N00b Thread!

Solitaire

Might as well keep as much of the non-guide/FAQ n00b stuff in one place so here we go

I'll start us off with a good'un for folding rookies: What in the firepits of Oblivion is a "WU"? I know I need to rack ten of these magical mcguffins to start earning bonuses but what unit of measure or relation does "WU" have to established units of folding? Is it xyz no. of steps? ab/c fraction of a Project? A whole Project? g+h*i no. of entire Projects?! :eek:

Spear

Solitaire wrote: »

Might as well keep as much of the non-guide/FAQ n00b stuff in one place so here we go

I'll start us off with a good'un for folding rookies: What in the firepits of Oblivion is a "WU"? I know I need to rack ten of these magical mcguffins to start earning bonuses but what unit of measure or relation does "WU" have to established units of folding? Is it xyz no. of steps? ab/c fraction of a Project? A whole Project? g+h*i no. of entire Projects?! :eek:

You'll need to say which project/client you're referring to. In BOINC land at least WU is a work unit.

Solitaire

I guessed WU = work unit but from a F@H perspective I don't see the relationship between the SMP client's Steps/Projects and WUs

zodac

Since BOINC doesn't have a bonus system, I'll assume Folding.

Anyway, as long as it's an SMP WU, it will count towards the bonuses. You can check if it's an SMP WU in a few ways:

• In HFM, the "Client type" column says "SMP" and not "Standard".
• All cores are at 100% usage.
• The core in your SMP folder is FahCore_a3.exe.
• The Project number. SMP WUs are:
P2633
P6012-6025
P6050-6077
P6701/6702 (awful WUs for PPD ).

Oh, and for steps, I think the all SMP WUs have 500k steps, except for P6701/6702, which have 2mil steps each, and P2633, which has less (can't remember how many off the top of my head though ).

Spear

zodac wrote: »

Since BOINC doesn't have a bonus system, I'll assume Folding.

GPUGrid does a bonus if WU's are done with a short time period.

zodac

Spear wrote: »

GPUGrid does a bonus if WU's are done with a shot time period.

Really? Must try that...

Only GPU BOINC project I've used is DNETC.

Solitaire

Yep, already checked that my SMP client was working properly

So 1 WU = 1 Project?

Spear

zodac wrote: »

Really? Must try that...

Only GPU BOINC project I've used is DNETC.

It hasn't been an option for me for a while, they're slow to add Fermi support, unfortunately as all too many projects are.

zodac

Solitaire wrote: »

Yep, already checked that my SMP client was working properly

So 1 WU = 1 Project?

Yup.

Spear wrote: »

It hasn't been an option for me for a while, they're slow to add Fermi support, unfortunately as all too many projects are.

DNETC definitely works on Fermi. And each WU is pretty small too...

Spear

zodac wrote: »

Yup.



DNETC definitely works on Fermi. And each WU is pretty small too...

I use DNETC as a backup, but mostly stick to Collatz, it seems to give slightly higher credit.

zodac

DNETC gave better credits on my 9800GT. Plus, it was a lot faster, and easier to fit into a 2 day contest, so I stick with that.

ED E

What exactly are the "bonuses"?

zodac

Lethal_Bullet wrote: »

What exactly are the "bonuses"?

Here's the formula:
http://www.overclock.net/8948030-post24.html

Basically, you get more points for every minute faster than the Preferred Deadline you finish the WU.

Solitaire

Thanks for reminding me that if I had started this a week ago my current WU would be worth well over 1,000 instead of just 481! :(:p

zodac

Think of it this way; at least you'll be ready for next month.

DeVore

Can I Fold with a PS3 and if so, how... I turned it on last night and watched it "jiggle" but it didnt ask me for a team number or anything

Also, are there things that can be pointed to that show its not just wasting energy and causing global warming?


DeV.

zodac

To start Folding on the PS3 for boards:

• Open up "Life with Playstation"
• Go to the Folding@Home channel (hold square and go to the last channel)
• Go to options (hold Triangle)
• Choose "Identity" (5th option)
• "Change donor name"> Your Folding Name
• Go back (press circle)
• "Join an Exisiting Team"> Team 39432

Here is the list of papers that have been published by Stanford from Folding@Home:
http://folding.stanford.edu/English/Papers

And here's something to stop you worrying about the impact Folding will have on global warming:
http://news.discovery.com/earth/ozone-layer-earth.html

Solitaire

Here's a dumb question: what are the numeric EOC member IDs in HFM all about? My stats page at EOC doesn't even hint at the presence of such a thing yet HFM needs one in order to access user stats on EOC...

A not-so-dumb question: Exactly how damaging is the GPU client to the SMP clients? Is it because the GPU clients take some CPU cycles, or the bonus points scheme penalises you for running a GPU client as well, or something else?

zodac

Here you go boss:
http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/user_summary.php?s=&u=531243

As for the GPU... what do you have? An ATi, Fermi, or older nVidia GPU?

Solitaire

Ah, it was in the HTML link... silly me

I'm not really asking about a specific machine, just generally. From what I've heard, running both clients together = BAD for some reason bonus-points-related

zodac

Well, I'll list what happens:

Single 8/9/200 series nVidia GPU - no effect on SMP PPD.
2 8/9 series nVidia GPUs - no effect on SMP PPD.
3+ 8/9 series nVidia GPUs or 2+ 200 series GPU PPD - small effect on SMP PPD. Worth it overall for GPU PPD.
Single Fermi GPU - small effect on SMP PPD. Worth it for SMP, but for -bigadv Folding, you will need to dedicate a core so the -bigadv PPD isn't hit too badly.
Multiple Fermi GPUs - Not recommended for -bigadv Folding. While overall PPD stays at the same level, it negates the point of -bigadv.
ATi GPUs - Awful, for SMP and PPD. You will need to dedicate a core for every 2 GPUs (an 1 core even if you just have 1 GPU), and it hurts SMP PPD too much for it to make sense to use both. In this situation, it's best to go with one over the other:

• GPU only if you only Fold a few hours a day, since they're not affected by bonuses.
• SMP only if you Fold 24/7, since CPUs will use less power than most GPUs.

Solitaire

Let's say you complete a WU. Stanford's stats don't recognise that you've completed the WU even though it hasn't "failed" and you've already started your next WU. A few minutes later, half the Web ****s itself and F@H (or at least the stats pages) go down. Have you just wasted 18 hours of CPU time on a phantom WU? :eek::(

You can probably guess why I'm asking this question :mad:

zodac

Stats pages look fine to me... what amkes you think Stanford haven't got the WU? How long ago was it uploaded, and do you still have the FAHlog?

Anyway, Stanford very rarely lose WUs. Worst case scenario, it's uploaded a bit later than normal. If it took 18hrs to complete the WU, you're well within the 72hr deadline, so I can't see how you woudln't still get them in within the bonus deadline. It might be a bit less than expected if it hasn't uploaded, otherwise I wouldn't worry.

EDIT: Looks like Stanford has 481pts more than EOC for your user; that's a normal SMP WU (P6050-6077). Nothing out of the ordinary.

Solitaire

Yup, when Stanford came back online they had updated my stats. When EOC came back up, they didn't But they can take hours to update after Stanford anyway

zodac

Yeah, Stanford update hourly, while EOC only do it every 3hrs.

I asked Jason from EOC whether he was gonna increase the frequency, but he said no plans for the moment.

cherryghost

My client keeps crashing :S

Is it meant to do that ooooor shall I reinstall :pac:

zodac

Lol, pretty certain, it ain't meant to do that.

Can you post the FAHlog here?

Solitaire

Something is very wrong here...

Up until a week ago I was netting 1500+ points per P60 WU and 3000+ per P67, running flat-out 24/7 on my 3.33GHz C2D.

Last week though I was only getting ~1200 points per P60 and 2000-2500 per P67.

Today I turned in two P6701s, one done 16 hours/day full-burn (except for some web browsing) on the C2D, and the other in less than a day on a 24/7 full-burn 2.93GHz i5 quad. Both netted me... 4200 points. Taking into account the lowish bonus on the C2D and the high one on the i5 the bonuses I earned are significantly below even last week - say 1700 points from the old machine and 2500 from the speedy i5 testbed. In effect something has almost halved my PPD :eek::eek::eek: Given the completion speed I should have made well over 6000 points from the two P6701s combined!!!

What's killing my bonuses??!? :eek::eek:

zodac

Are you using HFM? If you are, what version?

Solitaire

0.61. But I'm getting (or got, as some have disappeared) these results off EOC, not HFM (which seems incredibly inaccurate anyway)

zodac

If you updated to v0.6, then press CTRL+H. Scroll to the bottom, and it will show the latest WU uploaded. Find your clients, and see how much credit you got for them.

Then scroll up and find a similar WU from last week, and then compare.

Solitaire

Hmm... only slight discrepancies when you factor in that lost WU last week due to F@Hcore s***ting itself... but from what I can see my i5 must have only got about 1000 points from its last WU, which was a P6701! WTF??!? :eek:

zodac

Wow, that does seem low... my Q6600 gets ~4.1k points for each 6701.

Was it longer than usual?

Solitaire

Don't even have HFM on the testbench yet, but ~4200 - ~3100 = ~not a bloody lot :( And I do certainly recall from the logs that the P6701 took 26 hours to complete realtime (~20 hours for the machine but there was some downtime due to firewall issues - Zonealarm keeps schizing out on me, it really doesn't like me using my old PC as a bridge to its own wireless card to link the new machine to the router! )

zodac

Well... all I can say is to hope it was a one-off. At any rate, I've heard no-one else complain about lower points than usual (for SMP anyway; everyone is complaining about GPU right now ).

Solitaire

I have a HD6850 so GPU isn't even an option! :eek: If it was I'd still be complaining! :P

1100 points for a P6701... then ~3000 for a measly P60**?!? :eek: Oh well... over halfway through another P67**, tonight I'll find out whether it was a once-off or whether Stanford has had a serious and ongoing whoopsie...

zodac

Yeah, you've just given up on GPUs for now I guess. Don't worry though; someday it'll be useful.

But the 60xx Wus are the best... 6014s give me the best PPD.

Solitaire

Running P60**s I could easily get 6k PPD from the i5 - and that's at stock!

zodac

Blah, only ~4.2k at stock.

Solitaire

Nope, at 2.93GHz I'm getting P60**s done in 8.5 hours for nearly 3k a pop :P

zodac

No, I mean I only get 4.2k at stock. Stupid 2.4Ghz CPU.

Also, we need better smileys here.

Solitaire

Agreed!

marco_polo

Typical, I had a bad feeling this would be P6701/P6702 day, makes a bit of a mess of the timetable.

zodac

I'm only getting 494pt WUs on the GPUs... bad PPD is bad.