Lunatics Windows Installer v0.40 release notes

Message boards : Number crunching : Lunatics Windows Installer v0.40 release notes

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Author	Message
jason_gee Volunteer developer Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 24 Nov 06 Posts: 4052 Credit: 60,465,632 RAC: 57,286	Message 1211323 - Posted: 28 Mar 2012, 23:29:09 UTC - in response to Message 1211321. Last modified: 28 Mar 2012, 23:29:39 UTC
	/HUG Jason LoL, thanks, helps a lot :D ...Now everyone hold hands, lol. Well I think indeed sleeping on the problem is going to be the best idea. There are the mentioned workarounds of freeing cores & raising priorties, so we're not stuck yet :) Thanks all ____________ "It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change." Charles Darwin
	ID: 1211323 ·

Richard Haselgrove Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 4 Jul 99 Posts: 7462 Credit: 39,762,481 RAC: 33,935	Message 1211326 - Posted: 28 Mar 2012, 23:42:26 UTC - in response to Message 1211319.
	Don't forget that the priorities were dropped because some people want to use their computers for purposes other than BOINC, and have less than the latest and greatest hardware - then, screen lag and usability also matters. A minor addition to the v0.40 readme file can save a lot of dissapointment: "For the best performance without compromising usability it is advisable to leave one cpu thread free by setting the option On multiprocessor systems use at most 75% of the processors. (for quadcores that is..) Those who aim for the highest production should install a priority raising programme such as..." At this point, you have to start thinking about who the installer (as opposed to the applications it contains) was designed for - and what sort of people run BOINC in the first place. Some figures. The new 0.40 installer has been downloaded 680 times since we launched it, less than 60 hours ago. The previous version 0.39, released at the end of November 2011, had been downloaded 5,300 times when we started on this one. Older versions, which were available for longer, were downloaded over 10,000 times. How many people have posted in this thread? Without counting, I'd guess at fewer than 20. What do the other 660 think? John, your thoughts are great, and we'll certainly consider them. But they are all geared towards increasing the GPU loading. What about people who want, or need, to reduce it for whatever reason? I, for example, choose to use only GPU apps at SETI: my CPUs are all busy on other BOINC projects. Fewer than a third of my total BOINC credits are shown alongside my name here. So, I would resist advice to reduce CPU usage to favour SETI. (Though I have no objection to information of that nature: IF you do this, the CONSEQUENCE might be... - or IF you want to achieve that, the techniques you could use INCLUDE the other.) We're going to need a lot of group hugs, and a lot of sleep, before we work out the answer to this one ;P
	ID: 1211326 ·

Michel448a Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 27 Oct 00 Posts: 1137 Credit: 2,858,856 RAC: 79	Message 1211328 - Posted: 28 Mar 2012, 23:45:45 UTC
	bah me , since last week, since i read at many places, that free 1 core helps alot everything running, and also helps CPU temps... i freed 1 core. and i am runnning 2x cuda in same time. everything run smoothly and also, anyways, i use this pc all day (surfing... playing games... watching movies.... etcetera) ____________
	ID: 1211328 ·

VBobier Send message Joined: 30 Nov 03 Posts: 40858 Credit: 32,155,423 RAC: 19,392	Message 1211329 - Posted: 28 Mar 2012, 23:48:31 UTC
	That is not true Jason, I sent the image file to You, If I was angry the text would have been in all caps, it was not, I did not mean or try to be anything I said, considering I am now running x38g, sure I'm a bit frustrated, but not abusive, nor angry. So quit this. And Yes I know who the guy who is making the Lunatics apps(x38g, x41g, x41u) is, It's You Jason a little birdie told Me... I can always post My PM here if You'd like, right out in the open. ____________ BSG Anthem My Facebook page
	ID: 1211329 ·

arkayn Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 14 May 99 Posts: 3094 Credit: 40,479,343 RAC: 65,726	Message 1211333 - Posted: 28 Mar 2012, 23:54:12 UTC - in response to Message 1211326.
	Some figures. The new 0.40 installer has been downloaded 680 times since we launched it, less than 60 hours ago. The previous version 0.39, released at the end of November 2011, had been downloaded 5,300 times when we started on this one. Older versions, which were available for longer, were downloaded over 10,000 times. Add another 12 from my site as well, I think I was over 800 there on the previous version. ____________
	ID: 1211333 ·

Richard Haselgrove Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 4 Jul 99 Posts: 7462 Credit: 39,762,481 RAC: 33,935	Message 1211335 - Posted: 28 Mar 2012, 23:58:24 UTC - in response to Message 1211329.
	That is not true Jason, I sent the image file to You, If I was angry the text would have been in all caps, it was not, I did not mean or try to be anything I said, considering I am now running x38g, sure I'm a bit frustrated, but not abusive, nor angry. So quit this. And Yes I know who the guy who is making the Lunatics apps(x38g, x41g, x41u) is, It's You Jason a little birdie told Me... I can always post My PM here if You'd like, right out in the open. A little yellow birdie, was it? Yes, I don't think it's ever been an actual secret - just seemed easier to say so explicitly in the message I sent you with the versions to test. No need to institute a leak enquiry over that one.
	ID: 1211335 ·

VBobier Send message Joined: 30 Nov 03 Posts: 40858 Credit: 32,155,423 RAC: 19,392	Message 1211336 - Posted: 29 Mar 2012, 0:02:42 UTC - in response to Message 1211335.
	That is not true Jason, I sent the image file to You, If I was angry the text would have been in all caps, it was not, I did not mean or try to be anything I said, considering I am now running x38g, sure I'm a bit frustrated, but not abusive, nor angry. So quit this. And Yes I know who the guy who is making the Lunatics apps(x38g, x41g, x41u) is, It's You Jason a little birdie told Me... I can always post My PM here if You'd like, right out in the open. A little yellow birdie, was it? Yes, I don't think it's ever been an actual secret - just seemed easier to say so explicitly in the message I sent you with the versions to test. No need to institute a leak enquiry over that one. Sorry I was just trying to keep You out of trouble, as I'd assume that a good number have x38g somewhere, even if their not running it. ____________ BSG Anthem My Facebook page
	ID: 1211336 ·

Horacio Send message Joined: 14 Jan 00 Posts: 527 Credit: 30,709,763 RAC: 129,280	Message 1211337 - Posted: 29 Mar 2012, 0:03:47 UTC - in response to Message 1211323.
	/HUG Jason LoL, thanks, helps a lot :D ...Now everyone hold hands, lol. Well I think indeed sleeping on the problem is going to be the best idea. There are the mentioned workarounds of freeing cores & raising priorties, so we're not stuck yet :) Thanks all Ive noticed this weird long running tasks some time ago but was only on some shorties... Ive thought it was an error on the ETS and I forgot about it. Now, Ive tried the Process Lasso on the host with the 560Ti's and Im crunching at twice the speed on WUs that have the same estimated task size... (may be there is some difference in the AR acting up, but definatelly the GPU usage went up...) Ill let it run a bit more and then Ill try the same on the other hosts... One thing to share about process lasso, Im system engineer and Ive felt a bit intimidated about touching those settings (may be, because I know all the things that could go wrong :D ) So if it were to me, I would preffer to have a command line option or a separated version selectable from the isntaller or whatever that dont rely on a priority rescheduler... Just a though... ____________
	ID: 1211337 ·

JLConawayII Send message Joined: 2 Apr 02 Posts: 181 Credit: 2,631,145 RAC: 273	Message 1211340 - Posted: 29 Mar 2012, 0:19:05 UTC
	If I remember correctly, Folding@home has such a setting for making task priority higher if you're having trouble with the GPU client. ____________
	ID: 1211340 ·

Richard Haselgrove Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 4 Jul 99 Posts: 7462 Credit: 39,762,481 RAC: 33,935	Message 1211346 - Posted: 29 Mar 2012, 0:40:22 UTC - in response to Message 1211340.
	If I remember correctly, Folding@home has such a setting for making task priority higher if you're having trouble with the GPU client. So does GPUGrid, with their SWAN_SYNC environment variable - which, I gather, is supposed to switch the app from busy-wait to polling for synchronisation, or vice versa, or something. Never seemed to make much difference for me, but it's another way of getting control options from the user to the application.
	ID: 1211346 ·

Josef W. Segur Volunteer developer Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 30 Oct 99 Posts: 3932 Credit: 934,327 RAC: 15	Message 1211365 - Posted: 29 Mar 2012, 1:45:07 UTC
	A couple of comments on freeing one core, as a refinement but not as a recommendation. For any host with up to 100 CPU cores, setting 99% frees one core. BOINC rounds down to the nearest fraction. I wouldn't use that setting. Instead, when setting the <count> fields to control how many GPU tasks run at once I'd set the <avg_ncpus> fields such that when all GPUs had work there would be a CPU core freed, but if GPU work was running out all CPU cores would go back to doing pure CPU tasks. For a single GPU situation, <avg_ncpus> would be the same as or a tiny bit higher than <count>, for multiple GPUs it would scale down: 1 GPU 2 GPUs 3 GPUs <count> <avg_ncpus> <avg_ncpus> <avg_ncpus> 0.5 0.5 0.25 0.167 0.33 0.34 0.167 0.112 0.25 0.25 0.125 0.084 0.2 0.2 0.1 0.067 Joe
	ID: 1211365 ·

Grant (SSSF) Send message Joined: 19 Aug 99 Posts: 5059 Credit: 40,995,952 RAC: 52,648	Message 1211420 - Posted: 29 Mar 2012, 4:52:39 UTC - in response to Message 1211326. Last modified: 29 Mar 2012, 4:54:22 UTC
	How many people have posted in this thread? Without counting, I'd guess at fewer than 20. What do the other 660 think? I only do MB work, so i haven't bothered with the latest release as it doesn't affect me. The advantage of the Lunatics installer is that allows pretty much anyone to install an optimised application without having to muck around manually copying & editing files. Adding yet more options, command line switches & other refinements detracts from the whole point of the installer IMHO. It's meant to make things simple, not more complicated. I think at most you might want to have a screen during setup that mentions that some people may have some issues, and point them to the readme file for more information. I'm happy with things the way they are at present- i ran the installer, edited the config file to run 2 WUs at a time on the GPU & then just let it do it's thing. If people want to reserve a Core or tweak other settings to get another .5% boost in throughput then they can go for it. But i wouldn't have those options as part of the installer. Just tell people at the start (and end for those with short memories) of the installation to read the readme file for known issues, and their possible work arounds. ____________ Grant Darwin NT.
	ID: 1211420 ·

jason_gee Volunteer developer Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 24 Nov 06 Posts: 4052 Credit: 60,465,632 RAC: 57,286	Message 1211422 - Posted: 29 Mar 2012, 5:04:10 UTC - in response to Message 1211420. Last modified: 29 Mar 2012, 5:04:33 UTC
	How many people have posted in this thread? Without counting, I'd guess at fewer than 20. What do the other 660 think? I only do MB work, so i haven't bothered with the latest release as it doesn't affect me. The advantage of the Lunatics installer is that allows pretty much anyone to install an optimised application without having to muck around manually copying & editing files. Adding yet more options, command line switches & other refinements detracts from the whole point of the installer IMHO. It's meant to make things simple, not more complicated. I think at most you might want to have a screen during setup that mentions that some people may have some issues, and point them to the readme file for more information. I'm happy with things the way they are at present- i ran the installer, edited the config file to run 2 WUs at a time on the GPU & then just let it do it's thing. If people want to reserve a Core or tweak other settings to get another .5% boost in throughput then they can go for it. But i wouldn't have those options as part of the installer. Just tell people at the start (and end for those with short memories) of the installation to read the readme file for known issues, and their possible work arounds. Thanks Grant, That's the original direction I was coming from. I'll remain avoiding making anything needlessly complex for standard running. Cheers, Jason ____________ "It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change." Charles Darwin
	ID: 1211422 ·

[seti.international] Philip J. Fry Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 6 Apr 07 Posts: 6571 Credit: 50,825,045 RAC: 20,653	Message 1211428 - Posted: 29 Mar 2012, 5:42:13 UTC Last modified: 29 Mar 2012, 6:01:26 UTC
	I forgot something.. A big 'Thank you!' to all who are in the Lunatics crew - and who are involved the we have the Lunatics Installers! Just a few ideas of one S@h member.. It's possible to extend the CUDA app with cmdline settings, so the members could in-/decrease the priority himself? It's possible to make a bench-test tool, a very easy for noobs like me, one click and the program say which app (CPU extension usage) is the best/fastest for the machine? For S@h Enhanced (MultiBeam) and Astropulse apps? This would be very helpful and nice.. Thanks a lot! I just wanted to make a bench-test for to see which AP 6.01 app (r555 vs. r557) is faster on my machine, but I failed.. *- Best regards!* -** Sutaru Tsureku, team seti.international founder. - Optimize your PC for higher RAC. - SETI@home needs your help. - ____________ >Das Deutsche Cafe. The German Cafe.<
	ID: 1211428 ·

Mark Wyzenbeek Send message Joined: 28 Jun 99 Posts: 63 Credit: 1,254,723 RAC: 2,116	Message 1211430 - Posted: 29 Mar 2012, 6:00:09 UTC - in response to Message 1211420.
	How many people have posted in this thread? Without counting, I'd guess at fewer than 20. What do the other 660 think? I ran the installer without trouble. I've finally downloaded a couple AP workunits but haven't started crunching them yet. I don't have a fancy GPU to use. Thanks for the update! ____________ The Universe is not only stranger than you imagine, it's stranger than you can imagine. SETI@home classic workunits 1,405 CPU time 57,318 hours
	ID: 1211430 ·

Horacio Send message Joined: 14 Jan 00 Posts: 527 Credit: 30,709,763 RAC: 129,280	Message 1211434 - Posted: 29 Mar 2012, 6:25:19 UTC - in response to Message 1211422.
	I'm happy with things the way they are at present- i ran the installer, edited the config file to run 2 WUs at a time on the GPU & then just let it do it's thing. If people want to reserve a Core or tweak other settings to get another .5% boost in throughput then they can go for it. But i wouldn't have those options as part of the installer. Just tell people at the start (and end for those with short memories) of the installation to read the readme file for known issues, and their possible work arounds. Thanks Grant, That's the original direction I was coming from. I'll remain avoiding making anything needlessly complex for standard running. Cheers, Jason I agree with the part about not making the installation more complex, but I still think that relying on process lasso or any 3rd party tool to make one app to work almost twice faster dosnt sounds good... The optional command line to be edited manually (or an enviroment variable or whatever inside BOINC/SETI apps) sounds better from (my) user's point of view... About few people downloading this, In my case Ive dowloaded it for one new host devoted exclusively for Seti in which I dont care what it does as long as it is crunching but, Im not running the CPU AP apps in the other hosts cause is not efficient (for my taste, of course) so I might not have need of this new installation... I guess there is a lot of people in the same situation, not needing/wanting the CPU AP app... Again, Im just sharing my thought not saying what Lunatics should do... ____________
	ID: 1211434 ·

jason_gee Volunteer developer Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 24 Nov 06 Posts: 4052 Credit: 60,465,632 RAC: 57,286	Message 1211436 - Posted: 29 Mar 2012, 6:32:10 UTC - in response to Message 1211434. Last modified: 29 Mar 2012, 6:33:25 UTC
	I'm happy with things the way they are at present- i ran the installer, edited the config file to run 2 WUs at a time on the GPU & then just let it do it's thing. If people want to reserve a Core or tweak other settings to get another .5% boost in throughput then they can go for it. But i wouldn't have those options as part of the installer. Just tell people at the start (and end for those with short memories) of the installation to read the readme file for known issues, and their possible work arounds. Thanks Grant, That's the original direction I was coming from. I'll remain avoiding making anything needlessly complex for standard running. Cheers, Jason I agree with the part about not making the installation more complex, but I still think that relying on process lasso or any 3rd party tool to make one app to work almost twice faster dosnt sounds good... The optional command line to be edited manually (or an enviroment variable or whatever inside BOINC/SETI apps) sounds better from (my) user's point of view... About few people downloading this, In my case Ive dowloaded it for one new host devoted exclusively for Seti in which I dont care what it does as long as it is crunching but, Im not running the CPU AP apps in the other hosts cause is not efficient (for my taste, of course) so I might not have need of this new installation... I guess there is a lot of people in the same situation, not needing/wanting the CPU AP app... Again, Im just sharing my thought not saying what Lunatics should do... Thanks, It'll all be considered for next release (Kepler GPU refresh + performance updates), taking into account that some users appear to need added functionality. ____________ "It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change." Charles Darwin
	ID: 1211436 ·

WinterKnight Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 18 May 99 Posts: 6827 Credit: 17,162,231 RAC: 25,383	Message 1211441 - Posted: 29 Mar 2012, 7:00:32 UTC - in response to Message 1211326.
	How many people have posted in this thread? Without counting, I'd guess at fewer than 20. What do the other 660 think? As one of the others, I report that on old h/ware, q6600 & gt250, the installation went without incident and the computer is crunching as expected. AP tasks have been hard to grab but now have a couple that should start later today, or early tomorrow. Think you should take the opinion that "no news, is good news". People don't usually hesitate to complain.
	ID: 1211441 ·

KB7RZF Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 15 Aug 99 Posts: 9427 Credit: 2,101,934 RAC: 4,724	Message 1211448 - Posted: 29 Mar 2012, 7:28:51 UTC
	Being someone who just runs CPU, I love the installer. And since I run whatever is thrown my way on my 2 computers, I updated to this latest installer. I don't really have time or money to deal with GPU's right now, I'd like to, but just don't have the time. Maybe next year? LOL Thank you to the Lunatic's Crew for everything you guys and gals have done. Its outstanding work, has made installing these optimized app's so much easier even the non-techie folks can do it. I have always admired that we have some of the most dedicated folks here on this project that enjoy helping others, and not getting frustrated even when questions are posed more than once. I'm sure once things calm down for me, I'll be one of those who asks. There is a lot of information on these boards, and instead of trying to sift through it all, its easier to get it answered the right way without having to dig through so much info. ____________
	ID: 1211448 ·

LadyL Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 14 Sep 11 Posts: 1679 Credit: 5,230,097 RAC: 14	Message 1211477 - Posted: 29 Mar 2012, 9:39:51 UTC
	Seeing the thread exploded over night, if I don't get to your question, please don't hesitate to repeat it. @Micheal Miles - The NVidia OpenCL apps run on 270+ drivers but hog a CPU core. You'll either have overcommit or you can do a workaround and free one core - I think Joe posted how to do that. ____________ I'm not the Pope. I don't speak Ex Cathedra!
	ID: 1211477 ·

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Message boards : Number crunching : Lunatics Windows Installer v0.40 release notes