LOCK-UPS!!

[tury]

i am using deep rybka 4 's GUI for my HOUDINI 1.5a but have a lot of LOCK-UPS!! my notebook has

win xp (32 bits)- 1gig memory - (using 254 hash) 1.6 cpu-speed.

i read everything there is to read about - i think i tried everything there is to try - how to install - how to with parameters
etc.etc. i study the game with test-positions - sometimes it works - sometimes it doesn't. could anybody suggest anything
that i didn't thik off?? thanks beforehand.

[MoldyJacket]

One Gig isn’t a lot of breathing room; I’d suggest using the default hash table size (128M) and try recreating the lockups.

[MoldyJacket]

Addendum: I might even start with a 32M hash table and work up from there. Also check to make sure you’re using single threading (no hyper-threading).

[tury]

thank you kindly - i'll try it of course. i suspected something similar. but i am no expert. SINGLE THREADING??? where do
i CHECK that ? thanks a million again!! allan.

[MoldyJacket]

Your welcome, hope it works. Let us know.

I don’t have Rybka, so I can’t say how to navigate the GUI options. But look for the UCI Options (Threads) of the installed Houdini engine. Set it to the number of physical cores you have (not logical), which I understand to be one.

If you have an Intel processor, hyper-threading is a scheme of creating the appearance of an additional core: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyper-threading

You probably want to make sure Rybka is set to Max CPUs = 1 as well.

[tury]

just received your last help-note - thanks - went to the HOUDINI parameter-box and saw that the THREAD-BOX shows

THREADS = 8

i suppose according to your instructions that should be set to ONE!!! - right ? or is this just the maximum in case of a multi-
thread cpu ? i could try of course to just set it to 1 and see - but on the other that might just have other implications.
(smile). if you have a moment please reply. thanks ever so much. allan.

[MoldyJacket]

It’s going to make a difference if you have hyper-threading enabled. I strongly recommend you always set all your engines to the number of physical cores you actually have (or want to use, but never higher).

[tury]

good morning
the moment i am sure that the stuff i'm trying now actually works i will let you know what i did. my problem
sometimes is too much imagination. for instance i marked down the time it took for various test-positions - now these
same positions (not all of them) are solved as fast as from 5min to 1min after i had changed the THREAD = 8 to 1!!
(the same speed as before 256mb). i'll see if the lock-ups have stopped too - after a while. thanks again.

[MoldyJacket]

The way your reply is worded, I can’t tell if you’re experiencing goodness or not. But I will recommend that you don’t test more than one aspect at a time, otherwise you don’t know what is making the difference.

I sense the next observation and question coming, unless you understand the concept of OS paging: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paging. If the hash table is too big, swapping will absolutely kill any engine’s performance.

You only have one Gig of real memory to work with, which includes space for the OS itself and any startup programs/processes you may have (such as a security suite). The GUI takes a cut too. The simplest way I can put it: you can increase your hash size until the hard drive light starts blinking, that’s the limit you must not cross. Ideally, it should not blink at all.

[cdani]

I just posted a new message with this subject.
Hi.
Some friends ask me that houdini eats all his cpu. So I propose them:
* Run with one thread less than physical cores.
* Run with low priority manually (task manager -> right click on process -> lower priority).
* Do this automatically, for example with process lasso http://www.bitsum.com/prolasso.php
May be you know another solution.
Thanks.