What's up with these WU's credit?

Message boards : Number crunching : What's up with these WU's credit?

Author	Message
TeAm Enterprise Send message Joined: 29 Apr 01 Posts: 10 Credit: 10,410,551 RAC: 0	Message 1176185 - Posted: 7 Dec 2011, 2:37:28 UTC Last modified: 7 Dec 2011, 2:48:41 UTC
	http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/workunit.php?wuid=874755537 http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/workunit.php?wuid=874755531 http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/workunit.php?wuid=874755489 http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/workunit.php?wuid=874755577 Below 2 credit when normal is in the 20's? And I can crunch this WU for http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/workunit.php?wuid=874672792 654 seconds to get .95 credit doing 10.4x10^12 Flops. Or I can do this one http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/workunit.php?wuid=874618828 for 535 seconds to get 115 credits doing 16.8x10^12 Flops. What a crazy credit scheme SETI has. ____________
	ID: 1176185 ·

HAL9000 Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 11 Sep 99 Posts: 3279 Credit: 76,968,829 RAC: 78,286	Message 1176207 - Posted: 7 Dec 2011, 4:34:01 UTC
	Well if you have rad about the CreditNew scheme that is being used it all makes sense. Not in a good way, just math wise. There are many such topics already posted on it I would suggest you use advanced search for find out all about it. IIRC they started using it in June of '10. ____________ SETI@home classic workunits: 93,865 CPU time: 863,447 hours Join the BP6/VP6 User Group today!
	ID: 1176207 ·

TeAm Enterprise Send message Joined: 29 Apr 01 Posts: 10 Credit: 10,410,551 RAC: 0	Message 1176285 - Posted: 7 Dec 2011, 15:03:45 UTC
	I read up about CreditNew last year. That doesn't explain why after months of getting around 20 credits for the short WUs suddenly in the past few days they are only getting 1-2 credits. What has changed? ____________
	ID: 1176285 ·

Terror Australis Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 14 Feb 04 Posts: 1420 Credit: 182,216,511 RAC: 161,706	Message 1176296 - Posted: 7 Dec 2011, 15:38:20 UTC - in response to Message 1176285. Last modified: 7 Dec 2011, 15:47:47 UTC
	Just wondering. You are using the new Lunatics app and all your wingmen on those units are using older versions. I see a lot of your units are validating with low credits. BOINC always gives the lowest claimed credit for a valid result so if your computer is claiming low your wingman will be given a low credit too. I suggest you roll back to your old app and see if the low claims persist. With all due respects to the Lunatics this could be due to an undetected bug in their application. EDIT: All the low point units I looked at were crunched on the GTS450. You could try removing the 8600GTS from your box and seeing if this makes a difference. That's an old card and it could be creating some sort of conflict with the new app and the much newer 450. T.A.
	ID: 1176296 ·

JohnDK Send message Joined: 28 May 00 Posts: 756 Credit: 20,542,649 RAC: 35,146	Message 1176297 - Posted: 7 Dec 2011, 15:38:32 UTC - in response to Message 1176285.
	I read up about CreditNew last year. That doesn't explain why after months of getting around 20 credits for the short WUs suddenly in the past few days they are only getting 1-2 credits. What has changed? I have a PC with the same thing happening, many only getting 2.* per WU, but today it gets 5-6 per WU, very strange.
	ID: 1176297 ·

JohnDK Send message Joined: 28 May 00 Posts: 756 Credit: 20,542,649 RAC: 35,146	Message 1176298 - Posted: 7 Dec 2011, 15:42:03 UTC Last modified: 7 Dec 2011, 15:46:47 UTC
	I've checked a couple of results, both uses x38g. PC: http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/results.php?hostid=4778143&offset=0&show_names=0&state=3&appid=
	ID: 1176298 ·

Terror Australis Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 14 Feb 04 Posts: 1420 Credit: 182,216,511 RAC: 161,706	Message 1176299 - Posted: 7 Dec 2011, 15:54:16 UTC Last modified: 7 Dec 2011, 15:54:59 UTC
	Maybe a driver or CUDA dll issue with older cards ?? To TeAm and JohnDK, What NVidia driver version are you using ? T.A.
	ID: 1176299 ·

Terror Australis Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 14 Feb 04 Posts: 1420 Credit: 182,216,511 RAC: 161,706	Message 1176301 - Posted: 7 Dec 2011, 16:08:08 UTC - in response to Message 1176299.
	Maybe a driver or CUDA dll issue with older cards ?? To TeAm and JohnDK, What NVidia driver version are you using ? T.A. I checked and the drivers in use are 275.33 and 280.26 respectively. It could still be a driver vs CUDA 3 dlls vs older GPU's issue. A driver upgrade may help. To TeAm, I would still try pulling the older card. This would eliminate one possible cause whether it makes a difference or not. As I said above BOINC always grants the lowest claimed credit to both parties. We have to try and find out who is claiming low. T.A.
	ID: 1176301 ·

perryjay Send message Joined: 20 Aug 02 Posts: 3359 Credit: 9,676,800 RAC: 10,460	Message 1176309 - Posted: 7 Dec 2011, 17:05:45 UTC - in response to Message 1176301.
	For what it's worth I got a string of low pays on my little GTS 450 a few days ago. Unfortunately they are all gone now and credits have gone back to about normal. I'm running driver version 267.59.( It was pointed out to me that this driver is specific to the 450 just for FYI) I mention it here because Skildude was talking about low credits on his ATI card. I didn't have any at the time but got a string of them not long after. It doesn't look like whatever this is is card type or driver related unless, like you say, it is something those particular wingmen did. ____________ PROUD MEMBER OF Team Starfire World BOINC
	ID: 1176309 ·

LadyL Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 14 Sep 11 Posts: 1679 Credit: 5,230,097 RAC: 14	Message 1176310 - Posted: 7 Dec 2011, 17:08:35 UTC Last modified: 7 Dec 2011, 17:09:23 UTC
	How much credit you get isn't dependent on the app you run but on the relative speed of the application within the host (APR) and compared to the average of all active hosts (that's at least what it should do) probably APR changed on the machine in question. (or the wingmans machine) Also outlier detection is now active, so -9 won't influence APR and shouldn't influence credit. That may have provoked a change in general credit award.
	ID: 1176310 ·

HAL9000 Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 11 Sep 99 Posts: 3279 Credit: 76,968,829 RAC: 78,286	Message 1176312 - Posted: 7 Dec 2011, 17:26:34 UTC - in response to Message 1176310.
	How much credit you get isn't dependent on the app you run but on the relative speed of the application within the host (APR) and compared to the average of all active hosts (that's at least what it should do) probably APR changed on the machine in question. (or the wingmans machine) Also outlier detection is now active, so -9 won't influence APR and shouldn't influence credit. That may have provoked a change in general credit award. From what I have seen in those lop credit tasks the wing person often has a really screwy APR. ____________ SETI@home classic workunits: 93,865 CPU time: 863,447 hours Join the BP6/VP6 User Group today!
	ID: 1176312 ·

TeAm Enterprise Send message Joined: 29 Apr 01 Posts: 10 Credit: 10,410,551 RAC: 0	Message 1176374 - Posted: 7 Dec 2011, 23:37:39 UTC - in response to Message 1176301.
	I'll pull the 8600GTS and see what happens. If nothing happens then I will roll back to Lunatics .38. Thanks. ____________
	ID: 1176374 ·

Lionel Send message Joined: 25 Mar 00 Posts: 400 Credit: 149,392,369 RAC: 215,747	Message 1176437 - Posted: 8 Dec 2011, 7:15:44 UTC - in response to Message 1176374.
	this is not to detract from your problem but I often wonder about this. many years ago we effectively got 1 credit per wu (all that happened was that counted wus completed). when we went to boinc, a new credit system as introduced to make things "fairer"/"equal" across projects. since then, with each change of the credit system in seti, we have received less credit per wu. in the case of other projects, you can receive more credit per unit of time than with seti. i appreciate this and am not phased by it at all. however, in the case of seti, it has been moving towards a single credit per wu. so the question that always comes to mind is, "why bother with a credit system and all that complexity, why not accept the subconscious/implied strategy and just move to a single credit per wu" ... at least then we would all know where we stand and there would be no complaining ... cheers ____________
	ID: 1176437 ·

Mad Fritz Send message Joined: 20 Jul 01 Posts: 87 Credit: 11,278,888 RAC: 211	Message 1176595 - Posted: 8 Dec 2011, 22:39:08 UTC - in response to Message 1176437.
	this is not to detract from your problem but I often wonder about this. (...) so the question that always comes to mind is, "why bother with a credit system and all that complexity, why not accept the subconscious/implied strategy and just move to a single credit per wu" ... at least then we would all know where we stand and there would be no complaining ... cheers Suddenly no one would like APs anymore and start loving this now so much hated shorties... ____________
	ID: 1176595 ·

skildude Send message Joined: 4 Oct 00 Posts: 8944 Credit: 36,794,212 RAC: 60,548	Message 1176599 - Posted: 8 Dec 2011, 22:48:50 UTC - in response to Message 1176595.
	WU's are not equal and assigning the same value to each is unrealistic. We have VHAR WU's that a fast GPU can finish in 3 minutes which would take a fast CPU 20-30 minutes. We also have VLARs that can finish in under an hour with a GPU and 2-3 hours. Of course these times are using optimized apps. Now why would anyone want to run a VLAR when they could run a VHAR? The answer is a credit system that awards for work done in processing not in quantity of WU's. THis is the whole reason we don't count the number of WU's anymore. There's no point to it. ____________ Proud member of TSWB. End terrorism by building a school
	ID: 1176599 ·

Mike Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 17 Feb 01 Posts: 19504 Credit: 21,208,089 RAC: 25,972	Message 1176607 - Posted: 8 Dec 2011, 23:01:50 UTC
	Dont look for excuses its credit new. I had more than 50 units (VHARs) shared with the same wingman. 45 got between 25 and 35 credits 5 not even 10. Same runtime no overflows. ____________
	ID: 1176607 ·

Kevin Olley Send message Joined: 3 Aug 99 Posts: 368 Credit: 33,622,153 RAC: 5,856	Message 1176700 - Posted: 9 Dec 2011, 6:47:08 UTC - in response to Message 1176595.
	Suddenly no one would like APs anymore and start loving this now so much hated shorties... I for one would happily do shorties all day long, the only problem with that is I cannot download them as fast as I can crunch them. This machine does a shortie in 4 min 30 sec, at 3 per card, three cards, that equals 1 shortie every 30 sec. Or 2,880 per day:-) ____________ Kevin
	ID: 1176700 ·

Lionel Send message Joined: 25 Mar 00 Posts: 400 Credit: 149,392,369 RAC: 215,747	Message 1176716 - Posted: 9 Dec 2011, 8:42:46 UTC - in response to Message 1176599.
	WU's are not equal and assigning the same value to each is unrealistic. We have VHAR WU's that a fast GPU can finish in 3 minutes which would take a fast CPU 20-30 minutes. We also have VLARs that can finish in under an hour with a GPU and 2-3 hours. Of course these times are using optimized apps. Now why would anyone want to run a VLAR when they could run a VHAR? The answer is a credit system that awards for work done in processing not in quantity of WU's. THis is the whole reason we don't count the number of WU's anymore. There's no point to it. my gpus do a fast wu in about 1 min 10 sec, sometimes less, sometimes a little bit more but you'll get the drift ... with kepler gpus it will be sub 1 minute ... so if we look at past behaviour, where do you think credits will go ... it's an interesting question and credit calculation and assignment adds complexity ... ____________
	ID: 1176716 ·

Lionel Send message Joined: 25 Mar 00 Posts: 400 Credit: 149,392,369 RAC: 215,747	Message 1176717 - Posted: 9 Dec 2011, 8:49:15 UTC - in response to Message 1176700.
	Suddenly no one would like APs anymore and start loving this now so much hated shorties... I for one would happily do shorties all day long, the only problem with that is I cannot download them as fast as I can crunch them. This machine does a shortie in 4 min 30 sec, at 3 per card, three cards, that equals 1 shortie every 30 sec. Or 2,880 per day:-) am in the same boat ... just can't get enough to keep the little ones happy ... have 2 x gpus per box so circa 35 sceonds per box ... ____________
	ID: 1176717 ·

Lint trap Send message Joined: 30 May 03 Posts: 854 Credit: 20,246,315 RAC: 20,952	Message 1176753 - Posted: 9 Dec 2011, 13:13:14 UTC - in response to Message 1176700. Last modified: 9 Dec 2011, 13:14:33 UTC
	Suddenly no one would like APs anymore and start loving this now so much hated shorties... I for one would happily do shorties all day long, the only problem with that is I cannot download them as fast as I can crunch them. This machine does a shortie in 4 min 30 sec, at 3 per card, three cards, that equals 1 shortie every 30 sec. Or 2,880 per day:-) Shorties have another consequence besides just digging a deeper hole for the servers to work out of... The idle time taken to start crunching the next wu. At 2,880 shorties/day almost 6.4 hours/day would be idle time for that host, if the gap is 8 seconds long on average. Which coupled with any Credit issues causes a further drop in RAC. Reducing idle time increases RAC and takes the additional load off of the servers - all trying to keep up. Lt edited
	ID: 1176753 ·

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Message boards : Number crunching : What's up with these WU's credit?