Miss preferred deadline by 2 hours...

[fleabag]

I noticed on folding.extremeoverclocking.com that they show scores only every 3 hours of the day. I also heard that they only tally scores every three hours, so even if you submitted at 3pm, it may not show up until 6 pm or whatnot. So I was wondering, since I'm going to miss the preferred deadline by 2 hours, does that mean that if start crunching at 3:01am and the result I submit arrives at 5 am two days later, would I still be safe?

 

[GLeeM]

There are two deadlines listed at Currently running projects.

The Preferred deadline is when they would prefer to get it back by, after that they can send the WU to another person.

After the Final deadline you might not get any points.

When the stats get posted has nothing to do with deadlines.

 

[Foxery]

More specifically, the deadlines are set (and presumably enforced) by the server which assigns it. The clock starts ticking when you download it. When you upload results, that server decides whether or not you get credit.

 

[fleabag]

Originally posted by: GLeeM
There are two deadlines listed at Currently running projects.

The Preferred deadline is when they would prefer to get it back by, after that they can send the WU to another person.

After the Final deadline you might not get any points.

When the stats get posted has nothing to do with deadlines.

You say they "can" send the WU to another user, does that mean that they have to? I submit my WU 2 hours past the preferred deadline, for the one hour before the deadline and 2 hours after the deadline, no machine has probed the server for a WU, does this mean if somebody, say 30 minutes after stanford receives my WU, asks the server for a WU, will stanford send the WU I submitted to stanford or not? I mean if stanford has a pool of WU that have exceeded the "preferred" and or even "final" deadline, couldn't they send those out first, before they receive my WU 2 hours after the preferred deadline?

The preferred deadline makes sense if they're limited in the # of WU they can send out, machines are probing for a WU and any WU that has exceeded the "preferred deadline" is sent out since the machines are starving for work to be done. However, if there is plenty of WU ready to be sent out, those that have either exceeded the "final deadline" or those that simply have never been sent out before, then shouldn't they just accept the WU that exceeded the preferred deadline?

 

[Foxery]

In a project this size, there is *always* someone connecting for a new WU. It's almost guaranteed to be reassigned.

Deadlines exist to make sure projects don't grind to a halt when WUs are lost. The difference between Preferred and Final is whether you get any credit for your time, or took so long that you didn't help the project.

 

[GLeeM]

As long as you get it in before the final deadline, I wouldn't worry too much about it. After all it is a beta AND they are getting science done!

In case you didn't know: your WU is a small part of one fold or sequence or trajectory or line (or whatever it's called). Unless it is the first WU it was created from the results that someone sent in from the WU before yours. After you add your part to the fold and send in the results, a new WU is created and sent out. To keep the process moving they instituted deadlines. The high-performance SMP client has short deadlines so the science can get done faster - for this they give bonus points.

If I were head of project I would give a little grace period before re-issueing a WU after the preferred deadline, especially if there are other WUs ready to send out, which there usually are.