Hi,
I would like to know what kind of wus will be released during next weeks, and how much RAM will it use ?
Because these days, units cannot be run on low RAM PCs.
Moreover, I would like to point out a problem with 4 and 8 cores machines, because receive some units of 250Mo on it fills very quickly all the available memory and make it swap.
Another problem is that if there is not enough memory at a moment on the machine, the wus are stopped, some others start but the previous ones stay loaded in memory.

Thank you for your answer.

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I moved this from the "problems with..." thread to help start a discussion on how BOINC handles memory, and measures memory. Sometimes it seems to be thinking in terms of memory per CPU, other times it is looking at overall memory of the machine.

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Rosetta Moderator: Mod.Sense

pas93, which BOINC version are you running?
The tasks that have higher memory requirements are flagged to only go out to machines that have more then 500MB of memory. But I my self am not clear on whether that is per CPU, or for the entire machine.

For others, the word in French for Megabytes is abbreviated Mo.

You are correct about it starting several additional tasks when BOINC detects that the active tasks are using more memory then your preference. The tasks that are then suspended and listed as "waiting for memory" do stay loaded, but they aren't active, so their memory is maintained out in the swap file.

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Rosetta Moderator: Mod.Sense

...
You are correct about it starting several additional tasks when BOINC detects that the active tasks are using more memory then your preference. The tasks that are then suspended and listed as "waiting for memory" do stay loaded, but they aren't active, so their memory is maintained out in the swap file.

That swap file can fill up fast if there are more than a couple of "waiting for memory" Wu-s.

Anders n

For additional references and discussion on this issue, please read past thread:
https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/forum_thread.php?id=3564

You are correct about it starting several additional tasks when BOINC detects that the active tasks are using more memory then your preference. The tasks that are then suspended and listed as "waiting for memory" do stay loaded, but they aren't active, so their memory is maintained out in the swap file.

On Windows, this takes a few minutes before Windows will decide that memory can be swapped. The rate or behavior of Windows swapping cannot be controlled.

On Linux kernels 2.6.10 and above, you can set /proc/sys/vm/swappiness to a value higher than 100 to encourage this process to speed up for paused WU.

i've boinc for windows version 5.10.20 32bits

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For additional references and discussion on this issue, please read past thread:
https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/forum_thread.php?id=3564

Thanks for the link DJ. I created a new thread because it sounded like the concerns of pas93 was more about how BOINC handles memory, and about how to control that and help keep the machine running smoothly, rather then being specifically about recent high memory tasks on Rosetta.

Does anyone have any ideas for them to adjust their settings?

Do you know if, when the project marks a task for a 500MB minimum system, does the BOINC server code take that to mean 500MB per CPU? Or per system?

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Rosetta Moderator: Mod.Sense

Thanks for the link DJ. I created a new thread because it sounded like the concerns of pas93 was more about how BOINC handles memory, and about how to control that and help keep the machine running smoothly, rather then being specifically about recent high memory tasks on Rosetta.

Does anyone have any ideas for them to adjust their settings?

Do you know if, when the project marks a task for a 500MB minimum system, does the BOINC server code take that to mean 500MB per CPU? Or per system?

It only looks at memory per system. Well, the two goals: how BOINC handles memory and Rosetta memory requirements are definitely interrelated.

Assuming a machine has at least 500MB per core in the system, set BOINC preferences to use 75%. My solution was to buy another stick of RAM for $40. :)

...My solution was to buy another stick of RAM for $40. :)

I am thinking of buying my first multi-core machine soon, and thanks for the heads-up that every individual core really needs as much memory as a single core machine does. That being said, if I decide to get a 4-core machine, I should probably up the ante and buy 4GB of RAM as well!

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Regards,
Bob P.

...My solution was to buy another stick of RAM for $40. :)

I am thinking of buying my first multi-core machine soon, and thanks for the heads-up that every individual core really needs as much memory as a single core machine does. That being said, if I decide to get a 4-core machine, I should probably up the ante and buy 4GB of RAM as well!

i dont really think thats a good way of thinking, it probs is going to mean you should buy 2 2048 sticks, ur willing to pay for that?

i dont really think thats a good way of thinking, it probs is going to mean you should buy 2 2048 sticks, ur willing to pay for that?

Depends what I want to do and how much I am willing to pay for it, I guess. If I like crunching memory intensive BOINC applications on all 4 cores, then I guess I would need to unless I want to slow my machine down, or limit crunching to maybe 2 cores and not 4. :)

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Regards,
Bob P.