cuda with optimus just to access gpgpu - cuda

I have a Dell XPS L502 with the Nvidia 525M graphics card. I am only interested in using the gpgpu capabilities of the card for now.
I installed Ubuntu 12.04 as a dual boot with the Windows 7 that came with the machine and followed several installation procedures for installing the CUDA driver and developer kit from Nvidia ( many re-installs of Ubuntu ). In all cases the display drops to 640x480 resolution. Best I can determine this has something to do with Optimus technology and Linux. I tried Bumblebee to no avail.
I really don't care about using the NVidia card to drive the display. Is there any way that I can just install the NVidia drivers so that a program can use the CUDA capabilities of the graphics card and I still get the full resolution on the display?

I had a similar issue with my Alienware M11xR2, and posted the solution on the NVIDIA Forums. Unfortunately the forums are down at the moment but essentially the process is as follows:
Install the Nvidia Drivers, but when prompted to modify your X11 Config, select 'No'. This is because the Nvidia card cannot be used as a display device.
Install the CUDA SDK and run one of the samples as root. I found this to be a necessary step. After this you should be able to execute further CUDA programs as a normal user.
Hope that helps.

With the new release of CUDA 5 the, comes the installation guide, there you have just one file that installs drivers, toolkit and sdk (even nvidia nsight). And one thing that got my attention is that you also have optimus options in the installation process.
I also have and Alienware M14x, and i understand your problem, but i also wanted the drivers to work for me, so i didn't try too hard on that.
Maybe you could give that a try and comment with the rest of us.
Here you can look for the CUDA 5 release candidate: CUDA 5
and here is the installation guide (maybe give this a read first): CUDA 5 Starting Guide for Linux.

Related

Is there a way to compile CUDA programs in a machine that does not have NVIDIA graphics card? [duplicate]

I tried to install cuda toolkit without display driver in CentOS 6. It gets installed properly. I was able to compile but it is compiling without performing any operation and I get garbage values in array addition. For cudaGetDeviceCount(&count) I am getting value as "o" which means I don't have any card on my machine.
You can install the CUDA toolkit without installing the driver.
You can then compile CUDA codes that use the runtime API.
You will not be able to run those codes unless you have a proper CUDA driver and GPU installed in the machine, however.
Codes that depend on the driver API will also not be compilable in this configuration, on older CUDA toolkits, without additional work. Newer CUDA toolkits provide stub libraries for driver libraries, which can be linked against.
This answer covers the method to install the CUDA toolkit without the driver.
If you want just run the codes and profiling the performance and other parameters, it would be helpful if you install GPGPU-sim simulator. It doesn't need any graphic card on your machine.

CUDA samples cause machine to crash

I was planning on starting to use CUDA on a machine with Kubuntu 12.04 LTS and a Quadro card. I installed CUDA 5.5 using the .deb from here, and the installation seems to have gone fine. Then I built the CUDA samples, again everything went fine.
When I run the samples in sequence, however, some of them botch my display, and others simply crash my computer.
What causes the crash? How can I fix it?
I'll mention that my NVidia card is the only display adapter the machine has, but that shouldn't make CUDA crash and burn.
The problem was due to the X server using the FOSS nouveau drivers. These are known to conflict with NVidia's way of accessing the card. When I restarted X (actually, I restarted the machine), the samples did run and work properly.
Not all the samples are runnable if you just installed CUDA on a clean ubuntu system. Some of them require additional libraries, and some of them require particular CC versions.
You could read the CUDA sample document of those crashed samples for more information.
http://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/cuda-samples/index.html

CUDA on Windows and Linux

I'm trying to set up a cuda development environment under windows, and lurked many cuda-tagged posts, but few things are still unclear:
Can I debug cuda applications under windows without the need of a second video card, using nsight and VS2010 express?
Can I debug cuda applications under linux without the need of a second video card, AND without shut down the graphical interface?
Answered thousands of times, but perhaps something has changed, so I ask again just to be sure: Can I develop under windows without installing a cuda-enabled video card? There is some kind of emeulator? (Ocelot for windows is practically inexistent).
Thanks.
Can I debug cuda applications under windows without the need of a second video card, using nsight and VS2010 express?
You can apparently debug with a single video card, but nsight requires vs2010 professional (not express edition)
https://developer.nvidia.com/nsight-visual-studio-edition-requirements
Can I debug cuda applications under linux without the need of a second video card, AND without shut down the graphical interface?
I don't think so, from the eclipse nsight docs (http://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/nsight-eclipse-edition-getting-started-guide/index.html#linux-requirements):
"A GPU that is running X11 (on Linux) or Aqua (on Mac) cannot be used to debug a CUDA application and will be hidden from the application ran in the debugger. Such GPU can still be used for profiling GPU applications."
Answered thousands of times, but perhaps something has changed, so I ask again just to be sure: Can I develop under windows without installing a cuda-enabled video card? There is some kind of emeulator? (Ocelot for windows is practically inexistent).
no, if you want to use cuda, you'd be best off just getting a cheap cuda-enabled card (e.g. a GTX 650 is ~$100 and is the most recent (kepler) architecture)

GPU device emulator

I am new to learning CUDA and I was looking around for a good emulator to run my CUDA programs on, since my laptop does not come with a Graphics card.
I have heard of mcuda and gpuocelot but they seem to have terrible and confusing documentation. I have been trying to get them installed for a few hours now but with very little progress.
Does any one know of a decent GPU emulator with good documentation. I am using Ubuntu 10.10
operating system
Thank you,
Gaurish
nvcc has an option to turn on the emulation mode and will run the entire application on your CPU. You don't need to have a CUDA enabled GPU for this, of course.
nvcc -deviceemu my_first_app.cu
I tried for GPUocelot on ubuntu 12.04.
its time consuming job we have to download some folders from "http://gpuocelot.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ "I hope it will work after downloading these folders using svn.
here is link where you can find all steps to install gpuocelot
http://barefeg.wordpress.com/2012/06/16/how-to-install-gpuocelot-in-ubuntu-12-04

Mysterious CUDA profiler error

So I have successfully installed the CUDA toolkit and GPU computing SDK on a Mac Pro running OS X version 10.6.6. The sample CUDA programs provided with the SDK as well as some programs of my own work well. However, when I run any of these CUDA programs through the NVIDIA Visual Profiler (the executable is called computeprof), I always get the following error upon launch:
"Unable to initialize the Profiling in Start/Stop mode"
NVIDIA's documentation does not mention this error, and Googling shows a single post in the NVIDIA forums in which several people have run into this problem recently (since October 2010) but no solutions.
Any information on this error message would be greatly appreciated.
If Visual Profiler v4.0 isn't working for you, there's a new CUDA release out (v4.1) and it includes a completely new & re-designed Visual Profiler.
The new NVIDIA Visual Profiler (v4.1) supports automated performance analysis to identify performance improvement opportunities in your application. It also links directly to the most useful sections of the Best Practices Guide for the issues it detects. And the Visual Profiler is available for free as part of the CUDA Toolkit on NVIDIA's developer web site: http://www.nvidia.com/getcuda.
If you experience any problems, please file a bug via your (free) NVIDIA registered developer account so the team working on the Visual Profiler can figure out the problem.
Are you using CUDA4.0?
I had problem with CUDA 4.0 and visual profiler (I use a Linux system). But it works fine with CUDA 3.2.