8G RAM? Well, that means it can only be run in x64 systems. Ok, bye bye Rosetta.

You need up to 1.3GB RAM per Task you run.
So even a system with less than 4GB can run 2 Tasks.

I'm getting 18-20 hour runs but F@H it's only 4 hours.

A Windows XP pc connected to internet? A Pentium 4? Yeah.... well.... the problem seems self explanatory, too old...
Windows XP is horribly unsecure, at least switch to Linux.

Well. I'm currently living at my dad's place and this is his PC, the only one I can have. It still can run WUs from WCG and Asteroid@Home. The problem is not how powerful the PC is. It's why current Rosetta WUs don't work with it? Compatible issue? A month ago there was no problem, even my older PC, a PIII/WinXP, run Rosetta WUs pretty well.

The Rosetta tasks seem to run best with 2 GB per task, plus more for the CPU portion of any GPU task, plus more for the operating system. For 8 GB, two Rosetta tasks running at once is about the limit. If you have enough virtual cores, 16 GB should raise the limit to about 6 tasks.
This assumes that you don't let any BOINC tasks stay in memory while they are not running. Expect lower numbers if you do.
Filling both slots with the same model of memory board gives a little more speed than mismatched memory boards. You might also check if you can get faster memory boards that are compatible with your computer.
Some models of computers are compatible with memory boards that contain more memory.
Back when I first started with BOINC, I used this site to find compatible types of memory:

https://www.crucial.com/store/systemscanner

I now order any new computers with the largest and fastest memories that are compatible with that model.

So in the end, with 32Gb Ram were you able to support all 22 tasks it was trying to run? Or did have to restrict it to any particular number?

I knocked it down to 16 x86_64 cpu tasks so I could run the three gpu tasks. If I tried to run more, I knocked gpu tasks offline with out of memory-postponed messages. That was with use 90% of memory while idle, 85% while active preferences. Was consuming a little shy of 30GB. The host is my daily driver.

Some of the ram merchants have a ram tester that will recommend the highest level of ram that a MB will support.
If you don't have a lot of cpu cores/threads running Rosetti@Home you should be able to run multiples of the task even if it is running up near 2GB per task on a 16GB ram MB. Lately mine have all been a lot smaller.
Tom

Task Manager, Processes tab, Memory column.
It can vary by several hundred MB depending on where in the Task it is at.
Although Process Explorer is probably better as it shows how much is also reserved, but not using at the time- it's values are higher than those shown in Task Manager.
A Task using 730MB in Task Manager shows as 760MB Private/ 783MB Working Set in Process Explorer.

It doesn't support 16GB DIMMs?

. . It is an old cheapy MSI MoBo. I have very little info but I am pretty sure when I bought it the max was 16GB.

Check the motherboard manual, it should list what capacity & speed DIMMs are supported.

Is the motherboard so old that it has a northbridge chipset?
That statement was probably true at the time since two channels of the highest density RAM DIMMS at the time was probably 8GB. Now RAM density is much higher per stick with 8GB and 16GB dies and dual rank DIMMS. I don't see how the motherboard could have any limitation on how much memory can be installed other than still only two channels. The limitation would be in the cpu.

I would love to know just how much ram is needed to keep 2 64 bit Rosetta tasks happy and still support the GPU.

On my system, of 2 Tasks being processed by Rosetta v4.12 windows_x86_64, one is using 750MB of RAM, the other 320MB of RAM.

It's similar to CPU & GPU work on Seti- there are no CPU or GPU tasks, just tasks. Same with the Rosetta v4.12 windows_intelx86 and Rosetta v4.12 windows_x86_64 applications. The Task is allocated to the Application when it is downloaded.

The amount of required RAM depends on the Task, not the application being used.

This MoBo only has 2 memory slots so I cannot go past 16GB even if I decide to invest more dollars in this project.

It doesn't support 16GB DIMMs?

I froze the computer up solid through 3 reboots once I added Rosetta. Every time that BOINC started the computer froze with the disk access light solid. I didn't realize that the 22 cpu tasks I ran for SETI in %cpu usage was going to try and run 22 Rosetta tasks with just 16GB of memory installed.
I finally was able to stop BOINC from loading so I could manually edit the global and override preferences files to knock the number of cpu threads down to a value where the Rosetta startup wouldn't consume all my memory. I eventually stole memory from another SETI mothballed computer to add another 16GB to the computer I was running Rosetta on.

You’d better run memtest86+ on it. If it’s overclocked then reset to factory defaults.
I had one machine that did that last week. Never had a problem with it before. I ran memtest86+ on it. Narrowed it down to a pair of memory sticks (the i7 in question had 4 x 8GB sticks). I’ve since replaced all 4 sticks and sent the dud pair back under warranty.

IIRC it has something to do with looking at 10 million of them, with only about 10 or 100 really worth studying further. MOST of the are decoys. i.e. not the solution you are looking for
.

- Unhandled Exception Record -
Reason: Access Violation (0xc0000005) at address 0x019F2BE0 write attempt to address 0x017D7EC9

- Unhandled Exception Record -
Reason: Access Violation (0xc0000005) at address 0x01AC2BE0 write attempt to address 0x017D7EC9

. . While different source addresses both were to the same destination address. Both ran debug twice but I cannot make sense of the results, I am not a programmer. Anyone able to suggest what the cause might be? Do I need to fix anything, should I be worried by this? The third completed task did not have any errors.

Stephen

?

Is there any preferred or required number of models that need to be run for each task?

Required, one. That's it. If it takes more than a 2 hour preferred runtime to complete one model, then that is all that it will do. Each machine is different. Each protein is different. Each work unit could be used for millions of models, so the runtime preference is basically just a round number to try and break things up into a digestible size.

It is just a target. If your target is 8 hours, and models each take 90 minutes, the 5th model will be completed at 7.5 hours of CPU time. At that point, one reasonably predicts running another model will take you to 9 hours, stopping now only gets you to the 7.5 hours. Neither one is an exact match. But when the prediction exceeds the preference, that is when the next model is not attempted, and the WU is marked completed and reported back, with all of the models completed so far.

The length of time a Rosetta Task runs for is fixed (the default is 8 hours but you can select other target Runtimes in your Rosetta project settings).
Rosetta basically tries & whole bunch of different scenarios on the data. Some may run in to a dead end- and end early. Others may go in indefinitely- never ending. So the target Runtime is set & that is how long a Task will run for (if there is an issue with it & things get stuck, the Watchdog timer will kill the Task off, but you will still get Credit for work done. Unless of course it choked up right at the start of processing).

Having "Use at most xx% of the CPUs" at anything less ant 100% and running multiple projects, due to the CPU usage restriction, Resource share settings, cache settings & any other app_config.xml project specific limitations along with any locally set preferences that override web based ones you may have made will result in unexpected behaviour.

Right. You are not impacted by the proposed change to default run time, because you are not using the default. And you are not impacted by the proposed change to minimum runtime, because you are over the proposed new minimum runtime.

Hello, I have just joined this project but it seems there is no work to do at the moment. Is this a common state of affairs or have I struck a bad moment to join??

Work being done has increased by 500% over the last 2 and a bit weeks, so there's not much work available as demand is far exceeding supply.
More work is meant to be coming, but apparently it takes quite a while to prepare it for release, so it will take a while before work production comes close to matching the present demand.