virtual machines made easy

[Mark]

http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.ph...3&postcount=19

i used this guide to setup 2 instances of SMP on my quadcore system,
so far it has worked really great and uses less memory than using a single SMP in windows.

i took a break from F@H for a while but now am back baby

[rickoic]

Like me I'm sure some of you who read this wonder what it's all about. Well when I found out about Virtual Machines I decided to look into it a little more.

What I found out is the Virtual Machine invirorment allows you to run Linux programs (in this case folding) within your Windows OS. Naturally its not as effecient as running the program with Linux, something like a 10% loss in performance I believe is around the figure I've seen quoted. But if you have an i7 cpu with 4 real cores and 4 virtual cores it will allow you to run the bigadv projects, your cpu should be 3.06GHz or higher to take advantage of the bonus points, otherwise running 3 gpus will out point the bigadv.

But what it will allow you to do is to run the bigadv with the flag -smp 7, which will still allow you to run your gpus with the 8th core. And so more than make up for the loss in performance.

In anycase it will greatly out point running regular smp's.

Make sure you DO change the user ID and team number, cause notfred's has the program hard wired to start folding using his id and team number. Just take notice of the ip address it gives you when you start it up and navigate to it using your browser. This will bring up the interface page and allow you to change it.

Fold on
Rick

[Mark]

thanks for updateing this thread Rick, i get lazy posting sometimes

and to add i am running this on my dual core AMD system as well, saves some time versus the SMP alone in windows.

i can't stress how easy this is to setup as well, easier that the regular SMP version it seems.

[OSULLY]

As they say, Interesting

[loop2kil]

wow, this was easy.

[Mark]

wow, this was easy.

ya way easier than messing with the SMP deal, and all the configuring that the windows SMP takes.

i am trying out the GPU deal now as well as my 2 virtual ones.

[loop2kil]

I just used 1 virtual and set it to use 4 cores...pegging my Xeon x3350 to 100% on all 4....I have the GPU version on my 9800gt...the GPU beats the crap out of my quad though(I think). I might try and get that gadget that shows production values for the whole system.

[Mark]

http://fahmon.net/

but i don't know how to set it up for the VM deal

[rickoic]

When you started it it should have shown you 2 things.

IP address something like 192.168.2.xxx

and also a fold-XXXX

With the IP address you can reconfigure your setup to your folding name and team number. (should also be able to find the fold-XXXX by looking at the setup or log file)

Using the other fold-XXXX you can have fahmon monitor it for you.

In fahmon the address is like this:

\\fold-XXXX\c\etc\folding\1 (for the first instance) (use 2 for the second and 3 for the 3rd and so forth)

Fold on
Rick

P.S. Did some checking and you can use either fold-XXX or the IP address along with the rest of it.

[rickoic]

Here is another link that will let you set up linux folding on a windows O/S.

This one may be a little better as instead of notfred's it allows you to set up folding using the folding interface where you put in your id, team #, key and everything else just as you would for regular folding.

http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?m=4464

If you have an 8 core (4 reg, 4 ht) and want to do bigadv folding you need to get your key number from the folding forum before you start. Then to begin with do the big size units first without the -bigadv flag until you've finished 10 units, should take about 2-3 days. Then you can use the -bigadv flag.

Fold on
Rick

[rickoic]

I would like to say that using Virtual Machine increased my production on SMP's.

On my 2 and 4 core machines I used notfreds and my production almost doubled on those units.

But using the other vm on my i7's increased production from about 2,000 ppd to 4,200 ppd.

Fold on
Rick

[rickoic]

A big advantage of using VM instead of just regular Linux.

If you have to reboot or just want to restart the wu, under VM you are much less likely to lose the work already accomplished. It suspends and saves the spot where you were when the restart happens.

Otherwise there seems to be around a 70% chance that you will lose the work otherwise.

Fold on
Rick

[Mark]

A big advantage of using VM instead of just regular Linux.

If you have to reboot or just want to restart the wu, under VM you are much less likely to lose the work already accomplished. It suspends and saves the spot where you were when the restart happens.

Otherwise there seems to be around a 70% chance that you will lose the work otherwise.

Fold on
Rick

just to add, i haven't lost a work unit yet in a VM as far as i know, even when i had a few bluescreens because of network issues with vmware.

i have learned to put the VM into suspend mode while rebooting the router or cable moden LOL