For about the past week (around June 24-25) my recent credit has dropped from over 550 to below 500 and still dropping. I have 3 XP Pro SP2 machines and a Win2K SP4 machine all on Intel platforms which were running BOINC 5.2.13 enhanced client. My RAC was climbing steadily, then just "out of the blue" for no reason I can figure it just started plummeting last week. I upgraded to 5.4.9 2 days ago but so far no change in the downward trend. Does anybody know what happened?

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For about the past week (around June 24-25) my recent credit has dropped from over 550 to below 500 and still dropping. I have 3 XP Pro SP2 machines and a Win2K SP4 machine all on Intel platforms which were running BOINC 5.2.13 enhanced client. My RAC was climbing steadily, then just "out of the blue" for no reason I can figure it just started plummeting last week. I upgraded to 5.4.9 2 days ago but so far no change in the downward trend. Does anybody know what happened?

Seti is now using an enhanced application which take a much finer look at the WU and therefore takes longer to process. Your RAC is dropping because you are processing fewer WUs over a given time.

See the sticky Enhanced FAQ thread above for information concerning the new application.

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Boinc V7.2.42
Win7 i5 3.33G 4GB, GTX470

For about the past week (around June 24-25) my recent credit has dropped from over 550 to below 500 and still dropping. I have 3 XP Pro SP2 machines and a Win2K SP4 machine all on Intel platforms which were running BOINC 5.2.13 enhanced client. My RAC was climbing steadily, then just "out of the blue" for no reason I can figure it just started plummeting last week. I upgraded to 5.4.9 2 days ago but so far no change in the downward trend. Does anybody know what happened?

Seti is now using an enhanced application which take a much finer look at the WU and therefore takes longer to process. Your RAC is dropping because you are processing fewer WUs over a given time.

See the sticky Enhanced FAQ thread above for information concerning the new application.

I am not sure your answer (as correct as it may be) is the right answer in this case. I have been watching the Team RACs for the last several days and they are all apparently taking a drop. So far the drop has been around 8K and has been consistent (at least in the top 10 teams). This has nothing to do with enhanced or any other cause I can think of since the change is approx the same for each team. I am starting to wonder what is happening myself. :)

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I am not sure your answer (as correct as it may be) is the right answer in this case. I have been watching the Team RACs for the last several days and they are all apparently taking a drop. So far the drop has been around 8K and has been consistent (at least in the top 10 teams). This has nothing to do with enhanced or any other cause I can think of since the change is approx the same for each team. I am starting to wonder what is happening myself. :)

Same here. I think that the percentage of low angle range WUs went up.
Specifically the ones about AR 0.03 and below that take quite long to crunch and give about 58 credits.

Regards Hans

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The answer is simple. SetiEnhanced awards fewer credits per computer-hour than non-Enhanced. The result is a halving of credit for the typical machine since the advent of Enhanced. Even with the "Top Computers" I saw that RAC has halved for them. And these elite, for the most part, use optimized crunchers which compute about twice as fast as the default cruncher. Reading through these forums I have high hopes (just like the characters in the song Frank Sinatra sang in August 1959) that crunching will get better and evener.

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Clyde, that is a very uninformed statement.

It's absolutely untrue that everyone's RAC has halved - this is only, and I repeat ONLY the case for people who were using optimized crunchers before. They (I am among them) now have about 1/2 - 2/3 of the RAC they used to get before.

All of computers with the highest RACs were/are using optimized clients. You cannot use them to compare.

If you were using the standard client before, your RAC will not have changed much. The only change recently is what Hans and others pointed out, we have gotten a much higher percentage of VLAR WUs that give comparatively less credit than any others.

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Optimized SETI@Home apps + Information

Could we be seeing the effects of the stats not being updated for 4 or 5 days last week?
Honestly, I don't know. Just throwing it out there.

Mine has been on the up these last few days ...


I stopped using Crunch3r's enhanced as soon as i realised that was what he asked ...

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It was because of all these Messed up long units that have been coming out. Look through your manager at most that gave 58 credits...Most took twice as long...Doesn't matter how fast your machine is...If you cached a bunch you are screwed.

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Official Abuser of Boinc Buttons...
And no good credit hound!

It was because of all these Messed up long units that have been coming out. Look through your manager at most that gave 58 credits...Most took twice as long...Doesn't matter how fast your machine is...If you cached a bunch you are screwed.

It's all a matter of using your common sense. I have 11 active projects with crunch times from 1 hr. to 40 hr. If you set a resonable cache and leave Boinc to do its thing, everthing works fine.

As for Credits, there's been only a very small change which was to be expected with cross project adjustments and the effect of high and low AR WU.

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Boinc V7.2.42
Win7 i5 3.33G 4GB, GTX470

RAC is a meanless number. Don't worry, be happy!

RAC is based on many things outside a crunchers control. like when other crunchers return results, and what credit is really granted. Also, it can be really impacted if a given project has problems - like granting credits.

Why do people think that RAC has real a meaning? I'd really like to know!

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This is true woody.
I will never understand it.
The only thing that counts is granted credits.

Mike

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With each crime and every kindness we birth our future.

RAC is a meanless number. Don't worry, be happy!

Got your point! (but only by looking at your stats) :-(

Kiva

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Greetings from Norway

Crunch3er & AK-V8 Inside

Clyde, that is a very uninformed statement.

It's absolutely untrue that everyone's RAC has halved - this is only, and I repeat ONLY the case for people who were using optimized crunchers before. They (I am among them) now have about 1/2 - 2/3 of the RAC they used to get before.

If you were using the standard client before, your RAC will not have changed much.

Not quite true!

My RAC has dropped (I am not concerned, btw) from 132 to below 90...around 85 at one point. I have NEVER used an optimised client.

By checking the other crunchers working on the same WUs, I have found many have overly large caches. 60 WUs in many cases. Many of these crunchers, I suspect, are picking the short WUs and ignoring the longer ones, in a bid to score more credit. This means my relatively fast PC always has a lot of completed WUs awaiting validation, as crunchers are taking longer to return the enhanced WUs. At the time of posting, I have results awaiting validation that I returned a week ago.

RAC begins to climb again as the queue of results awaiting validation slowly clears.

RAC is quoted as being an indication of how fast your PC is completing work, but more often, with the enhanced client, it is a reflection of how fast your results are being validated. Since validating results depends on a quorum of three crunchers returning results for any given WU, RAC is really irrelevant.
As azwoody says: RAC is basically meaningless.

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It was because of all these Messed up long units that have been coming out. Look through your manager at most that gave 58 credits...Most took twice as long...Doesn't matter how fast your machine is...If you cached a bunch you are screwed.

It's all a matter of using your common sense. I have 11 active projects with crunch times from 1 hr. to 40 hr. If you set a resonable cache and leave Boinc to do its thing, everthing works fine.

As for Credits, there's been only a very small change which was to be expected with cross project adjustments and the effect of high and low AR WU.

You are lucky...For me they are quite big...
349305065 83684243 2 Jul 2006 17:24:21 UTC 3 Jul 2006 11:10:49 UTC Over Success Done 23,836.25 58.69 pending
349285677 83679459 2 Jul 2006 16:05:02 UTC 3 Jul 2006 9:18:43 UTC Over Success Done 23,243.27 58.69 pending
349256453 83672265 2 Jul 2006 14:05:52 UTC 3 Jul 2006 4:04:00 UTC Over Success Done 23,490.52 58.69 pending

349180558 83653538 2 Jul 2006 8:22:04 UTC 2 Jul 2006 20:19:42 UTC Over Success Done 16,845.50 63.92 63.92
349158176 83648008 2 Jul 2006 6:46:39 UTC 2 Jul 2006 16:47:02 UTC Over Success Done 17,594.42 63.92 63.92

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Official Abuser of Boinc Buttons...
And no good credit hound!

very interesting

my intel rig has been crunching mostly. my athlon rig, which is my primary. i dont leave up to much

but the RAC seems about right as far as i know

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My RAC is less then 25% of what it was before enhanced. My RAC before enhanced was in the 900's. Today it is a whole 173.

So where is my other +25% if I should have only seen a 50% maximum decline?

I am not running optimized versions.

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Theres a Fine Line between Hobby and Mental Illness.

My RAC is less then 25% of what it was before enhanced. My RAC before enhanced was in the 900's. Today it is a whole 173.

So where is my other +25% if I should have only seen a 50% maximum decline?

I am not running optimized versions.

Maybe that is the difference for me...I have only used the enhanced same version and my RAC dropped also...It has nothing to do with enhanced in my case...It is those darn 58 credit Work Units...

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Official Abuser of Boinc Buttons...
And no good credit hound!

Maybe that is the difference for me...I have only used the enhanced same version and my RAC dropped also...It has nothing to do with enhanced in my case...It is those darn 58 credit Work Units...

The real difference is not in the longer WUs. You may crunch for longer, but you get more credit.

The difference is in the time taken for other crunchers to return results.
While some, slower, machines take a long time to produce results, the biggest problem, as I said earlier, is those crunchers that have ridiculously large caches of WUs lined up. It takes so long for these WUs to reach first place in the queue, that other crunchers are left waiting for days, even weeks, for their results to be validated, since they are waiting for some "WU hoarder" to crunch a result.

There is no need, in most cases, to have 60 WUs in a cache. Odds on, anyone with that number in their cache will not crunch them in time, anyway!
S@H Enh WUs last long enough to tide us all through the weekly db maintainance, so having a cache of 2 or 3 WUs is plenty.

The only circumstance I can see where more WUs could be reasonably cached, is if a cruncher has a laptop doing the work, is out on the road for a week or so, and takes enough WUs to last him/her, returning them when he/she gets home at the end of a trip.

But, as I also said earlier, RAC is pretty much meaningless. It's overall credit that is the significant measure of work completed.

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[quote]Maybe that is the difference for me...I have only used the enhanced same version and my RAC dropped also...It has nothing to do with enhanced in my case...It is those darn 58 credit Work Units...

The real difference is not in the longer WUs. You may crunch for longer, but you get more credit.

quote]
I just don't get it...I have posted results and PROVED that some units Crunch longer and give less credit and people keep saying the Opposite????
TIME    Credit
Success Done 23,836.25   58.69
Success Done 23,243.27   58.69
Success Done 23,490.52   58.69

Success Done 16,845.50   63.92
Success Done 17,594.42   63.92
Does this help???Bottom 2 took less time and gave more credit.

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Official Abuser of Boinc Buttons...
And no good credit hound!