OK, read the info on the new SETI on the link from the home page. Looks like my computers have been downloading some different things than I have seen in the message screen in the past (AUTHORS, COPYING, README) etc.. Does this mean I have downloaded the new program? I also notice one of the workunits in queue shows a 5+ hour 'to completion' time (usual is 2:18) and a report deadline 10 days later than all the others. Does this mean I have downloaded a new workunit? Will SETI correctly crunch the 3 days or so of regular workunits I have in my queue before switching to the new processing mode? What will happen if I start to crunch a new workunit and download a regular workunit later? Will SETI switch back and forth, or will the server only send me enhanced workunits once the enhanced program starts crunching? I know this seems like a lot of questions, but I think you can understand what I am getting at. I currently have 4 different computers on line crunching only SETI, and am in the process of building a new, faster system to bring online next week. Just trying to figure out how the transition is going to flow with what I already have in process. Thank You for whatever light you can shine on the situation.

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"Time is simply the mechanism that keeps everything from happening all at once."

A lot of questions and a lot of very good questions, I may add.

I have seen in the message screen in the past (AUTHORS, COPYING, README) etc.. Does this mean I have downloaded the new program?

Yes. Plus if you go to your Work tab, you'll see that there is a new application called Seti_Enhanced 5.12 in the list as well. It will be sitting in front of the new work unit for SE.

Will SETI correctly crunch the 3 days or so of regular workunits I have in my queue before switching to the new processing mode?

That's something I can not answer yet. My only SE result crashed. ;)
But it is possible that the two will switch, so you crunch Seti 4.18 for an hour, then 5.12 for an hour. That's something you can better see than I can. :)

(I asked the question in the Number Crunching forum. Check for answers from others there. :))

What will happen if I start to crunch a new workunit and download a regular workunit later? Will SETI switch back and forth, or will the server only send me enhanced workunits once the enhanced program starts crunching?

Seti Enhanced will eventually take over from 4.18, but it's gradually introduced into Seti. Although you won't notice anything about that at this moment as the whole system is being hammered. ;)

But it may well be that for some time the old app and new app will switch. It depends on how many results are produced for each every day and how quickly UCB does the change over.

One thing that needs to be said, you do need at minimum BOINC 5.2.6 to be able to correctly use the Seti Enhanced application. It no longer uses the benchmarks times the time it takes to crunch the result to calculate the claimed credit.
SE uses the actual floating point operations per second that your CPU can do and estimates the amount of credits on that. Doing it this way, claimed credits for all PCs should be about the same. But it needs at minimum 5.2.6 to be able to estimate the FPOPS correctly.

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It has already been reported on the number crunching board that due to the varying, in this case short, deadlines, that Earliest Deadline First (EDF) has been enforced. i.e. The normal unit is preempted and processing has switched to the enhanced unit.

Andy

In addition
The work units themselves for Seti II (enhanced) are the same size, they are just analyzed more deeply. Seti puts a different header on them to identify that should be crunched by the new core client.
If you normally have a large queue (connect time in General preference) setting of 5 days or more, it may be best to cut it in half during the transition time to give Boinc a chance to adjust to the longer crunching WU.

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Boinc V7.2.42
Win7 i5 3.33G 4GB, GTX470

But it needs at minimum 5.2.6 to be able to estimate the FPOPS correctly. [/quote]

OK, another question and one polite, if not a little terse, comment.

First, will the boinc client update itself automatically too? All of my systems are running 5.2.13, including the one I just built on 4/19. This is still the version on the 'download' link on the seti home page. What are these mystery versions of boinc being referred to (5.2.2, 5.2.6, 5.2.8, 5.4x) in the crunching forum link you gave me? What is going to happen to 5.2.13 when it tries to process on of these new workunits with the new program? If we are supposed to be using a more recent boinc client, why are you still linking to 5.2.13 for new builds??

That was the question. Now for that polite, but terse comment.......

I have been a SETI cruncher since July of 2000, have weathered the transistion from SETI classic to boinc gracefully, and have gotten generally ticked off at some of the whining, pathetic posts in this forum from those who either just can't stand change, don't have the patience to work with you to get boinc running right, or just have nothing better in their lives to do but bitch. But I gotta say this.. You guys better be ready for the flames this time. WHAT the devil is 'beta testing' for but to test for and pre-answer questions such as I have put forth in this post? Even in the crunching forum, they seem to be waffling about which client is needed to properly run this new SETI. Shouldn't this pretty much be written in stone before you release this new program into the wild to be run on 1000's and 1000's of computers donating their time to your (our) quest? And if most of these people have to download and install a new boinc client to get this whole this to work right again, better have an IT technician set up a cot in the server room, cuz the server load's gonna get pretty heavy for a while between all the downloading of new programs, new boinc clients, and of course the whiney post overload.

That was my comment, hope it was polite enough. I welcome any polite responses. Thanx.

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"Time is simply the mechanism that keeps everything from happening all at once."

What are these mystery versions of boinc being referred to (5.2.2, 5.2.6, 5.2.8, 5.4x) in the crunching forum link you gave me? What is going to happen to 5.2.13 when it tries to process on of these new workunits with the new program? If we are supposed to be using a more recent boinc client, why are you still linking to 5.2.13 for new builds??

1) No the BOINC Client won't auto-update itself. When the next version of BOINC comes out, you have to download and install it yourself.
2) Version 5.2.6 is the minimum version at which the new way of calculating the credits is supported. You have 5.2.13, which is a later version, so you're safe.
3) We're testing the next BOINC at this moment. We had a whole list of 5.3.x clients (.0 to .31!), then we went over to test the release versions, but among the testers we find snags constantly. So the alpha version is now up to 5.4.8, but not ready to be released yet to everyone out there.

WHAT the devil is 'beta testing' for but to test for and pre-answer questions such as I have put forth in this post? Even in the crunching forum, they seem to be waffling about which client is needed to properly run this new SETI. Shouldn't this pretty much be written in stone before you release this new program into the wild to be run on 1000's and 1000's of computers donating their time to your (our) quest?

As for the Beta test and being able to answer things. All of us on these boards answering things are volunteers just like you. Even I am, I just got that pretty moderator tag because the administrator couldn't read which forums I wanted to moderate. ;)

Anyway, we've also been testing the Seti Enhanced client for a long time, but from its own server. So each Seti Beta result we get in our queue goes into its own folder on the computer. It doesn't go in the \\BOINC\\projects\\setiathome.berkeley.edu folder, but in the \\BOINC\\projects\\setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu_beta folder. and thus we never had the chance to test out what two clients do from the same folder. Or see how they would react to an optimized Seti application and its anonymous platform XML file. That's all being tested out right now.

I tried mine last night, but I had a bad SE result which broke down immediately upon startup. I haven't had a new one since. So it was difficult for me to answer your question from personal experience. Hence why I went and asked others who did have the experience. :)

As for documentation, Eric is still busy with a FAQ. Or I hope he is. :)

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1) No the BOINC Client won't auto-update itself. When the next version of BOINC comes out, you have to download and install it yourself.
2) Version 5.2.6 is the minimum version at which the new way of calculating the credits is supported. You have 5.2.13, which is a later version, so you're safe.

OK, my fault on this one....I guess I thought I was seeing 5.2.1.3 instead of 5.2.13, and thinking it was an older version than 5.2.6, etc.. I'll just let my 4 systems keep crunching as is, and see what washes out with the credits and such.

Isn't it nice what a little polite discourse can achieve rather than flames?
As usual, appreciate the efforts of yourself and the others who try to help the rest of us out here try to understand how this is all working.

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"Time is simply the mechanism that keeps everything from happening all at once."

As usual, appreciate the efforts of yourself and the others who try to help the rest of us out here try to understand how this is all working.

You're welcome. It's not so difficult to learn, it is mostly more difficult to bring it under words and explain it to someone so they can learn and understand. :)

As for flames, there's only one solution:

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Oh, as for the numbering of the Boinc client.

Sometime last year it was decided to follow the Linux way of numbering the clients. So prior to that you had the old style of numbering, which was just 1.00 to 4.99, but with BOINC 5 this changed.

As it's now, when you see the middle number being even, it means you are using a release client. One approved by the project you are crunching for.
If the version has an odd middle number, it means it's an alpha/test version.

So 5.1.0 was the first one of the new test releases. As Alpha testers we tested these up to 5.1.10
Then came 5.2.0, the release client, but we were still testing up to a point.
5.2.13 became the recommended version for release.

While everyone went to 5.2.13, we continued on with 5.3.1 to 5.3.31 etc.
We're now up to 5.4.8 in the release clients and sure hope that Berkeley decides to release this version soon. :)

Quick recap:
Major number dot even dot update number is a release client.
Major number dot odd dot update number is a test client.

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