SRCDS and GPU

[Drumdevil]

I have a dedicated server running with garry's mod. In the server i have a XFX 8800GT. It's quite a good videocard, but it's always idle, since the server is only being used for hosting SRCDS. I think that is a shame. Is there any way or a tool to put the GPU of the 8800GT to good use, for example, let SRCDS use it for it's calculations?

Thanks in advance!

[realchamp]

Nope. The SRCDS program does the mathematical calculations, by processing the client packets back and forward. Which does not require any graphical technology. So I guess you can't use the graphic card. Since, well first of all it is not allowed by VALVe.

And I don't think it is possible.

[pengy]

Well what a gpu does do is reduce the stress of the northbridge if you have an onboard graphics card, but you only need a cheapo gpu

[Mooga]

SRCDS doesn't use the video card at all. And frankly, there is no reason it should.

[Drumdevil]

Hmm yeah you are right. But i was thinking a bit further. Maybe there is some sort piece of complicated software that uses the GPU for the CPU's benefit. A GPU is still a CPU.

But oh well ^_^. It's too bad that SRCDS doesnt take advantage of a videocard in a PC. It doesnt need to render or anything, but most new videocards has a physics processor on them, which is usefull in the case of garry's mod.

Thanks for the replies!

[realchamp]

Drumdevil Wrote:Hmm yeah you are right. But i was thinking a bit further. Maybe there is some sort piece of complicated software that uses the GPU for the CPU's benefit. A GPU is still a CPU.

But oh well ^_^. It's too bad that SRCDS doesnt take advantage of a videocard in a PC. It doesnt need to render or anything, but most new videocards has a physics processor on them, which is usefull in the case of garry's mod.

Thanks for the replies!

There is a reason it is called "Source Dedicated Server".

Which means, you won't go offer alot of money on a graphic card, since you aren't going to play games or making graphical designs.

[Mooga]

There where people asking on the mailing list about this recently.
Truthfully, GPUs currently lack the CPU power required to run a server. CPUs and GPUs work very differently.

PLUS, we'd rather have multi-core support before GPU support

[CGS|Todd]

actually, that's not quite accurate. cutting-edge gpus are extremely powerful and don't work all that much differently from a cpu. gpus are particularly adept at peforming high-speed parallel operations. most modern day gpus are in fact fairly similar to a cpu, but with any number of high-speed graphics operations possible in specialized hardware and a software interface for performing graphics-specific operations.

in fact, nvidia has the c-language cuda api that lets the cpu offload general computation work to the video card.

some types of computations are vastly faster on a gpu than a cpu, and some are slower. but it is certainly possible to offload general computation to a video card with the appropriate interfaces. physics processing is one practical example.

i don't know the internal archtiecture of the source engine, so i don't know how much benefit it would have, but its plausible.

[realchamp]

Yeah multi support first.

Well Todd, a stronger CPU itself would always be better. However, not at graphic calculations, I believe the graphic card would be better to do that

EDIT: And buying a strong CPU is cheaper than a GT9800(or anyelse) card.

[CGS|Todd]

realchamp Wrote:Yeah multi support first.

Well Todd, a stronger CPU itself would always be better. However, not at graphic calculations, I believe the graphic card would be better to do that

EDIT: And buying a strong CPU is cheaper than a GT9800(or anyelse) card.

i understand. i never said a gpu would be better or cheaper, only that its theoretically possible to offload some of the work.

[realchamp]

Yeah that is true. But would it be worth it? Wouldn't it be better to have a more powerful CPU? Or multithread.

[CGS|Todd]

realchamp Wrote:Yeah that is true. But would it be worth it? Wouldn't it be better to have a more powerful CPU? Or multithread.

yes it would probably be better to have a more powerful cpu or multithreaded engine, but if you have a powerful video card in a server, you may as well use it if you can. that being said valve will never build that into the source engine as very few people running a server are going to have some super powerful graphics card in the system. and like i said, i have no idea how beneficial it would be to the source engine. i'm only stating its possible, nothing more.

[realchamp]

Yeah.

But yes, I believe those who have a good graphic card would find a little better use of it.

But who has that in a server?

[jigglywiggly]

A better question is, what type of server has a good graphics card

[CGS|Todd]

apparently drumdevil's