- Dec 11, 1999
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Welcome to the last chance to find primes in a race this year. It's the 321 Blast Off Challenge! This will be an eight-day mission, November 1-9, orbiting powers of two multiplied by 3. Your goal will be to complete as many 321 Prime Search LLR tests as you can, as quickly and correctly as you can.
What you need:
What won't help (but won't hurt either):
What would help, but isn't absolutely necessary:
Work not downloaded and uploaded within the challenge will not be counted. Should you not be able to be in front of one or more computers at that time, see [post=29529001]the challenge strategy thread[/post] for ways to start and finish on time. (Though my Linux script doesn't seem to work with BOINC 7.)
I plan to post stats in this thread, and others may too. But for the most up-to-date TeAm stats, get my latest user script. With that installed, visit this address for TeAm stats.
Good luck to all!
What you need:
- One or more fast x86 processors. (Even slow ones could probably do some work.)
- All of those processors running stably. The best way to check stability is to run Prime95's Large FFT test for a day or two. If you get any errors, your processor or RAM isn't stable enough for this challenge at your current clock/voltage.
- Windows, Linux, or Mac OS 10.4+.
- BOINC, attached to PrimeGrid (http://www.primegrid.com/).
- Your PrimeGrid Preferences with "321 Prime Search (LLR)" the only CPU project selected in the Projects section.
- Patience! These are fairly long WUs. (Not as long as Seventeen or Bust, but each could take a day.)
What won't help (but won't hurt either):
- A 64-bit OS. (But if it's Linux, type "sudo apt-get install ia32-libs".)
- A large amount of RAM.
- A GPU. Sorry, I asked about this, but progress has stalled.
What would help, but isn't absolutely necessary:
- An Intel processor with AVX. You won't get much extra BOINC credit with AVX, unfortunately, but you will get more race credit.
- Fast RAM. If you overclock your RAM, be sure to run the Prime95 test described above.
j.sheridan said:Going from 1600 to 2133MHz RAM has resulted in a 10+% improvement in 321 run times.
- Reading [post=30943822]Ken's WU Juggling Guide[/post] and applying it once you figure out how long each WU will take. Note that the automatic time estimate isn't very good; estimate total time manually from progress and elapsed time.
- Not running a GPU project. They don't all take much CPU time, but they do all take some. Unchecking the two "Use GPU" checkboxes on your PrimeGrid preferences may help you get work faster and more easily.
Work not downloaded and uploaded within the challenge will not be counted. Should you not be able to be in front of one or more computers at that time, see [post=29529001]the challenge strategy thread[/post] for ways to start and finish on time. (Though my Linux script doesn't seem to work with BOINC 7.)
I plan to post stats in this thread, and others may too. But for the most up-to-date TeAm stats, get my latest user script. With that installed, visit this address for TeAm stats.
Good luck to all!
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