Please change the RAC calculation to a 5 day average

Message boards : Number crunching : Please change the RAC calculation to a 5 day average
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Message 1363395 - Posted: 2 May 2013, 2:48:27 UTC
Last modified: 2 May 2013, 3:06:06 UTC

with the end of 100 WU limits nowhere in site and the inability to keep our rigs fed thru no fault of our own, i'm asking that the duration of the RAC calculation to be reduce. i think people would care a lot less about the outages if less time was invested in to building a high RAC score.
people who are going to respond with "spare CPU cycle" argument, please create your own thread.
what makes this project fun is the competitive nature of RAC and the effort it takes to achieve a high stable RAC.
this is a hobby for which we chose to participate in, spare CPU/GPU cycles are not free, they consume considerable amounts of power.
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Message 1363415 - Posted: 2 May 2013, 4:02:15 UTC - in response to Message 1363395.  
Last modified: 2 May 2013, 4:21:03 UTC

with the end of 100 WU limits nowhere in site and the inability to keep our rigs fed thru no fault of our own, i'm asking that the duration of the RAC calculation to be reduce. i think people would care a lot less about the outages if less time was invested in to building a high RAC score.
people who are going to respond with "spare CPU cycle" argument, please create your own thread.
what makes this project fun is the competitive nature of RAC and the effort it takes to achieve a high stable RAC.
this is a hobby for which we chose to participate in, spare CPU/GPU cycles are not free, they consume considerable amounts of power.


You post on an open forum, you are going to get everyone's opinions whether you want them or not.

How would a 5 day average help you if your rigs keep going dry? Aren't other uber crunchers in the same boat? Aren't those the people you are in competition with?

Yes, I understand that you are one of the "old ones" with your four digit User ID. But you and your comrades have succeeded in only illustrating the classic "tragedy of the commons". You've all succeeded in building a cluster of crunchers that together are exceeding the raw capacity of the project's servers in terms of delivering enough work for you all? We have the 100 unit limit because of you lot as well. I on the other hand with my pitiful nearly full time rig is fully stocked simply because on my worst days I crunch only 40-50 MB a day, maybe 3x that in shorty storms.

Your RAC has been going up for the last 60 days while your RAC ranking has dropped from 8th to 14th. If I sort the data up at BOINCstats by credits per week (7 days not 5 but hey it's close) and that only moves you up one position. Oh boy, a whole position, does that validate your commitment more than before? (sarcasm intended) Every consider that a few of the new kids that have displaced you simply have better setups than you do now (like ExchangeMan's beast)?

Since S@H has gotten the bigger pipe, my RAC ranking has gone from 4200ish to 7500ish since rigs that are much faster than mine (just not as fast as the top say 100 rigs) are no longer starving. Do I feel sad that I've slipped so far and likely to slip even farther. A twinge.

So I don't think changing the RAC averaging method for this project is going to elevate you or drop many who are in front of you if credits/week is any indication (only one position). Your BOINCstats RAC, which is a 60 day average is lower than your official project one and both have increased in that time period.

So I don't see why you are suggesting this because it clearly isn't helping you much at all. What else can I say. S@H is no longer an "old man's" game of oodles of rigs with a single video card helping anymore. It's sort of like bitcoin mining, it's all about thousands of dollars invested in the top most video cards for only a few rigs with each GPU multitasking 2 - 4 units at a time.

And as an aside, lovely dog, my parents recently got a mini dachshund with the same color combo through the face including the little brown brows.
"Life is just nature's way of keeping meat fresh." - The Doctor
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Message 1363416 - Posted: 2 May 2013, 4:13:36 UTC - in response to Message 1363395.  

If you want the RAC calculation changed, you will have to post that request elsewhere. As the RAC calculation is part of BOINC and not part of Seti@home.

You might try here.

You will have to convince a lot of different project admins that changing it will be beneficial to their pet project. Since they are interested in total returned work units, the science done, and not a big number on some stats web site, I don't think you have as much chance as a snowball in hell.

Of course you are free to make your own stats site and do your own RAC calculation and host it on a website somewhere.

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Message 1363419 - Posted: 2 May 2013, 4:20:34 UTC - in response to Message 1363415.  

How would a 5 day average help you if your rigs keep going dry?

absolutely will not help, but i wouldn't care as much as not so much time invested.
So I don't see why you are suggesting this because it clearly isn't helping you much at all.
I think it would calm the mega cruncher. I would be more likely to shut down and return later when the storm clears, as it would take much less time to regain your position. also would make experimenting with configurations easier to quantify.
And as an aside, lovely dog, my parents recently got a mini dachshund with the same color combo through the face including the little brown brows.
Arrow crossed the rainbow bridge after 16 years, he was a one in a lifetime...
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Message 1363421 - Posted: 2 May 2013, 4:22:52 UTC - in response to Message 1363419.  

And as an aside, lovely dog, my parents recently got a mini dachshund with the same color combo through the face including the little brown brows.
Arrow crossed the rainbow bridge after 16 years, he was a one in a lifetime...


:(
My condolences.

"Life is just nature's way of keeping meat fresh." - The Doctor
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Message 1363426 - Posted: 2 May 2013, 4:28:35 UTC - in response to Message 1363416.  

...
You will have to convince a lot of different project admins that changing it will be beneficial to their pet project. Since they are interested in total returned work units, the science done, and not a big number on some stats web site, I don't think you have as much chance as a snowball in hell....


why don't we just get rid of RAC and Stats and see how many will participate! I know, we can just hand out gold stars.

my argument about RAC is that WE CAN'T ever figure out what are real individual RAC is for any one rig because the project is so unstable. so gold stars for all, no reward for trying extra hard. we all get the same credit. one RAC for the whole project!
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Message 1363434 - Posted: 2 May 2013, 5:15:56 UTC

If you think its hard to see what an individual computer is doing with a ten-day base for the RAC it would be far harder with a five day - given the project instability and the return rate of tasks by other users. or what you are asking twenty days would be better.
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Message 1363442 - Posted: 2 May 2013, 5:30:51 UTC

I care about credits but, anyway I dont see what difference it's going to give to change the RAC method...
As you get credits when your results are validated and not when you report them, they will never be a stable parameter and they will be less stable if they were calculated over short periods... In fact if you get paired with a bunch of unreliable hosts or one-time users your RAC will, indeed, go down faster than it does now...

Im not sure if there is a way to make the RAC more realistic about real time productivity, if the weighted time is focused on few recent days it will become very unstable and you will only know that in those days you got more (or less) results validated than before...
If the RAC is weighted over a more long time, then it will be more stable but then it will take longer to reflect any change on your productivity...

AFAIK, the RAC was never intended as a meassure of real productivity. It was intended to give a different goal to new people that can't compete with the total credits of older crunchers... (is the "I cant travel so far as others did, but at least I can travel faster than others do" idea...)
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Message 1363486 - Posted: 2 May 2013, 7:57:26 UTC

Rottenmut I wouldn't worry about the RAC you do have a stats tab which will show you your actual RAC for each machine and project .
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Message 1363487 - Posted: 2 May 2013, 8:11:00 UTC
Last modified: 2 May 2013, 8:20:21 UTC

No change needed.
It is what it always has been. And needs no change.
RAC is a long term benchmark.
Not meant to show what somebody is doing day to day or in a week's time.

We all know what it is by now.

Drops like a stone, rises like a feather.

Making a change to the way it is calculated is not going to make me feel better about the way my farm is crunching.

My personal RAC is what it is.

It is important to me in some ways, but making it burst forth in a faster fashion will not change my perception of how well my rigs are doing.

So, leave it alone, which I am sure they shall do.

I know how it reacts to changes, albiet very slowly. I turned in a 500k+ day a couple of days ago.......see the immediate change? LOL.

I just upgraded many rigs last weekend, and my RAC is just now starting to respond. Along with a surge in pendings. And the weekly outage.

The only change I might suggest would be to rename it.

From 'recent average credit' to 'long term average credit'.

EDIT...
I will admit, it might be interesting to have another, new, stat.
Let's call it 'shits'....
'Short interval timing stats'/.

With a much shorter averaging interval....like, what are you doing TODAY?
It could be useful to some who are tweaking rigs and are wondering what the result is.
"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

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Message 1363524 - Posted: 2 May 2013, 11:11:05 UTC - in response to Message 1363395.  

-[ snip ]-
what makes this project fun is the competitive nature of RAC and the effort it takes to achieve a high stable RAC.
-[ snip ]-

Greetings,

If all you're in this for is the competition with other mega farm / mega computer users and to diminish the amount of work the rest of us 'little ones' can do, you're here for the wrong reasons.

I have one PC that I built back in 07 or 08. It was near top of the line back then. I am in competition with no one else. That is not my reason for being here.

Nuff sed...

Keep on BOINCing...! :)

CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr - L L & P _\\//
Winders 11 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath
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Message 1363548 - Posted: 2 May 2013, 12:53:21 UTC - in response to Message 1363416.  

If you want the RAC calculation changed, you will have to post that request elsewhere. As the RAC calculation is part of BOINC and not part of Seti@home.

You might try here.

wrong. seti RAC is calculated by seti servers. the only requirements are that each project give the equivalent amount of credit for the number of calculations performed otherwise other project cry as they can't keep people crunching for them.
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Message 1363549 - Posted: 2 May 2013, 12:54:09 UTC - in response to Message 1363486.  

Rottenmut I wouldn't worry about the RAC you do have a stats tab which will show you your actual RAC for each machine and project .

ok, so how about you don't care and give me what i want.
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Message 1363555 - Posted: 2 May 2013, 13:07:00 UTC - in response to Message 1363549.  

Wot eva j
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Message 1363558 - Posted: 2 May 2013, 13:18:47 UTC - in response to Message 1363524.  

If all you're in this for is the competition with other mega farm / mega computer users and to diminish the amount of work the rest of us 'little ones' can do, you're here for the wrong reasons.
...

wow where did that come from! wow.


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Message 1363560 - Posted: 2 May 2013, 13:22:20 UTC - in response to Message 1363555.  

Wot eva j

????
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Message 1363564 - Posted: 2 May 2013, 13:34:23 UTC - in response to Message 1363548.  

If you want the RAC calculation changed, you will have to post that request elsewhere. As the RAC calculation is part of BOINC and not part of Seti@home.

You might try here.

wrong. seti RAC is calculated by seti servers. the only requirements are that each project give the equivalent amount of credit for the number of calculations performed otherwise other project cry as they can't keep people crunching for them.

RAC may be calculated by the seti servers, but that part of the code is firmly in BOINC hands - convince David of it and it's as good as implemented here.
Eric won't go mucking about boinc code unless he absolutely has too.
Far easier to give David an earful.

So to reiterate - if you want a different RAC calculation algorithm, you need to see David. Good luck.

And it's not a requirement, it's a guideline. Boinc can't do anything about projects that deliberately overpay.
A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read. (Mark Twain)
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Message 1363566 - Posted: 2 May 2013, 13:37:49 UTC - in response to Message 1363548.  

If you want the RAC calculation changed, you will have to post that request elsewhere. As the RAC calculation is part of BOINC and not part of Seti@home.

You might try here.

wrong. seti RAC is calculated by seti servers. the only requirements are that each project give the equivalent amount of credit for the number of calculations performed otherwise other project cry as they can't keep people crunching for them.

You are wrong in your understanding. BOINC server code calculates RAC. So does each of the many cross project stats sites. Seti@Home servers run BOINC server code. It doesn't actually matter what machine does the calculation, it matters what program does the calculation and that is BOINC. If you want to do anything more than bitch and moan go to the BOINC boards and talk to David and Rom. Otherwise the only stat you are really interested in is your post total.


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Message 1363567 - Posted: 2 May 2013, 13:42:07 UTC

If you want your RAC to be stable(ish) then you need a longer period not shorter.

If it is made shorter then the drops when tasks are not available will plumit much further than they do at the moment, making it even harder to judge the average performance of a host, user or team.
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Message 1363569 - Posted: 2 May 2013, 13:46:38 UTC

The kitties care about RAC and they don't give a rat's petoot at the same time.

They care about their RAC here at Seti, and don't care really how it's calculated, because even if they cut it in half, it would still give a valid comparison of their efforts HERE. On THIS project. As everybody else's RAC would be affected the same. Still a valid comparison.

As to the rat's petoot...
What other projects wish to proffer as credits does not matter to me. Could be double or triple or whatEVER.

You wanna see some RAC??? LOfreakingL. Let me take the kitty farm off to another overpaying project for a month and I'LL show you some RAC, buds.

If that's what I was about, I would not be here. The kitties are about SETI.
And I do care about my creds and RAC here. And only here.

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

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