Separate card for display Do you need it?

Accelerated Computing CUDA CUDA Programming and Performance
1

I’m currently running CUDA just with one 8800gtx in one machine, and it works just fine.

Reading the forum though, seems like some people uses 8800gtx only as a computation device, and have another video card for display.

Is there any advantage in doing this? more available memory i guess?

2

The main reason people do this is to work around the watchdog timer, which limits maximum kernel execution time to around 5 seconds.

See Question 23 in the FAQ: "What is the maximum kernel execution time? "
[url=“http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=36286”]http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=36286[/url]

3

I have an NVIDIA graphics card as the primary display and I use RealVNC to access it. I am able to run kernels that take as long as 9.26 seconds. I am not seeing any problems.

At the same time, I have also seen the watch dog timer kicking around after 4:00 secs when my (bad) kernels hang…

So, Is VNC actually saving my watchdog from firing when the kernel is working fine ? I have NOT connected any monitor to my NVIDIA 8800 GTX. Its primarly accessed by VNC.

I use a WIndowx XP box with CUDA 1.1

Thank you,

Best Regards,

Sarnath