Asteroids@home - new to me! Whose crunching it?

[Assimilator1]

Heard this 1 mentioned in the SETI 'wow' thread, grabbed my curiosity as I'm interested in asteroids anyway with their past and future encounters & I'd not heard of this project!

So when did it start? What's it like to run, ie stability & speed on various rigs?

I see our team is currently no 53 in TC and 63 in RAC, might give this a shot on my main rig, if I can prise myself away from F@H , been crunching it for a few years now, I think, it's been so long I can't remember!

(Petrus I see your No 2 on our team )

 

[Bradtech519]

I've been crunching it lately. I noticed it and also like everything related to space science. It's CPU only right now and it's stable. Seems to favor Intel processors if you look at top computers. They are taking photometric measurements from sky surveys of asteroids and we are computing the spin and shapes of the asteroids. Then the results go to the DAMIT database for the public. They give badges, and even credit to the people that discovered stuff on their site. It seems to be fairly small and new. I mainly have been jumping from it to SETI. I kind of focus on SETI on the weekends and leave asteroids going during week day with SETI doing GPU Only and give asteroids@home all my AMD FX 8350 can give.

Heard this 1 mentioned in the SETI 'wow' thread, grabbed my curiosity as I'm interested in asteroids anyway with their past and future encounters & I'd not heard of this project!

So when did it start? What's it like to run, ie stability & speed on various rigs?

I see our team is currently no 53 in TC and 63 in RAC, might give this a shot on my main rig, if I can prise myself away from F@H , been crunching it for a few years now, I think, it's been so long I can't remember!

(Petrus I see your No 2 on our team )

 

[Fardringle]

I did it for a while, just long enough to get about 10K credits, but stopped when my Core 2 Duo E4600 system (currently my only system running BOINC) started getting failures on 100% of the work units maybe six months ago. I honestly haven't tried it since then to see if they have fixed whatever was causing the failures. I might let the system run it again for a while to see what happens..

 

[biodoc]

I just put my Windows7/Q9550 on it a few days ago and so far so good. I'm pushing for a million points milestone.

 

[GLeeM]

I don't remember having any problem with it, I made it to 250,000 and moved to another project. I plan to go back some day to move it to 500K and then 1M.

It gives good ppd with the regular app.

I see some people have Anonymous platform app and are getting like ten times better ppd.

Does anyone know where to get this Anonymous platform app?

 

[networkman]

I'd heard of such a project some years ago, but it hadn't yet got off the ground as it were, and I never pursued it further. I'll take another look at it and see.

Update: Just joined my Xeon 2.8 at work to split 50/50 with Einstein@Home, and joined the TeAm using my GRRO account.

 

[Bradtech519]

I jumped back into it and started crunching with CPU only on my FX 8350. I want to hit 100k before the SETI August event.

 

[petrusbroder]

I am crunching it with two of my CPUs without any problems - works just fine.
Have not have any errors for a very long time (since beginning of May).

 

[networkman]

Just submitted my first 4 work units this morning.

 

[Assimilator1]

NWM
Hmm, you're getting a head start on me then? Maybe I'll fire up my 2nd rig too for a bit to counter that (when it cools down a bit anyway!).

Which CPU family is your Xeon?
*********************************************

Thanks guys, seems to be running ok then .

I'll be running A@H on my ageing Core 2 quad when I switch, haven't decided when yet.

Currently at 6.564 Mpoints on F@H (still in the top 40 producers! err although I see only 56 have been active the past week....), hmm should I stop at 6.66 Mpts? lol.

Think I'll switch when this heatwave is over, atm I'm only running F@H at 50% load (2 cores) & shutting it off at night.

Can you change CPU load/cores used in A@H?

Bradtech
Cool that they give credit to people who've made discoveries .

I saw that you are the top producer in A@H, how long do ya reckon it'll take ya to get to the top?

Gleem
Couldn't that anon app be a cheat?

Petrus
What ya crunching with?

 

[Sunny129]

I don't remember having any problem with it, I made it to 250,000 and moved to another project. I plan to go back some day to move it to 500K and then 1M.

It gives good ppd with the regular app.

I see some people have Anonymous platform app and are getting like ten times better ppd.

Does anyone know where to get this Anonymous platform app?

at first i thought it was the Raspberry Pi apps and the Android ARM apps that were showing up as "anonymous platform," but then i realized that there are stock apps for those platforms...and besides, on the A@H statistics page, the top hosts crunching on anonymous platform are Intel CPUs. also, their run times really are only 1/10 that of the average run time, allowing for 10 times the PPD of the average host....so in regards to Assimilator1's question, i don't really think its a credit hack/cheat. descending deeper into the rabbit hole, i scoured the A@H message boards only to find a handful of entries pertaining to "anonymous platform" or "optimized application"...and none of them really explained how to get ahold of an optimized application and an associated app_info.xml file. i started a thread on the A@H message boards inquiring about this mysterious optimized application and see what comes of it...i'll report back when i know something.

 

[Assimilator1]

Look forwards to hearing back from ya .

 

[Bradtech519]

I'm not sure how long it will take. I'm running stock FX 8350. I doubt my CPU will keep up with the guys that have I7 3770k and above. The 2600k has better floating point also and stronger cores. I could over lock but my motherboard seems to have issues with the newer vishera core. I've got it stable by manually setting my voltages on Northbridge, ram, and CPU. I'm just going to leave it going enough and see where I end up over time. I only have one PC going also. I wish I could load up some HS23 blades at work for burning in or get z/vm on our mainframe with Linux going .

NWM
Hmm, you're getting a head start on me then? Maybe I'll fire up my 2nd rig too for a bit to counter that (when it cools down a bit anyway!).

Which CPU family is your Xeon?
*********************************************

Thanks guys, seems to be running ok then .

I'll be running A@H on my ageing Core 2 quad when I switch, haven't decided when yet.

Currently at 6.564 Mpoints on F@H (still in the top 40 producers! err although I see only 56 have been active the past week....), hmm should I stop at 6.66 Mpts? lol.

Think I'll switch when this heatwave is over, atm I'm only running F@H at 50% load (2 cores) & shutting it off at night.

Can you change CPU load/cores used in A@H?

Bradtech
Cool that they give credit to people who've made discoveries .

I saw that you are the top producer in A@H, how long do ya reckon it'll take ya to get to the top?

Gleem
Couldn't that anon app be a cheat?

Petrus
What ya crunching with?

 

[Bradtech519]

Got my CPU up to 4.4 GHz from 4.0 stable. Not comfortable with temps much higher.. Can get it to 4.8 GHz but 60-65c. 4.4 GHz shaves about 15 minutes off each workunit.

 

[Sunny129]

i haven't yet gotten to the bottom of how a handful of otherwise seemingly average hosts are crunching through A@H work at ~10 times the pace of everyone else. but i did start a thread on the A@H message boards and have gotten a few responses so far. if you'd like to follow along, you can find the thread HERE.

 

[Bradtech519]

I pinned the page on my phone, and been checking in refreshing off and on. Saw the conversation a while ago. He sent the source out for it. I wonder if some people have developed their own optimized applications, and distribute amongst some inner circle. There's no way those CPUs are getting that much work done with the native application. Will be interesting if the guy with the rig responds to you.

i haven't yet gotten to the bottom of how a handful of otherwise seemingly average hosts are crunching through A@H work at ~10 times the pace of everyone else. but i did start a thread on the A@H message boards and have gotten a few responses so far. if you'd like to follow along, you can find the thread HERE.

 

[Bradtech519]

Should have silicum 100k milestone by Wednesday morning or tomorrow night hopefully.

 

[Sunny129]

so i contacted one of the project's top users, Thor, yesterday (whose computers are hidden, so there's a good chance that some of the project's top hosts whose owners are anonymous belong to him). i got a response from him this morning confirming the use of an optimized application. unfortunately Thor did not write the app, and the author, who is a teammate of Thor's, is on vacation right now...but it has got to be one of these guys on the Polish National Team. now the project's top host does not use a particularly powerful CPU, but it is an intel Ivy Bridge quad-core, so i'm guessing the application is being optimized for AVX. at any rate, the app was apparently compiled and distributed to the author's teammates for testing purposes just before he left town on vacation. when he is due back in town and how much more testing remains before the application is released is anybody's guess...but Thor knows to get back to me once he knows more. i updated the thread i started on the A@H message boards as well. in the mean time, you'll know more once i know more...

Eric

 

[GLeeM]

Thanks for your efforts, Sunny129

Could AVX really make it finish in a tenth of the time?

If so ... a good reason to upgrade sooner!

 

[Sunny129]

speaking of upgrades, i'm going to be replacing one of my 1055T's and the Gigabyte 890GPA-UD3H with an i7 3770K and a Gigabyte Z77X-UD4H hopefully this weekend. this project wasn't my motivation for the upgrade, but its a nice unexpected bonus now that i have an ivy bridge CPU on the way.

 

[biodoc]

Thanks for your efforts, Sunny129

Could AVX really make it finish in a tenth of the time?

If so ... a good reason to upgrade sooner!

Here's another computer running the optimized app.

http://asteroidsathome.net/boinc/results.php?hostid=35482&offset=0&show_names=0&state=4&appid=

It's an Intel(R) Pentium(R) CPU G860 @ 3.00GHz and from my searches it doesn't have AVX instructions enabled but is cranking through WUs at a blazing speed too. Just under 1800 seconds per WU.

EDIT: Source for AVX lacking in G860: http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/245/Intel_Core_i3_i3-2100_vs_Intel_Pentium_Dual-Core_G860.html

 

[Sunny129]

hmm...so perhaps it isn't AVX at work here. nevertheless, it appears that all the hosts we've discovered so far to be running an optimized app are also running intel CPUs...so i remain optimistic that i'll be able to utilize one of these optimized apps for A@H once my 3770K arrives...

 

[Assimilator1]

Should have silicum 100k milestone by Wednesday morning or tomorrow night hopefully.

104k now, congrats

400 MHz o/c of an 8 core CPU is certainly a worthwhile boost , it's a huge amount of crunching power anyway! Makes me yearn for an upgrade .

Sunny
Thx for the info , will be interesting to see the outcome.

Btw guys you missed a question of mine, can you throttle load or cores used on A@H like you can on F@H?

 

[GLeeM]

Btw guys you missed a question of mine, can you throttle load or cores used on A@H like you can on F@H?

Yes, with BOINC Preferences.

And if more control is needed you can add an app_config (bottom of page) file.

 

[Bradtech519]

Got done doing some cosmology and jumped back in. I got a Core 2 Duo going and it's completing two workunits every 3 hours 15-20 minutes. FX 8350 at 4.4 GHz completing around 2hrs 15-25 minutes. MK is blazing up there with that 2600k getting 4000+ million ops a sec per FP. My FX 8350 only getting 3400 at 4.4 GHz.. If I was comfortable with the temps getting above 60c I'd push it a little more and ramp up the voltage to around 1.525 and try to get closer to 5 GHz. Looks like we are about to jump onto the front page top 20 of teams. Good job