Great, thanks.

So, basically if seti knows someone's machine is dug out of an archaelogical pit it will attempt to send units to it accordingly?

And no manual handling of seti will be necessary so that all of the "d/l and forget" computers will keep crunching---excellent. (except possibly for optimized clients---I don't think anyone in my group use any and the people that do are savy enough to make the necessary adjustments if needed--also excellent)

If I'm wrong here in my interpretation then let me know.

Thanks again for all of the responses.

It's a relief to know that in my small group of 38 (14 active boicers) I won't see their numbers decrease to 4 or 5.

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

Interesting discussion as usual. Just to reinforce a couple points ... :)

Though processing times are increasing we are continuing on the trend to increase capability in the application. Since I started I think this is the 4th overhaul. Each increased processing times by about 2-4x and was always accompanied by howls of anguish about the end of the world and life as we know it.

Not suprising me at all, within a short period of time, sanity returned and we have gone from 100's of hours (my starting average was ~32 hours) to process one work unit to ~30 minutes with optimizaition. Which only means that with optimization we are going to increase back to, on average, 10's of hours.

Also, if I have been understanding the work going on over on the Beta project, the new application will be much more optimized, and correct, from all the testing and tuning going on. Also, this brings SETI@Home more in line with Einstein@Home and Rosetta@Home for processing times ... :)

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On the 500MHz point, I have two PIII Katmai 500MHz attached to the test project, and with the app in its current (which I don't believe will be final) form runtimes are of the order of 4-5 days. So for a machine of this spec attached only to SETI I can't see deadlines will be a big issue.

For a machine of this spec running multiple projects - BOINC will still (try to) hit deadline but overloading the machine with several "long" projects, say a mix of CPDN, SETI, Rosetta and LHC, might cause BOINC to be chasing said deadlines more.

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Looks like your worries about crunch times may be over, see Seti Beta or Enhanced 4.11

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"For a machine of this spec running multiple projects - BOINC will still (try to) hit deadline but overloading the machine with several "long" projects, say a mix of CPDN, SETI, Rosetta and LHC, might cause BOINC to be chasing said deadlines more." Lowfield

You can have a faster machine get to chasing deadlines also, running 840ee 3.2 ht, running, Seti, Einstein, Rosetta, Predictor, LHC and CPDN.

Started with CPDN, Regular and a Sulphur, about 20 Rosetta, due 12/31, about 30 Seti, Due 12/17, added LHC, about 40, due 12/06, Einstein about 20, due 12/6, and Predictor would not down load. Connect to set for 2......

About 8 days before 12/6 Boinc goes into deadline mode and processes LHC all four CPUs for almost 2 days, it gets that cleared up and then goes to Einstein for almost 2 days, I have 3 1/2 to go, OK now predictor downloads about 60, due on 12/06, it has been round robining like there is no problem.....

I just sit and watch it, tis interesting to see it work.......

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And the beat goes on
Sonny and Cher

BOINC Wiki

What was the solution to stopping enhanced from reverting back to 0.00% again? Have to ask here. Not enough credit for the actual enhanced board yet.

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Hullo there.

What was the solution to stopping enhanced from reverting back to 0.00% again? Have to ask here. Not enough credit for the actual enhanced board yet.

As far as I can see the recommendation is to keep in memory when paused.

What OS are you using with SetiB, it seems to be hitting Win98 most.

To highlight another possible problem. I spotted someone claiming a weird no of credits, TMR says it is a graphics driver problem.

The odd claim, the host claimed -10,675,189.39

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To highlight another possible problem. I spotted someone claiming a weird no of credits, TMR says it is a graphics driver problem.

The odd claim, the host claimed -10,675,189.39

As for this one, I guess the problem is not in the s@h_enhanced application. That computer sometimes gets "Incorrect function" error at beta project like this.
I wrote it should be a graphics driver's problem because I checked Wiki and found it says "Incorrect function" error is because boinc manager fails to find old graphics driver. see here (though I saw another page on this matter.... I lost the link!)
However I received email from the owner of the computer that he was using the latest driver with ATI Radeon 9250, and am at a loss.

I also found he got the same error with this public s@h (see this one). So this problem isn't specific to setiathome_enhanced. He may be getting this error with other projects.

So I wrote to him that he'd better ask this on this message board because I don't know much about Windows...

He will appear in this message board or somewhere around here. Please help him when he comes.... With "boinc incorrect function" on google, I got several results about this error with other projects also.

Latest runtimes with SETI 4.11 (standard 5.2.x client and vanilla S@H 4.11):

PIII 500 Linux 57 hours
AMD XP2400+ Linux 18 hours
Intel P4 Northwood 2.8 Windows 21 hours
AMD XP2800+ Windows 23 hours
AMD 64 3200+ Windows (32-bit) 23.5 hours
AMD 64 3200+ Linux (64-bit) 9.9 hours

Now obviously angle ranges and the general flux of units and applications within Beta would mean it would be unwise to draw too detailed a conclusion from these runtimes. The difference in processing times between the Windows and Linux installations on AMD 3200+, for example, looks like a glitch to me not a pattern - although both results are valid.

It does show, I believe, that runtimes will not be stupidly long and that older machines will still be able to play an active part.


Also I just love the way credit claims are so level, this run of 5 results demonstrates:

11/12 AMD 64 3200 Linux 53,244.36 seconds 191.56 claimed
12/12 AMD MP2400+ Linux 66,843.11 seconds 191.55 claimed
12/12 AMD MP2400+ Linux 66,729.97 seconds 191.54 claimed
13/12 AMD XP2400+ Linux 67,686.82 seconds 191.56 claimed
13/12 AMD 64 3200 Linux 51,855.00 seconds 191.54 claimed

Now thats what I call good :)

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What was the solution to stopping enhanced from reverting back to 0.00% again? Have to ask here. Not enough credit for the actual enhanced board yet.

As far as I can see the recommendation is to keep in memory when paused.

What OS are you using with SetiB, it seems to be hitting Win98 most.

To highlight another possible problem. I spotted someone claiming a weird no of credits, TMR says it is a graphics driver problem.

The odd claim, the host claimed -10,675,189.39

My OS is WinXP, and I've got it set to keep the apps in memory when paused. So it's abit weird and annoying. I do have version 4.09 of it though.

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Hullo there.

Lowfield,

Thanks for the information, but without the angle_range they don't really mean that much. So it might be an idea to give the claimed credits numbers as that would indicate approximately how many Flops were used.

My results so far on Pent M (dothan) 1.86Ghz are;
CPU time(secs) Claimed Credit
66,995.36 (18.6hr)147.85
104,213.73 (29hr) 191.62
105,022.66 (29hr) 191.59
101,736.08 (28hr) 191.65

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My OS is WinXP, and I've got it set to keep the apps in memory when paused. So it's abit weird and annoying. I do have version 4.09 of it though.

If you are still running 4.09 you should abort that unit, and any other 4.09's, and it will download new unit and 4.11.

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Maybe we can get them to store and display the number of FLOPS for the work unit/result.

In the long run that may also be interesting information for the developers to monitor regarding the behavior of the application ... I know that it would be a metric *I* would save ...

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Lowfield,

Thanks for the information, but without the angle_range they don't really mean that much. So it might be an idea to give the claimed credits numbers as that would indicate approximately how many Flops were used.

Your wish is my command :)

PIII 500 Linux 57 hours 147.81 claimed
AMD XP2400+ Linux 18 hours 191.56 claimed
Intel P4 Northwood 2.8 Windows 21 hours 147.80 claimed
AMD XP2800+ Windows 23 hours 147.16 claimed
AMD 64 3200+ Windows (32-bit) 23.5 hours 147.17 claimed
AMD 64 3200+ Linux (64-bit) 9.9 hours 147.80 claimed
AMD 64 3200+ Linux (64-bit) 14.7 hours 191.56 claimed

The last two are from the same machine, they look too quick, but this is my only Fedora Core 4 64 bit machine and the operating system seems much much quicker in use, I believe due to the later version of GCC it was compiled with.

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Maybe we can get them to store and display the number of FLOPS for the work unit/result.

I agree, as a metric for both end user and project team this would be a nice piece of information to have available. It would make true comparisons between machines possible, for example, in a way benchmarks do not. If I have two identical servers running, say, Fedora Core 2 and Fedora Core 4 and the Core 2 machine takes significantly longer to process the same number of flops, then I know the operating system version is having a big impact.

The same logic can be applied to memory, disk, ..........

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Maybe we can get them to store and display the number of FLOPS for the work unit/result.

If the claimed credits is based on the "flops-count" in Seti_Enhanced, just calculate:

Cobblestone * 8.64e11 = fpops_cumulative

I keep seeing "profit" mentioned, and this isn't the right thread for it, but other than SHOFT or w/e it was called, ARE there any BOINC projects that are not non-profit? I keep hearing that the protein folding ones "will make money from the drugs produced", but even in that case, I believe the projects themselves are university-driven, pure-research, with the results available to anyone. Any profits, other than maybe licensing fees that went back to the university, would go to whoever made and sold the drugs, which I don't have a problem with, as they're the ones who would invest their money in testing, production, marketing, etc., well after the research points out which ones are worth looking into. If that tenuous a connection is enough to be "for profit", then SETI is for profit - because if we find a signal, _someone_ is going to make money selling t-shirts with "you are here - they are there" skymaps... and they might even license (and pay for the use of) the SETI@HOME logo.

I agree. My thought is this. A cure for AIDS is found. The company uses information from one of the projects and makes $100 million. Saving 40 million peoples lives. That is OK with me.

The only thing I hope is that they pump some money into these projects so they can continue to enrich man kind.

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Poorboy made a good point you run say 30hr work units and dont get validated or no credit participants are going to complain. I already am complaining and havent even run the program. I donate cpu time, I donate money, and support my team to crunch for seti@home but 20/30hr work units thats forcing participants into a corner leave or stay. I cant beleive this. I dont think this is about the science no way. Sure you have a better apllication but it took till merge to figure out. If you dont get validated unit or credit after 30hrs thats 30hrs of electricity $$$ down the drain.

Then don't crunch. Either you understand the math and science behind the project or you don't. I have some PII running and they are also cruching on 2 other projects. I probably never get credit for any chrunging they do on seti. I am not worried about it. If you are here for credits you need to get a life, really. The credits are fun and all that, but try to figure out what is really important about these projects. It ain't you, and it ain't me, and it definitly isn't the credits. Get over it.

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Maybe we can get them to store and display the number of FLOPS for the work unit/result.

In the long run that may also be interesting information for the developers to monitor regarding the behavior of the application ... I know that it would be a metric *I* would save ...

from the client_state.xml for a workunit:
<rsc_fpops_est>414215375930942.000000</rsc_fpops_est> (Enhanced Beta)
<rsc_fpops_est>27924800000000.000000</rsc_fpops_est> (Regular)
these numbers seem independant of angle-range

Though I applaud the idea of the improved sensitivity, I am disturbed by the increased work unit times. When my "new" computer is completed I'm anticipating the completion of 16-18 work units a day between the two dual processor computers using optimized clients. I'll admit that they're not fast when compared to many new computers but I think 8 to 10 work units a day from a couple of P3 computers is pretty good.

Try and forget Workunits. We use credits now, we don't count n units per day, it is credits per day. A given system will get the same credits per day regardless of the length of the work unit.

There's a couple things that bother me about the new scheme. The first is that the people at berkeley seem to have become more concerned with the connection rate than the potential loss of data. The longer a computer waits to report completed units the greater the chance of the loss of that data.

I cannot see where you get the idea that connection rates have anything to do with it?

As for data loss, for the science it doesn't matter, BOINC takes care of re-sending work that's needed automatically. If you are referring to your computers not being able to accurately run 10 or 20 hours or hold data files for a few days without corrupting the result, then that is a situation you need to address yourself.

Then there's the difference in computational capabilities of the computers processing the data. The problem I see here is that if a work unit is given to my computer and three faster computers a quorum will have been reached days before my computer completes it's work unit. My dual P3 700 averaged just over six hours per work unit using an optimized standard seti app. That would mean sixty hours to run a work unit using the enhanced seti app. Some of the newer computers complete work units using the standard seti app in an hour or less. This means they would complete work units in ten hours or less. Taking this into account, there's a very good chance that there is going to be a major increase in the number of instances where a quorum is reached and credit is granted before my computer completes it's work units. Granted, it happens from time to time using the current seti app but most of the time my computer's time counts toward the calculation of the credit granted. With the enhanced client the majority of the work units will reach a quorum before my computer completes a unit. This means that for most units the time spent processing the data will be wasted time. It's as if those running seti are using the project to push people toward newer and faster computers.

The same computational differences exist now. A system that averages 1 hr per WU will generally beat a system that takes 1:30. Likewise with enhanced SETI the 1ht system will take say 10hrs and the 1:30 system 18 hrs, the relationship remains constant.

IMO, there is no such thing as wasted work, 4 results with a quorum of 3 is the specification of the system.

Though seti is my preferred distributed computing project, I see a point in the near future where I'll be forced to make a tough decision. Do I continue processing work units for a project where my computer's time isn't making a real contribution or do I find a project where it can?

Your system is already "wasting" 1/4 of it's time (actually 3/4 if you accept that the vast majority of results match, making the quorum of 3 unnecessary).

I'll admit that there's a number of other BOINC projects out there but many are using the free processing capabilities provided by the BOINC platform for what will ultimately prove to be very profitable. The protein related projects for example will eventually yield results leading to new drugs which will make countless billion for the pharmaceutical companies. Though I'd like to see a cure for cancer and other diseases, I'm not willing to provide free computing power to a project which will ultimately turn my donation into a profit. Seti is one of the few projects motivated by the true search for knowledge rather than potential profit.

Agreed, I do not run any project that has a primary motive of profit.

I admit that my computer hasn't run any work for a few weeks. I'm waiting for parts to do a little reorganization and to assemble the second computer. I'll be up and running once the 3ware controller and additional 1GB of ram arrive.

Now where did I put that fire-resistant suit...

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Poorboy made a good point you run say 30hr work units and dont get validated or no credit participants are going to complain. I already am complaining and havent even run the program. I donate cpu time, I donate money, and support my team to crunch for seti@home but 20/30hr work units thats forcing participants into a corner leave or stay. I cant beleive this. I dont think this is about the science no way. Sure you have a better apllication but it took till merge to figure out. If you dont get validated unit or credit after 30hrs thats 30hrs of electricity $$$ down the drain.

If It takes 9hrs or more for to do a WU(To say nothing of 30-51hr or longer WUs), Then I may as well do EinsteinBoinc instead as SetiBoinc will be taking too much time for Me to be comfortable with. As I won't feel like I'm helping any, But then I don't have a cray Super computer. Unless someone makes an Optimized app for the New WUs of course.

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's