Posts by [B^S] Paul@home

21) Message boards : Rosetta@home Science : How long .... (Message 374) Posted 23 Sep 2005 by [B^S] Paul@home Post: P4 3.2 HT w 1GB RAM: App 4.75 - approx 11 hours App 4.77 - approx 3 hours. Paul
22) Message boards : Number crunching : canonical result (Message 279) Posted 21 Sep 2005 by [B^S] Paul@home Post: So, you are right, playing any CPU intensive game that has a "busy wait" loop, waiting on you to do something, will do the same thing. So, good, bad, or indifferent, this is a given. You will have distorted times. But will (should?) a busy wait loop in the game process not stop BOINC taking CPU? What would be the point of busy wait if it did not reserve the CPU for the application? As far as BOINC would be concerned, the game ('normal priority') is taking 100% CPU.... even if it is just spinning the processor waiting for a mouse click! What RDC is describing is both the game and BOINC sitting at 100% CPU time... I could kind of understand that happening if BOINC was actually getting CPU time during these busy loops but if that was the case, then surely we would not see such increases in processing time? ie, it would continue to crunch results in the usual time (or perhaps slightly more) cheers, Paul.
23) Message boards : Number crunching : canonical result (Message 260) Posted 20 Sep 2005 by [B^S] Paul@home Post: The CPU can't be at full load for 2 applications. it's gotta be either 1 or the other... or split across the 2. If it was split, you shold see the game and science app at 50% CPU each. Since the game is working ok, it has to be something to do with how BOINC and Windows are talking to each other. Win thinks its giving BOINC 100% so CPU time is increasing even though it is getting little or no crunching done. Could it be some sort of conflict between your games and BOINC? Something that BOINC wants to unload/stop but the games wont let it and so it apears BOINC is still taking CPU time? Anything in your Event Viewer when you are starting + running the games? What happens if you shut down BOINC, start the game, let it run up 100% CPU and then restart BOINC. Does the same thing happen?
24) Message boards : Number crunching : canonical result (Message 257) Posted 20 Sep 2005 by [B^S] Paul@home Post: The CPU is pegged at 100% for both the game and Boinc application program (P@H, S@H, etc) when this occurs. I have no form of hyperthreading available on either PC. OK, well thats not right... at all at all! 2x processes at 100%? hmmm.. windows not managing processes correctly? not sur what processes look after that! (edit) Priority is set for low on the various BOINC programs so it should give way to the higher priority game but for some reason Windows isn't releasing the BOINC application but is attempting to share it with other non-related applications. (/edit) boinc.exe should be 'normal' priority... it needs to be able to stop/start the science apps when it needs to. Paul
25) Message boards : Number crunching : canonical result (Message 254) Posted 20 Sep 2005 by [B^S] Paul@home Post: That is odd alright... and not what should happen at all! What version of the CC are you running? is it a custom compiled or direct from berekeley. This sounds more like a windows problem then a BOINC problem but since it's affecting 2 of your computers... I have graphical and CPU intensive games and never seen this kind of jump in CPU time. Elapsed time increases alrigt but not WU time... (not noticably anyway) Do your games run OK when this happens? I can see how this might occur (processor in continuous state change), but that shouldn't happen. And if it did, your games will go like pigs too. does your CPU do any sort of virtual hyper threading (or whatever the AMD equivilant is!)? I see your machine registers with 1 CPU but if something like that was running in the background when you started our games it could cause something like this to happen. What % CPU does the BOINC science app get when you are playing games? You are hardly running some kind of virtual machine for BOINC and/or your games? cheers, Paul
26) Message boards : Number crunching : canonical result (Message 230) Posted 20 Sep 2005 by [B^S] Paul@home Post: I'm not sure that using your CPU for other processes will inflate your credit all that much. The claimed credit should be based on CPU time spent on a given work unit, not the elapsed time between starting and finishing the unit. For example, if you are using 50% CPU for something other than the science app, the CPU time count will increase at about half the rate that it would if your CPU was giving 100% to the science app. This means that even though more time would have elapsed, the total CPU time will remain about the same and your claimed credit will remain the same. I was thinking more along the lines of users fiddling benchmark scores... :( I suppose the guys may be able to make an estimate of claimed credit if they can increase the accuracy of the expected run time. Any claime that falls more that x% outside that estimate could be flagged as suspicious by the validator, even if the result is valid. It would take quite a bit of tweaking to get it right but it would help alleviate people’s worries... Cheers, Paul
27) Message boards : Cafe Rosetta : Welcome to The Rosetta Cafe Come On In! (Message 229) Posted 20 Sep 2005 by [B^S] Paul@home Post: but I have a suspision that the heavy hitters are more interested in representing their team than getting rainbow ice cream for students they don't even know :) -E You never know - most BOINC projects are working on something that will have no immediate impact on anyone's lives. Results from experiments such as CPDN, E@H, PP@H and even Rosetta, we hope will contribute to science and make things a little bit better for us at some stage, but it will be at a much later phase than what comes out the other end of our science applictions. Even SETI, which could (in theory) yield a definate yes tomorrow, wont have much of an impact on anyones day to day lives. However, if a student was to post a picture of a freezer full of B&J with a 'thanks to... ' caption, I think some people may see the fun in that! (how fast can you fill the freezer?!) :) cheers, Paul.
28) Message boards : Number crunching : My experience with Rosetta WU's (Message 225) Posted 20 Sep 2005 by [B^S] Paul@home Post: Finished my first one - about 12 hours CPU on 3.2Ghz P4 w/HT. Not too bad....
29) Message boards : Number crunching : canonical result (Message 224) Posted 20 Sep 2005 by [B^S] Paul@home Post: If you can validate the results returned based on 1 PC then I guess that is the way to go. No point duplicating work that is not required. People could stll artificially bump up their claimed credits... even when returning perfectly valid results. I know its not a major issue since credits dont mean anything except for the bit of competition, but is it possible for you to watch for this sort of thing too? ie get the system to flag any claimed credits that are above expectation? cheers, Paul.
30) Message boards : Cafe Rosetta : Welcome to The Rosetta Cafe Come On In! (Message 200) Posted 19 Sep 2005 by [B^S] Paul@home Post: Well, its not that long since I was a student and if there's one thing I know students like - its free stuff. I think your ice cream ploy will work a 'treat'! :) heh heh... whats to stop them soliciting us to join their team and push their numbers up? there are a few regular crunchers with LOTS of hardware at their disposal who may be able to help put any team to the top! cheers, Paul
31) Message boards : Cafe Rosetta : Problem getting work ? (Message 188) Posted 19 Sep 2005 by [B^S] Paul@home Post: Mike, (and anyone else who is interested!) There is a very comprehensive BOINC documentation web site available that will answer just about any question you have - the BOINC WIKI: http://boinc-doc.net/boinc-wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page Of course, you can always post questions to any of the BOINC forums and will find plenty of people willing to help out! :) Shameless plug: Come visit us at www.boincsynergy.com if you have any questions / problems at all! cheers, Paul.
32) Message boards : Number crunching : Crossproject ID (Message 187) Posted 19 Sep 2005 by [B^S] Paul@home Post: CPIDs may take several days and connects to your various projects to sync correctly... It will happen though as long as you have the exact same Email address for all projects. Remember, Email addys are case sensitive as far as CPIDs are concerned. more info here: http://boinc-doc.net/boinc-wiki/index.php?title=CPID You also need a 'path' linking all your hosts and projects... ie a way for the largest CPID to get from project 1 to project 2 to project 3 etc. Paul.
33) Message boards : Cafe Rosetta : Welcome to The Rosetta Cafe Come On In! (Message 186) Posted 19 Sep 2005 by [B^S] Paul@home Post: Good luck with this project guys! Site looks great - obviously alot of hard work went into this! @Ethan - Are we allowed encourage the students to participate in other BOINC projects when they sign up here?! ;) :) Paul.
34) Message boards : Cafe Rosetta : Where are the BOINC regulars...8) (Message 175) Posted 19 Sep 2005 by [B^S] Paul@home Post: Mornin! ;)

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