Focusing on World Community Grid

[ZipSpeed]

The Folding race is behind us and it's the start of a new year. With the announced changes last year where -bigadv now requires a 16 core system, I will admit I've lost some of the passion to earn as many points as possible. It's all about the science of course but part of the fun is trying to climb the charts as fast as you can.

My i7 970 rig would also get a client-core communication error on occasion and sorting through that mess is getting tiring. The rig passes Prime95 with flying colors and has no issues running other DC projects so I'm going to guess it's bad WUs.

Which brings me to my decision to focus on WCG, at least for the short term. I want to stick with biology projects so WCG is a pretty easy choice. TA doesn't produce huge amounts of points on WCG so maybe I can help bump up our presence a bit! I may allocate a full-time rig to Correlizer as well but haven't decided if I will or when.

blckgrffn has been producing crazy amounts recently so it will almost be like I never left, points-wise anyway. All said and done, I'm not abandoning F@H. Just taking a break to try out different things. Perhaps one day I will come back to it. In the meantime, feel free to join me on WCG!

 

[petrusbroder]

Welcome to the WVG TeAm, ZipSpeed! Good to see you here!

 

[ZipSpeed]

Welcome to the WVG TeAm, ZipSpeed! Good to see you here!

Thanks Pete. I've actually been registered with WCG since February last year and done some crunching already for the project but thanks for the welcome nonetheless!

 

[EagleKeeper]

I added a couple of dual core systems in December. Amazing what a difference it makes.

Benefits of having control of a couple of test beds.

 

[GLeeM]

What are you going to run on your GPUs?

I had focussed on Folding for a long time, but now I've been having fun exploring many different projects and getting them to 100K or 250K or 1M or more.

Some projects I really have to juggle if they have large up or down loads, as my satellite network has set limits.

Speaking of which - does anyone know how big the up/downloads are on DistrRTgen?

 

[Uppsala9496]

I wouldn't mind trying something different with my gpu's, but at this point I'm not sure what project to stick them on.
I am going to give WCG a shot since RNA World has no checkpointing and there are times when I need to suspend usage to free up some cpu cycles.

 

[waffleironhead]

I'm in, I just switched over to Go Fight Against Malaria. Once my simap cache runs dry I'll be on it 100% for the rest of the month.
(err edit that, looks like a primegrid challenge is set for the 23rd to the 28th)

 

[ZipSpeed]

What are you going to run on your GPUs?

I had focussed on Folding for a long time, but now I've been having fun exploring many different projects and getting them to 100K or 250K or 1M or more.

Some projects I really have to juggle if they have large up or down loads, as my satellite network has set limits.

Speaking of which - does anyone know how big the up/downloads are on DistrRTgen?

I haven't decided yet. Taking a month break from GPU crunching as I recover from the power bill that will surely be not pretty!

EDIT: Welcome aboard Waffle!

 

[blckgrffn]

Sounds like a plan

Unfortunately, my output will also hinge on a couple of factors - the new -bigadv deadlines (and bonus) and access to the borged folders. I had only really intended to have them up for the duration of the race, so I expect them to all be back to "active duty" status and therefore not folding by the end of the month, no matter what happens to the deadlines. At that point my ouput will likely be ~30k ppd, depending on the WU.

I did buy a 1090t rig basically for folding but I don't think I'll be able to hold up your output, Zip. I'll try but I hope you bring those GPU's back

Along the lines of your post, I do enjoy working on other projects too and plan on putting an PII x4 into WCG once I test some more things out...

 

[wayliff]

awesome! I mainly do WCG crunching with my CPUs! From time to time I observe and see If I catch an interesting challenge...such as the correlizer race recently.

WCG is fun and like you said it is mostly about science...points are fun but secondary, at least for me.

:biggrin:

 

[ZipSpeed]

Sounds like a plan

Unfortunately, my output will also hinge on a couple of factors - the new -bigadv deadlines (and bonus) and access to the borged folders. I had only really intended to have them up for the duration of the race, so I expect them to all be back to "active duty" status and therefore not folding by the end of the month, no matter what happens to the deadlines. At that point my ouput will likely be ~30k ppd, depending on the WU.

I did buy a 1090t rig basically for folding but I don't think I'll be able to hold up your output, Zip. I'll try but I hope you bring those GPU's back

Along the lines of your post, I do enjoy working on other projects too and plan on putting an PII x4 into WCG once I test some more things out...

I'm actually thinking of popping two GPUs back on to F@H starting next week since I hate seeing the rig idle (cruncher 1). Screw the power bill! Just have to eat instant noodles in the meantime!: D

 

[blckgrffn]

I'm actually thinking of popping two GPUs back on to F@H starting next week since I hate seeing the rig idle (cruncher 1). Screw the power bill! Just have to eat instant noodles in the meantime!: D

Awesome! What kind of PPD is that rig putting out?

Side note, I dropped a 6904 in this morning supposedly worth ~380k but haven't seen credit for it yet, it also took multiple FAH client stop/starts and then I got a normal SMP WU back

Maybe I have gotten the credit for that -bigadv unit but it was very small due to new deadlines/bonus requirements?

I am currently testing my Phenom II x4 and I think that I get about ~20% better ppd by running the folder in a Ubuntu VM versus native in Windows. I believe this is due to the 64-bit binary that Linux can use (yay for 2x registers!). Since I have verified that, WCG here I come

I also put my 5870 on MilkyWay@Home. LOL @ that PPD! Craziness!

 

[brownstone]

Maybe I have gotten the credit for that -bigadv unit but it was very small due to new deadlines/bonus requirements?

I haven't seen any changes yet with deadlines...or points for that matter. Anyone else noticed anything?

 

[ZipSpeed]

Awesome! What kind of PPD is that rig putting out?

Side note, I dropped a 6904 in this morning supposedly worth ~380k but haven't seen credit for it yet, it also took multiple FAH client stop/starts and then I got a normal SMP WU back

Maybe I have gotten the credit for that -bigadv unit but it was very small due to new deadlines/bonus requirements?

I am currently testing my Phenom II x4 and I think that I get about ~20% better ppd by running the folder in a Ubuntu VM versus native in Windows. I believe this is due to the 64-bit binary that Linux can use (yay for 2x registers!). Since I have verified that, WCG here I come

I also put my 5870 on MilkyWay@Home. LOL @ that PPD! Craziness!

The rig produces ~22k PPD. I decided to fire it up yesterday.

 

[blckgrffn]

I haven't seen any changes yet with deadlines...or points for that matter. Anyone else noticed anything?

Actually, no. The blog is silent as well, I have not dug into their forums however.

The rig produces ~22k PPD. I decided to fire it up yesterday.

That's really solid - I think you'd need a ~2600k to match that output via SMP. That's good to have back in the fold. ha ha

 

[theAnimal]

Side note, I dropped a 6904 in this morning supposedly worth ~380k but haven't seen credit for it yet, it also took multiple FAH client stop/starts and then I got a normal SMP WU back

Maybe I have gotten the credit for that -bigadv unit but it was very small due to new deadlines/bonus requirements?

There was a problem with the bigadv server. My last 6903 wasn't uploaded until 23 hours after finishing so I lost about 100k points.

It doesn't appear that any changes have been applied to bigadv yet.

 

[brownstone]

There was a problem with the bigadv server. My last 6903 wasn't uploaded until 23 hours after finishing so I lost about 100k points.

I had the exact same issue on a 6903 (minus the part about losing 100,000 points), glad to hear it wasn't on my end. I was trying to figure out what happened.

 

[ZipSpeed]

Currently ranked 112 according to Free-DC.

Rank...Team................Days to Overtake
111.....IBM Australia......8.05
109.....Slovakia............22.36
106.....Poland..............30.31
110.....Planet 3DNow!....31.74

I currently have 39 active CPU threads in WCG. My goal is to get the TeAm into the top 100 by summer. Anyone else interested in joining or adding more cores to the project? :biggrin:

 

[somethingsketchy]

Does it matter what project we work on in WCG? Or do all of the projects (such as GO Fight Against Malaria) contribute to the same count in WCG? I never know what to crunch under such as Computing for Clean Water.

 

[ZipSpeed]

You can choose any project you find interesting. In my case, I chose every project except Human Proteome Folding as there are issues with some overclocked computers (in my case, two rigs don't like HPF and occasionally throws out errors almost immediately). As for credit, I think they are issued according to run time. Projects that require longer run times earn more points. Another thing confusing is that you need to divide the WCG points by 7 in order to see them as BOINC credits. So 7 million WCG points is 1 million BOINC points.

 

[blckgrffn]

If I promise a few cores (8? 14?) for WCG after this week (planning on it anyway ) would you divert a few cores for PrimeGrid for the next two days (the challenge period)? I know you may not find it super interesting, but I'll repay any credit you would have generated, you just have to tell me what projects you were crunching.

What do you say?

http://www.primegrid.com/forum_thread.php?id=3951#47836

 

[petrusbroder]

I second blckgrffn - and will add at least 8 cores to WCG. Join PG-challenge, please!

 

[ZipSpeed]

Sounds good guys. I will see what I can do but probably won't be able to do anything till tonight or tomorrow morning as I am away from my computers currently.

 

[Smartazz]

I've been running WCG for months. I'm glad to see some others with nice DC rigs getting into it too.

 

[petrusbroder]

Well, some of us have been running WCG for quite some time ... my first record is May2, 2007 and WUs have been delivered almost every day (except for scheduled or unscheduled down time now and then).
Some days a few hundred points are added; other a 100K or more, depending on other projects.
Short bursts of intense participation produce a lot and are fun to do, but it is the long term effort which really adds to the science of the projects and to the score ...

I have tried - now and then - to build some momentum and - as said - now and then it has been there. It is nice to know that just now the momentum is there. Thanks ZipSpeed (and others )

Petrusbroder
team captain @WCG