Sheesh!

On one of my machines BOINC is running a bunch of APs due 4/21 - not in high priority mode. Meanwhile, it has stopped ("Waiting to Run") 3 APs due 4/10. Also waiting are another bunch in "ready to Start" that are due 4/11 - 4/17. Similarly, my other machine has 2 APs Waiting-to-Run due 4/9, and a bunch running due 4/21 also.

Say what?

Can anyone explain the logic of this to me under LIFO, FIFO or FEFIFOFUM?

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Imagine I'm your boss (scary thought, I know). Imagine I gave you some major work to do that I want on my desk by 4/10, which is two weeks away. You begin the project in earnest and get so far before I show up again and give you another major project that I want on my desk by 4/21, which is three and a half weeks away.

Somewhere in there I also gave you some work that I want on my desk by 4/11 through 4/17 respectively.

With the amount of work I've given you, you begin to wonder if you'll get it all done on time. So instead of just focusing on the ones with the earliest deadlines while possibly not having enough time afterward to complete the other tasks I gave you, you decide to dedicate small amounts of time to each task. Knowing that if you balance your time well, you'll be able to complete all tasks on time without having to stress yourself out, and change your priorities to Earliest Deadline First mode, which shouldn't be necessary given the amount of time due inbetween tasks.


That's all BOINC is doing. It's slowly giving CPU time to each task to ensure that it doesn't need to run in earliest deadline first / high priority mode.

That's a very fine explanation, $o |>0/|/3. :-)


Helli

That's all BOINC is doing. It's slowly giving CPU time to each task to ensure that it doesn't need to run in earliest deadline first / high priority mode.

Interesting.
I will check the elapsed times on the "Waiting to Run" 4/10 APs and see if they are really being run in a round-robin fashion with the 4/21s.

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Wait, you mean BOINC isn't crazy after all? But that would mean I'm.... Oh dear!!! :-(

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PROUD MEMBER OF Team Starfire World BOINC

Well, I went out for about 4 hours. When I came back, the "Waiting to Run" APs were exactly where they were before, to the second. So I don't think they are being run alternately with the later ones that are "Running" now.

So that theory is shot down.

NOW can someone explain the behavior of running ones due later while stopping ones due earlier? Isn't that counter-intuitive, not to mention WRONG? After all, if BOINC is afraid that the 4/21 APs aren't going to finish in time, why does he seem to think that the 4/10 ones will?

PS: Perry, take a deep breath and sit down. Don't get excited. Think about NICE things.

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I´m wondering about this behaviour for years.
Specially for APs on ATI it makes no sense.
The guys think way to complicated.
It will finnish exactly the same amount of work if running in FIFO.
You only have to wait longer for your wingman.
Running on huge caches its better to suspend WUs with later deadlines.
So i get what i want.

Maybe in 20 years those guys will wake up.

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With each crime and every kindness we birth our future.

The few times I've run Seti + backup projects with short deadlines, some of the backup work wouldn't have finished in time if I didn't pause the Seti WUs which Boinc insisted on running. Have no idea why it happens.

Well, I went out for about 4 hours. When I came back, the "Waiting to Run" APs were exactly where they were before, to the second. So I don't think they are being run alternately with the later ones that are "Running" now.

I'm afraid your time sample may be too short. You may want to observe over a much longer time period.

NOW can someone explain the behavior of running ones due later while stopping ones due earlier? Isn't that counter-intuitive, not to mention WRONG? After all, if BOINC is afraid that the 4/21 APs aren't going to finish in time, why does he seem to think that the 4/10 ones will?

BOINC runs many simulations based upon available computing time and amount of time the computer is running and the cached workload on hand and resource share.

If it has sufficiently processed enough work from the 4/10 ones but now the simulation has shown that the 4/21s are in danger, it will start processing those, balancing the CPU time between all the aforementioned variables.

If you want to know why BOINC makes the decisions it does then you should enable the logging flags that display the scheduler output.

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SETI@home classic workunits: 93,865 CPU time: 863,447 hours
Join the [url=http://tinyurl.com/8y46zvu]BP6/VP6 User Group[

If you want to know why BOINC makes the decisions it does then you should enable the logging flags that display the scheduler output.

OK - how do I do that?

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I'm afraid your time sample may be too short. You may want to observe over a much longer time period.

It didn´t learn after 500 units i´ve finnished so i dont expect it would after 1 million.

It could be so easy.

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With each crime and every kindness we birth our future.

I'm afraid your time sample may be too short. You may want to observe over a much longer time period.

It didn´t learn after 500 units i´ve finnished so i dont expect it would after 1 million.

It could be so easy.

Interesting... it works as designed for me.

It is amazingly easy.

I'm afraid your time sample may be too short. You may want to observe over a much longer time period.

It didn´t learn after 500 units i´ve finnished so i dont expect it would after 1 million.

It could be so easy.

Interesting... it works as designed for me.

It is amazingly easy.

It does so long you dont have a huge cache.
Running a 20 day cache is only possible in FIFO mode.
I finnished 512 APs in 20 days with GPU.

Yes it is possible to get such a cache.

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With each crime and every kindness we birth our future.

If you want to know why BOINC makes the decisions it does then you should enable the logging flags that display the scheduler output.

OK - how do I do that?

Do you know about the cc_config.xml file?

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SETI@home classic workunits: 93,865 CPU time: 863,447 hours
Join the [url=http://tinyurl.com/8y46zvu]BP6/VP6 User Group[

If you want to know why BOINC makes the decisions it does then you should enable the logging flags that display the scheduler output.

OK - how do I do that?

Do you know about the cc_config.xml file?

Tes I did, but not about debugging flags. I will investigate...
Thanks!

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I'm afraid your time sample may be too short. You may want to observe over a much longer time period.

It didn´t learn after 500 units i´ve finnished so i dont expect it would after 1 million.

It could be so easy.

Interesting... it works as designed for me.

It is amazingly easy.

It does so long you dont have a huge cache.
Running a 20 day cache is only possible in FIFO mode.
I finnished 512 APs in 20 days with GPU.

Yes it is possible to get such a cache.

Then don't run a large cache. I would fully support a decision to modify the code server-side that restricts the cache to 5 days max for all projects.

Then don't run a large cache. I would fully support a decision to modify the code server-side that restricts the cache to 5 days max for all projects.

A 10 day max I would certainly support but not 5.

Cheers.

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I received a PM making the following suggestion to my original analogy:

You're my boss (shudder!) and you say "have these tasks on my desk by (deadline), each one will take 10 hours."

I start working on one, I'm breezing my way through it, and when it's clear they won't take ten hours and can be finished easily, I set that one aside and start on the tasks that may be late if the ten hours is accurate.

... because that's what I noticed. A unit that is expected to take ten hours might be 50% done after two hours processing.

You can experiment by editing DCF to a low number (to download LOTS of work) then changing DCF to a high number (10x what it should be). As BOINC does work, the "to completion" time will move nearly ten times faster than "wall" time.

My original analogy didn't properly convey DCF as this suggestion does.

I'm afraid your time sample may be too short. You may want to observe over a much longer time period.

It didn´t learn after 500 units i´ve finnished so i dont expect it would after 1 million.

It could be so easy.

Interesting... it works as designed for me.

It is amazingly easy.

It does so long you dont have a huge cache.
Running a 20 day cache is only possible in FIFO mode.
I finnished 512 APs in 20 days with GPU.

Yes it is possible to get such a cache.

Then don't run a large cache. I would fully support a decision to modify the code server-side that restricts the cache to 5 days max for all projects.

Wouldn´t change anything.
You can run a 40 day cache if you know how.
I dont need server code for that.

Anyhow it seems you missed the point.
Running in FIFO mode would only make it easier.
But i know some guys like it complicated.
One of the reasons i quit Boinc alpha.

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With each crime and every kindness we birth our future.