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seiya_ni
Journeyman III

AIT and Nvidia GPU in the same linux box

I am buying ATI Stream 9270 and Nvidia Tesla C1060, and will try to compare their performance.

Can I install them into the same linux box and run AIT Stream and CUDA programs on it?

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karx11erx
Journeyman III

Not at the same time, I guess.

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Thanks for your reply.

 

I guess that OpenGL stuff might be a key.

It seems that I would have to make system dual boot for both GPU.

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It may be possible to load the proper driver using a dual boot setup, but you may still encounter hardware conflicts. I doubt two main gfx adapters can coexist on a single motherboard unless one is the SLI/Crossfire master of the other.

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I already have a dual boot linux box which has a Radeon 4550 and a Geforce 9880 on the same mother boad.

I can run ATI Stream and CUDA programs on each linux system.

 

I read somewhere that if we have multiple GPUs (all of them must be the same GPU card) and want to run GPGPU program on them, we have to disable SLI/Crossfire or only on GPU can be used.

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This is a very interesting thing - that you could do AMD Streams n CUDA at the same time.

So, Does linux support loading multiple display drivers at the same time? (Windows does not seem to like. May b, I am wrong).

What about your X configuration et al?

Thanks,

Sarnath

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> So, Does linux support loading multiple display drivers at the same time? (Windows does not seem to like. May b, I am wrong).

It can be easily done in Windows Seven (at least build 7077), but not in XP or Vista.

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sgratton
Adept I

 

Hi there,

 

I've been able to run cal and cuda at the same time, so far with success and proving to be more convenient than my previous dual-boot arrangement, as follows. This is with a Scientific Linux 5.1 64 bit (clone of RHEL) with a Radeon HD 3870 and an Nvidia GTX260. The procedure seemed a bit "hairy" but appears to work (I don't know if you can just install one driver after another in case they interfere with each other about X/opengl stuff). Note I am not a linux expert so consider this "informational" only! The key thing to note is that CAL needs X running with the ATI driver whereas cuda only needs the Nvidia kernel module in place, and indeed Nvidia provide a script to enable one to run cuda programs at runlevel 3. So one does a "minimal" Nvidia install followed by a "regular" ATI install. Note with this setup no cuda-graphics interop is possible.

 

So, from memory, something like this should work:

 

Uninstall any existing Nvidia/ATI drivers

 

Put the ATI card in your primary PCIe slot with a monitor attached

 

Install linux if you haven't done so already.

 

Put the Nvidia card(s) in your secondary PCIe slot without a monitor connected

 

In runlevel 3 as root,

 

Download the nvidia driver, NVIDIA*.run (version 180.60 in my case)

 

Extract the contents with ./NVIDIA*.run -x

 

Go into the usr/src/nv subdirectory of the directory just created

 

Make and install the nvidia kernel module with "make module" and then "make install"

 

Now go to usr/lib and copy libcuda.so.180.60 to /lib64

 

Make links from libcuda.so to libcuda.so.1 and from libcuda.so.1 to libcuda.so.180.60 in /lib64

 

Copy usr/include/cuda/cuda.h from the directory to /usr/include/cuda/cuda.h

 

There might be an alternative to some of the above steps (say by running nvidia-installer in advanced mode, dumping everything except the kernel module into /tmp and copying across the library and headers from there).

 

Next you need to put the script Nvidia provide in their release notes into a suitable place. I'm a total amateur here, but I copied /etc/rc.d/rc.local to /etc/rc.d/rc.mylocal, merged the nvidia material into it, then changed the "S99local" symbolic link in /etc/rc.d/rc5.d to point to rc.mylocal. I may have had to change some of the commands to use the full paths to them also. (If an expert can tell me a better thing to do here I'd be very grateful.)

 

Then, in runlevel 5, run the ati-driver-installer with the default settings.

 

Log out and log in again.

 

Now, install the cuda toolkit and ati stream.

 

Add a .conf file into /etc/ld.so.conf.d/ containing the locations of the cuda libraries (typically /usr/local/cuda/lib), run ldconfig.

 

Logout as root.

 

Now login as a regular user (at runlevel 5), set up the path, manpath and environment variables appropriately, and try it!

 

(Hope I haven't forgotten anything...!).

 

Best,

Steven.

 

Hello Steven,

Thank you for your hardwork and time. This information would be VERY useful!!!!

Great!

THANKS & Best Regards,

Sarnath

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Hi Steven,

 

It's wonderful info.

Greatly thanks.

 

Regards,

Seiya

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Thanks for the detailed howto, Steven.

 

I was planning a 4 x 4870x2 system, but it appears the Linux 9.5 fglrx drivers are limited to a max of 4 GPUs.  In light of what you are telling me, I'm compelled to put in 2 gtx295 to fill my 4 double wide slots, and have a tag-team race.

I guess it should not be a problem to mix cuda and cal threads.

 

 

 

 

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