think the best place to check for supported (=hardware+software) processor features is on the client--side.
Everybody else thinks I'm being stupid for thinking that this could be a problem later on. And even if it turns out to be a problem they think the best place to check for the support is on the server-side and every project can code their own checks. -Juha On 24 July 2013 00:53, Wolfgang Schwieger <[email protected]> wrote: > Maybe I am to stupid to understand what's going on, but..... > > BOINC reports a cpu feature (AVX) which the cpu has/or has not. (that is > what we need!) > BOINC !_also_! reports the OS, the OS version/kernel version, !_and_! the > installed service pack (for windows). > > So, if a project has an application with AVX code, the project (!!!) has to > decide if/or if not this application will run under an "older" OS. > > BOINC just reports the feature, the project admin configures what has to be > configured. > > Wolfgang > > -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- > Von: Juha [mailto:[email protected]] > Gesendet: Dienstag, 23. Juli 2013 22:58 > An: BOINC Developers Mailing List > Betreff: Re: [boinc_dev] [SPAM] Re: : BOINC (windows) doesn't report avx > processor feature > > On 23 July 2013 04:41, Michael Goetz <[email protected]> wrote: > > > I'm not very worried about lock of OS support for AVX, at least as far > > as PrimeGrid is concerned. > > > > * It's unlikely anyone has bought a pre-configured computer with an > > AVX capable CPU that came with a version of Windows that doesn't support > AVX. > > > > * People who built their own systems and loaded XP?!?! on it are > > certainly able to load and run Linux if they wish to, and if they > > loaded Win 7 without SP1 they can load SP1. > > > > * It's unclear to me why anyone would buy, sell, or build a computer > > with an AVX CPU with an operating system that doesn't support the > > instruction set. It's possible, but unlikely. > > > > Well, someone could have upgraded to a newer CPU, or replaced a broken > component without upgrading the OS at the same time. Or they might be stuck > with an older OS because they have some device for which there's drivers > only for, say, XP. Or they are forced for some other reasons to keep using > an older OS. There are reasons once you start looking for them. > > And even if none of those hold, people still have the right to be silly and > keep using XP. > > > > * There's about a 40% increase in speed with the AVX version of that > > application, so if there's anyone participating in that subproject > > with such a computer, they probably will want to upgrade or switch > > their OS to take advantage of the increased performance. > > > > That's a very nice speed-up. But you are assuming that: > 1. People are paying attention (to such details). Maybe at PrimeGrid that's > true but I doubt that's true generally speaking. At least at Seti@homethere > are people turning in thousands and thousands of invalids so obviously they > don't pay any attention to what their computer does. > 2. People are buying or configuring their systems to crunch numbers. True > for some people but I think the majority buys computers for some other > reason and install BOINC to have something for the computer to do while > they > read their emails. > > > > * After all that, if there's actually someone who wants to run their > > fancy new CPU with an OS that cripples its capabilities, I can always > > change the plan class to restrict the OS to versions that do support AVX. > > > > There's one problem with that approach. Every project that releases AVX > application would need to add those restrictions. Wasn't BOINC supposed to > handle everything that's common to all projects so that projects can then > concentrate on doing whatever science they do? So IMHO reliable information > of host's capabilities is something that BOINC should provide, one way or > the other. > > So either the client should report only those processor features that the > OS > supports or the scheduler should have a function does_host_support_avx() > that checks both the reported features and the OS version. > > (Generally speaking. There's one benefit for the server side check. If the > host has support for feature X in hardware but not in software, the server > could tell the user "Your host has support for feature X and we have an > application that can take advantage of it. But you need to install Y > first." > Similar to what the server currently does with at least NVIDIA > drivers.) > > In short, while this is a theoretical problem, I don't think the lack of > > AVX support in old versions of Windows is a significant real world > problem. > > > > That may very well be true, but I still see it as something that could be > done better, if not even as a bug. > > -Juha > > > _______________________________________________ boinc_dev mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ssl.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/boinc_dev To unsubscribe, visit the above URL and (near bottom of page) enter your email address.
