I have a GeForce 8300 with 512 Megs of memory. When I open the NVIDIA configuration manager, it shows 516 Megs, but the Boinc Manager shows 128 Megs. Naturally, this low amount of memory makes it hard to run any projects. Would this be a Boinc problem, CUDA problem or what? Is there some way in Boinc to get it to see all 512 Megs? The card is able to crunch Collatz, but SETI requires too much memory. Maybe it's the version 2.2 CUDA libraries? Maybe the card needs new firmware. Anyone know what possible causes are for the hardware being seen correctly by the nvidia driver, but not by the boinc manager? My GeForce 8600 card's memory of 256 Meg is detected correctly.

Is it a real card, or an embedded chip that uses normal RAM?
Can you please post your BOINC start-up messages so we can see what you see?

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Is it a real card, or an embedded chip that uses normal RAM?
Can you please post your BOINC start-up messages so we can see what you see?

They are both PCIE cards.

GeForce 8300

06-Nov-2009 06:02:47 [---] Starting BOINC client version 6.11.0 for i686-pc-linux-gnu
06-Nov-2009 06:02:47 [---] This a development version of BOINC and may not function properly
06-Nov-2009 06:02:47 [---] log flags: file_xfer, sched_ops, task
06-Nov-2009 06:02:47 [---] Libraries: libcurl/7.19.6 OpenSSL/0.9.8k zlib/1.2.3
06-Nov-2009 06:02:47 [---] Data directory: /var/lib/boinc
06-Nov-2009 06:02:47 [---] Processor: 2 GenuineIntel Intel(R) Pentium(R) Dual CPU E2160 @ 1.80GHz [Family 6 Model 15 Stepping 13]
06-Nov-2009 06:02:47 [---] Processor: 1.00 MB cache
06-Nov-2009 06:02:47 [---] Processor features: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm lahf_lm
06-Nov-2009 06:02:47 [---] OS: Linux: 2.6.30-gentoo-r8
06-Nov-2009 06:02:47 [---] Memory: 881.90 MB physical, 2.89 GB virtual
06-Nov-2009 06:02:47 [---] Disk: 45.43 GB total, 27.76 GB free
06-Nov-2009 06:02:47 [---] Local time is UTC -6 hours
06-Nov-2009 06:02:47 [---] NVIDIA GPU 0: GeForce 8300 GS (driver version unknown, CUDA version 2030, compute capability 1.1, 128MB, est. 3GFLOPS)

GeForce 8600

06-Nov-2009 06:16:50 [---] Starting BOINC client version 6.11.0 for i686-pc-linux-gnu
06-Nov-2009 06:16:50 [---] This a development version of BOINC and may not function properly
06-Nov-2009 06:16:50 [---] log flags: file_xfer, sched_ops, task
06-Nov-2009 06:16:50 [---] Libraries: libcurl/7.19.6 OpenSSL/0.9.8k zlib/1.2.3
06-Nov-2009 06:16:50 [---] Data directory: /var/lib/boinc
06-Nov-2009 06:16:51 [---] Processor: 2 GenuineIntel Intel(R) Pentium(R) Dual CPU E2160 @ 1.80GHz [Family 6 Model 15 Stepping 13]
06-Nov-2009 06:16:51 [---] Processor: 1.00 MB cache
06-Nov-2009 06:16:51 [---] Processor features: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm lahf_lm
06-Nov-2009 06:16:51 [---] OS: Linux: 2.6.30-gentoo-r8
06-Nov-2009 06:16:51 [---] Memory: 881.90 MB physical, 2.89 GB virtual
06-Nov-2009 06:16:51 [---] Disk: 45.43 GB total, 27.76 GB free
06-Nov-2009 06:16:51 [---] Local time is UTC -6 hours
06-Nov-2009 06:16:51 [---] NVIDIA GPU 0: GeForce 8600 GT (driver version unknown, CUDA version 2030, compute capability 1.1, 256MB, est. 16GFLOPS)

I'm beginning to think that the nVidia config manager is giving me bogus info. After a quick internet search, which is what I should have done to begin with, it appears the standard Dell supplied GeForce 8300 GS card comes with 128 MB.

Sorry for wasting your time.

That's OK. I was more wondering how you run 6.11.0, did you build it yourself from source?

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That's OK. I was more wondering how you run 6.11.0, did you build it yourself from source?

Built it from source and replaced the Gentoo version 6.6 binaries with the 6.11 binaries. It keeps Gentoo from trying to downgrade back to 6.6 while keeping the video and CUDA drivers from portage.

All right, that explains that. It could've otherwise been a (user) build error. ;-)

As for the Dell 8300 GS, it appears it said on the Dell web site that it came with 128MB of memory and that it would take half of the PC's RAM to add it to its own. Or something similar. We are Dell, you will be assimilated.

BOINC's method of detecting the videocard/GPU only detects the amount of memory actually on the card. Not what it gathers from other sources.

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All right, that explains that. It could've otherwise been a (user) build error. ;-)

As for the Dell 8300 GS, it appears it said on the Dell web site that it came with 128MB of memory and that it would take half of the PC's RAM to add it to its own. Or something similar. We are Dell, you will be assimilated.

BOINC's method of detecting the videocard/GPU only detects the amount of memory actually on the card. Not what it gathers from other sources.

Damn, my next course of action was going to try going into the Bios to see if i could allocate system RAM to my 128Mb 8300M GS on my Samsung R700 Laptop,
Guess i'm stuck with Collatz too, ;-(

Claggy

All right, that explains that. It could've otherwise been a (user) build error. ;-)

As for the Dell 8300 GS, it appears it said on the Dell web site that it came with 128MB of memory and that it would take half of the PC's RAM to add it to its own. Or something similar. We are Dell, you will be assimilated.

BOINC's method of detecting the videocard/GPU only detects the amount of memory actually on the card. Not what it gathers from other sources.

That explains a lot. I was wondering why that thing was eating up so much resources. I'm glad someone gave me an 8600 to replace it. I was trying to use the slower card for the extra Ram to do SETI. I guess I'll just wait for the funds to get a double precision card or an ATI. I can't give this card away at SETI.USA. Maybe I should drop it off at the recycling center.

Seti doesn't have ATI apps yet, neither for Windows nor for any other platform. And then neither natively (Seti's own) nor through 3rd party (such as Lunatics).

Word is, Lunatics is busy with an Astropulse application for ATI GPUs, but that's far off from being released.

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Word is, Lunatics is busy with an Astropulse application for ATI GPUs, but that's far off from being released.

Having said that, they just released the application. ;-)
But it's for Windows only anyway and it requires that your CPU has SSE3.

So it isn't of use in your situation.

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