RACs are gonna sky dive. My computer's RAC is something like 500 at the moment, but in the near future it will go to near zero, because of the credit system they use: "Granting a medium host to BOINC for a month should have the same value in 2008 and 2018." "Medium" host in 2018 is, of course, incredibly fast compared to the "medium" host in 2008. That means that the computer of 2008 isn't going to get very high RAC in 2018.

Am I the only one who thinks the decreasing RAC in function of time is somewhat ridiculous?

So, I suggest BOINC developers to use TWO different credit systems: One is that "decreasing RAC" and the other one is "constant RAC in time" credit system. What do you think? Impossible?

Yes, I know that "constant RACs" will be very high in the 2020s, but using prefixes kilo, mega, giga, tera, peta, exa, zetta, yotta should solve the parsing problem.

PS. 64-bit computers should be able to handle very big numbers easily...

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Let's not start another credit-war, shall we? This is a sensitive topic, and it shouldn't be brought up without good reason. As far as I am concerned, it doesn't matter how much credit is granted or how RAC is calculated, as long as all BOINC projects play by the same rules. Given that (and some technicalities aside), the playing field is level, i.e. the same conditions apply to all users. Credit granting policy is up to the project admins, and us users should focus on doing valuable work for the project, IMO...

...
Am I the only one who thinks the decreasing RAC in function of time is somewhat ridiculous?

no you're not ;)

What do you think? Impossible?

Well i'd love to tell you what i think about that but unfortunately i would use some words that are nowhere near to the boards policy of beeing "kid friendly" ;)

Got the drift ?

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I was only afraid of the flame wars and massive absences of BOINC users if they change the credit system without asking people's opinion. We are (almost) all adults, so no flame wars in this thread, please.

People could still suggest new ideas here. Yes, without flame wars.

I still suggest the "dual" credit system.

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Henri--unfortunately your opening post to this thread has a very disruptive feel to it--at least to me.

My opinion is as follows....I personally love my credits. My systems work hard for them. Eric Korpela has stated that S@H is "starved" for crunchers. Any further lowering of credit values will drive people away from the project so I suggest we table this discussion in lieu of a continued focus on upgrading the hardware the system uses in order to ensure a steady supply of WU's.

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RACs are gonna sky dive. My computer's RAC is something like 500 at the moment, but in the near future it will go to near zero, because of the credit system they use: "Granting a medium host to BOINC for a month should have the same value in 2008 and 2018." "Medium" host in 2018 is, of course, incredibly fast compared to the "medium" host in 2008. That means that the computer of 2008 isn't going to get very high RAC in 2018.

Am I the only one who thinks the decreasing RAC in function of time is somewhat ridiculous?

So, I suggest BOINC developers to use TWO different credit systems: One is that "decreasing RAC" and the other one is "constant RAC in time" credit system. What do you think? Impossible?

Yes, I know that "constant RACs" will be very high in the 2020s, but using prefixes kilo, mega, giga, tera, peta, exa, zetta, yotta should solve the parsing problem.

PS. 64-bit computers should be able to handle very big numbers easily...

Do you have a link to this rumour?

RACs are gonna sky dive. My computer's RAC is something like 500 at the moment, but in the near future it will go to near zero, because of the credit system they use: "Granting a medium host to BOINC for a month should have the same value in 2008 and 2018." "Medium" host in 2018 is, of course, incredibly fast compared to the "medium" host in 2008. That means that the computer of 2008 isn't going to get very high RAC in 2018.

Am I the only one who thinks the decreasing RAC in function of time is somewhat ridiculous?

So, I suggest BOINC developers to use TWO different credit systems: One is that "decreasing RAC" and the other one is "constant RAC in time" credit system. What do you think? Impossible?

Yes, I know that "constant RACs" will be very high in the 2020s, but using prefixes kilo, mega, giga, tera, peta, exa, zetta, yotta should solve the parsing problem.

PS. 64-bit computers should be able to handle very big numbers easily...

Do you have a link to this rumour?

I think Henri is refering to this --> http://lists.ssl.berkeley.edu/pipermail/boinc_dev/2008-January/009548.html
or better look at the list ---> http://lists.ssl.berkeley.edu/pipermail/boinc_dev/2008-January/thread.html

the magic words are "credit normalization" :-(

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Henri--unfortunately your opening post to this thread has a very disruptive feel to it--at least to me.

Sorry for confusing you.

I only heard some rumours that they are developing a new kind of credit system for BOINC...

My opinion is as follows....I personally love my credits. My systems work hard for them. Eric Korpela has stated that S@H is "starved" for crunchers. Any further lowering of credit values will drive people away from the project so I suggest we table this discussion in lieu of a continued focus on upgrading the hardware the system uses in order to ensure a steady supply of WU's.

I also like the current credit system. I am afraid that people will stop BOINCing, if they make too radical changes to the credit system without asking people's opinion.

The purpose of this thread was to ask ideas to develop a credit system that will satisfy most of BOINCers. There are no BOINC developers behind this thread.

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Do you have a link to this rumour?

Umm... I think Crunch3r already gave the links.

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Thanks for links,
I see where you are coming from. But it is only a proposal and one that hasn't been thought through very well. (there's a surprise)

Joe is right in his comments that a computer that gets 100cr/day in 2000 should still get 100cr/day in 2010.

And Pappa also pointed out that it cannot work for test sites. Where do you start the baseline for credit calculation;
at the start of alpha testing,
or just before release to main site,
or some other compromise, like, oh! on that last version we granted too many credits, so we'll just deduct a few thousand, sorrieeeee.

I looked at that thread, too, and had the following thought: from a perspective of resource management and environmental protection, it may well be a good thing to discourage the use of old, energy-inefficient hosts by lowering their earned credit over time. People may not like it, but in this day and age, it may well be the right thing to do. If communicated well, it could actually be received quite positively, methinks.

Seriously, everyone who's more than a casual cruncher has probably asked him/herself whether or not to retire an old, inefficient system. The free market speaks here, too - in terms of utility bills. Just a thought...

I looked at that thread, too, and had the following thought: from a perspective of resource management and environmental protection, it may well be a good thing to discourage the use of old, energy-inefficient hosts by lowering their earned credit over time. People may not like it, but in this day and age, it may well be the right thing to do. If communicated well, it could actually be received quite positively, methinks.

Seriously, everyone who's more than a casual cruncher has probably asked him/herself whether or not to retire an old, inefficient system. The free market speaks here, too - in terms of utility bills. Just a thought...

I have switched off two systems, dual P3 and AMD 2000+, last year but as you say for energy efficiency. I still would expect cr/day to remain stable over the years, even if I was to re-attach them. The dual P3 is still a working computer, used as test equipment, i.e. it has serial and parallel ports that new computers do not have.

I looked at that thread, too, and had the following thought: from a perspective of resource management and environmental protection, it may well be a good thing to discourage the use of old, energy-inefficient hosts by lowering their earned credit over time. People may not like it, but in this day and age, it may well be the right thing to do. If communicated well, it could actually be received quite positively, methinks.

Seriously, everyone who's more than a casual cruncher has probably asked him/herself whether or not to retire an old, inefficient system. The free market speaks here, too - in terms of utility bills. Just a thought...

I don't know if mucking about with the credit system is going to be much incentive over the scope of the whole project user base to spur much upgrading of old hosts.
Most of the very old slow machines are those of set and forget users who have joined the ranks of Seti crunchers in the original context of the project...put in on your computer, let it run, and contribute. We never hear from them on the forums, and they probably have little idea or care what RAC means.
Those who are more concerned or competative about credits and RAC will upgrade on their own accord as their wishes and finances allow. I retired an FX-60 rig a while ago and replaced it with a core 2 based rig because the FX-60 was slow and power hungry by comparison.
There may be valid reasons for small adjustments in the credit multiplier to maintain as much parity as possible between projects, but even then, the question could be asked....Why should Seti make any further changes? As the largest project under the Boinc umbrella, why shouldn't Seti be the baseline, and the rest of the projects be mandated to adjust their credit systems to fall into line if they want to participate under Boinc?

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"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

I looked at that thread, too, and had the following thought: from a perspective of resource management and environmental protection, it may well be a good thing to discourage the use of old, energy-inefficient hosts by lowering their earned credit over time. People may not like it, but in this day and age, it may well be the right thing to do. If communicated well, it could actually be received quite positively, methinks.

Seriously, everyone who's more than a casual cruncher has probably asked him/herself whether or not to retire an old, inefficient system. The free market speaks here, too - in terms of utility bills. Just a thought...

I don't know if mucking about with the credit system is going to be much incentive over the scope of the whole project user base to spur much upgrading of old hosts.
Most of the very old slow machines are those of set and forget users who have joined the ranks of Seti crunchers in the original context of the project...put in on your computer, let it run, and contribute. We never hear from them on the forums, and they probably have little idea or care what RAC means.
Those who are more concerned or competative about credits and RAC will upgrade on their own accord as their wishes and finances allow. I retired an FX-60 rig a while ago and replaced it with a core 2 based rig because the FX-60 was slow and power hungry by comparison.
There may be valid reasons for small adjustments in the credit multiplier to maintain as much parity as possible between projects, but even then, the question could be asked....Why should Seti make any further changes? As the largest project under the Boinc umbrella, why shouldn't Seti be the baseline, and the rest of the projects be mandated to adjust their credit systems to fall into line if they want to participate under Boinc?

Hey, my machines may be old and slow but they're all I can afford. I keep them up to date and optimized. The slowest one has a 4-day turn-around so it isn't too bad. Credits are nice but there's no way I'm ever gonna be in any kind of a race. They get the job done, that's all I care about. I would love to upgrade to a faster machine but the money just isn't there.

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PROUD MEMBER OF Team Starfire World BOINC

I admit I don't fully understand the proposed changes, but as far as I can tell, they simply mean CR/day compared to a base system. If your machine is 20,000x faster than the base system, then it will receive 20,000x more credit per day than the base system. If you upgrade again in 2018 and that system is now 200,000x more powerful than the base system, it will get 200,000x more credit per day, which will still be more RAC than your older system.

I also think the proposed changes are to ensure that other projects keep in line with the CR/day on a base system in an easier to manage fashion other than having to manually edit the credit multiplier in their science app and push out a new version based upon this alone.

I don't see where they're proposing a depreciative credit value based on the average power of the computer at a given point in time. I think speculative posts like this only cause paranoid fears and assumptions to spread instead of facts to be had.

Of course, if anyone with an authoritative perspective on the matter can shed some light on the issue, than I'm more than willing to stand corrected.

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Hey, my machines may be old and slow but they're all I can afford. I keep them up to date and optimized. The slowest one has a 4-day turn-around so it isn't too bad. Credits are nice but there's no way I'm ever gonna be in any kind of a race. They get the job done, that's all I care about. I would love to upgrade to a faster machine but the money just isn't there.

Not to worry, my friend....
You do what you can with what you have got. That's great.
And as I have pointed out before.....
The masses of slower crunchers are the greatest total contributors to this project, not the few fastest runners. We crunch heads make great sport and competition out of the credit races, but we are a smaller part of the total picture. You have a lot of company out there!
In another thread, Richard Haselgrove had responded to my question that he calculated the Top 100 computers contributed about 6.5% of the current output on Seti....
So I don't think that reducing credit values for the slower machines would be a good thing.

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"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

I admit I don't fully understand the proposed changes, but as far as I can tell, they simply mean CR/day compared to a base system. If your machine is 20,000x faster than the base system, then it will receive 20,000x more credit per day than the base system. If you upgrade again in 2018 and that system is now 200,000x more powerful than the base system, it will get 200,000x more credit per day, which will still be more RAC than your older system.

I also think the proposed changes are to ensure that other projects keep in line with the CR/day on a base system in an easier to manage fashion other than having to manually edit the credit multiplier in their science app and push out a new version based upon this alone.

I don't see where they're proposing a depreciative credit value based on the average power of the computer at a given point in time. I think speculative posts like this only cause paranoid fears and assumptions to spread instead of facts to be had.

Of course, if anyone with an authoritative perspective on the matter can shed some light on the issue, than I'm more than willing to stand corrected.

This is the problem: "The average amount of credit per host per day should remain constant over time."

This can only mean that in the future the amount off credit for a result gets lower when a host is able to do more results in a day.

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In another thread, Richard Haselgrove had responded to my question that he calculated the Top 100 computers contributed about 6.5% of the current output on Seti....

Before it gets subsumed into folklore, that 6.5% was for the top 100 users (human beings), who will have an average of far more than 1 computer per user.

This is the problem: "The average amount of credit per host per day should remain constant over time."

This can only mean that in the future the amount off credit for a result gets lower when a host is able to do more results in a day.

No, that's not the only meaning. You're assuming the credits should be lowered over time even after an upgrade. The sentence doesn't say "even with faster hardware". It seems explicitly implied that the credit should remain the same given the same hardware, which I would agree with.

I still think anything further into that sentence is just speculative and shouldn't be over-thought.

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In another thread, Richard Haselgrove had responded to my question that he calculated the Top 100 computers contributed about 6.5% of the current output on Seti....

Before it gets subsumed into folklore, that 6.5% was for the top 100 users (human beings), who will have an average of far more than 1 computer per user.

LOL....Ooops....almost started another 'urban legend' there...thanx for clarifying.
But I guess that what that means is in the context of the current discussion about the speed of crunching computers, the Top 100 'computers' have an even smaller total impact....

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"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster