BOINCstats Challenges

MacDitch · Post by **MacDitch** » Mon Aug 02, 2010 8:18 pm

A very late (in the day) update this week...

Completed Challenges:
16th (out of 43) for POEM
9th (out of 26) for SIMAP
7th (out of 20) for Milkyway

Current Challenges:
11th (out of 30) for Einstein - (Ends: 06:00 (BST) 08-Aug)

Upcoming Challenges:
NFS@Home - (Starts: 01:00 (BST) 08-Aug for 7 days)
DNETC@HOME - (Starts: 01:00 (BST) 15-Aug for 7 days)
AQUA - (Starts: 01:00 (BST) 23-Aug for 5 days)

Should we join in?? Challenges:
WCG - (Starts: 01:00 (BST) 31-Jul for 7 days)
Aqua - (Starts: 01:00 (BST) 01-Aug for 7 days)
SIMAP - (Starts: 01:00 (BST) 01-Aug for 6 days)
**These ALL clash with the TSBT challenge**

In Summary
A fantastic effort by all those involved in the POEMathon, and a good start to our challenge in Einstein!
:wav:

Post by **Megacruncher** » Tue Aug 03, 2010 12:21 am

Personally I'm going to sit out everything but Einstein.

MacDitch · Post by **MacDitch** » Tue Aug 03, 2010 7:47 am

Personally I'm going to sit out everything but Einstein.

That's what I based our current involvement on, though NFS@home does technically overlap by a few hours.

Post by **Megacruncher** » Sat Aug 07, 2010 12:44 am

As posted elsewhere Einstein is almost done with a top 10 finish all but assured.

Next up is NFS@Home, another of these strange mathematical things. We are 44th biggest fish in a very small pond so lets make a bigger splash, or something.

Get signed up at http://escatter11.fullerton.edu/nfs/ and build that cache for the kick-off in 24 hours.

Post by **aardvark** » Sat Aug 07, 2010 5:10 pm

and build that cache for the kick-off in 24 hours

Poised like a coiled .......erm....Aardvark.

With a Cache that could possibly be seen when compaired with the national debt

PinkPenguin · Post by **PinkPenguin** » Sat Aug 07, 2010 7:08 pm

Sorry.. I think I'll take a raincheck on this one. Too many projects already and I'm all out of breath trying to keep up with Aardvark's toaster... if he's already poised and coiled my zombies will just keel over and bite the dust....

Best of luck !
:wav:

MacDitch · Post by **MacDitch** » Sat Aug 07, 2010 7:14 pm

...Next up is NFS@Home, ...

I'm not giving up on Einstein just yet. 11 hours to go and 9th place looks very stealable to me...

(Oh yeah, just uploaded my work cache, ~16k + ~5k pending

)

PinkPenguin · Post by **PinkPenguin** » Sat Aug 07, 2010 7:36 pm

I'm not giving up on Einstein just yet. 11 hours to go and 9th place looks very stealable to me...

(Oh yeah, just uploaded my work cache, ~16k + ~5k pending )

... Yep! Some snack attack that!... right around tea-time. I bet the AMD crowd weren't expecting it. Only 4,000 difference for 9th place...

MacDitch · Post by **MacDitch** » Sat Aug 07, 2010 8:08 pm

... Yep! Some snack attack that!... right around tea-time. I bet the AMD crowd weren't expecting it. Only 4,000 difference for 9th place...

I think they had an attack of their own planned, they're back up to a 6k lead now.

PinkPenguin · Post by **PinkPenguin** » Sat Aug 07, 2010 10:48 pm

I think they had an attack of their own planned, they're back up to a 6k lead now.

Perhaps a very carefully worded prayer to that inscrutable oriental deity Pen Ding....

Post by **aardvark** » Sun Aug 08, 2010 3:26 pm

When crunching NFS@Home, if your machine has four cores and at least 4GB memory, it would seem that more credit can be gained by only accepting the 16e work units (as sellected in the NFS prefs). Approx' 65 per WU as opposed to 44 for the 15e type units (if I remember correctly

). WU time, I think is about the same. If in doubt read the notes on the NFS home page.

p.s. we could do with a few more machines on NFS, the Poles are catching up.

PinkPenguin · Post by **PinkPenguin** » Mon Aug 09, 2010 10:55 am

..... B..rit Millenium Hand and Shrimp! can't refuse a call for 'elp!

... sobered up enough to attach myself to NFS.

To get the 16e WUs you have to deselect lasieved and lasievee in the NFS@Home preferences, is that correct ? Not that my zombies have that much memory... but then neither do I any more.

Won't make much of a difference on the Polish Front but I do see AF and AMD lurking in the wings... I don't know where they pick up these bad habits from.

Post by **aardvark** » Mon Aug 09, 2010 3:46 pm

I would hazard a guess that if you don't have lots of memory (your machine, that is :) ) then the 15e unit would be a better option. I also suspect there could be an extra 10-30% gain as well using Linux (I've got Ubuntu flavour). But haven't really time to fully test.

Anyhow good to see another body joining this weeks challenge.

MacDitch · Post by **MacDitch** » Mon Aug 09, 2010 4:40 pm

Just for a change, this weeks update was going to beearly morning, but I've been unable to post.

Hopefully now I'm not using the newly updated work system it'll be ok....

Completed Challenges:
10th (out of 33) for Einstein - A great effort by all involved. :wav:

Current Challenges:
5th (out of 14) for NFS@home - (Ends: 19:00 (BST) 29-Jul)

Upcoming Challenges:
DNETC@home - (Starts: 01:00 (BST) 15-Aug for 7 days)
AQUA - (Starts: 01:00 (BST) 23-Aug for 7 days)
SIMAP Scramble - (Starts: 17:00 (BST) 01-Sep for 6 days)

Should we join in?? Challenges:
PrimeGrid - (Starts: 21:00 (BST) 30-Aug for 4 days)

PinkPenguin · Post by **PinkPenguin** » Mon Aug 09, 2010 6:24 pm

I would hazard a guess that if you don't have lots of memory (your machine, that is :) ) then the 15e unit would be a better option. I also suspect there could be an extra 10-30% gain as well using Linux (I've got Ubuntu flavour). But haven't really time to fully test.

Got fedora 32-bit on two junkheaps - 64-bit would probably be even better. In fact the faster Linux box (1,86Ghz) does almost as well as the Vista box which has a faster/newer CPU (2GHz) - paging probably slows down the Linux box a bit as it only just has enough memory to do the 16e stuff. Looks like if the machine doesn't have enough memory (i.e. 1Gbyte) they only give you the 15e units.

5th (out of 14) for NFS@home - (Ends: 19:00 (BST) 29-Jul)

...Uh-oh! I don't think I'll be able to keep going that long... I ain't that young any more.

MacDitch · Post by **MacDitch** » Mon Aug 09, 2010 9:46 pm

Ok, so with all the hassle trying to post I made a mess of it, and then some more challenges were issued to compound it all. Short version, here's a new (updated) weekly update. :)

Completed Challenges:
10th (out of 33) for Einstein - A great effort by all involved. :wav:

Current Challenges:
5th (out of 14) for NFS@home - (Ends: 01:00 (BST) 15-Aug)

Upcoming Challenges:
DNETC@home - (Starts: 01:00 (BST) 15-Aug for 7 days)
AQUA - (Starts: 01:00 (BST) 23-Aug for 7 days)
SIMAP Scramble - (Starts: 17:00 (BST) 01-Sep for 6 days)

Should we join in?? Challenges:
PrimaBoinca - (Starts: 01:00 (BST) 12-Aug for 7 days)
Milkyway - (Starts: 18:00 (BST) 13-Aug for 7 days)
PrimeGrid - (Starts: 21:00 (BST) 30-Aug for 4 days)

Post by **Megacruncher** » Tue Aug 10, 2010 1:01 am

I just created a TSBT team {sorry, for the pedants in our midst that should be TSB Team} for Primaboinca so why don't we go for that as well as Milkyway & Primegrid?

As regards NFS@Home we have done spectacularly well in going from a team typically registering 44 CS/day to one managing 20K+ CS/day in 3 days. So it's a wee bit dissapointing to be in 6th place for the challenge (AMD Users just overtook

) but I'm sure that we can get 5th back. Charge!!

PinkPenguin · Post by **PinkPenguin** » Tue Aug 10, 2010 4:29 pm

Charge!!

....

..!...

Post by **aardvark** » Tue Aug 10, 2010 11:59 pm

Mae dafad wedi bwyta fy mrechdanau!

steve · Post by **steve** » Wed Aug 11, 2010 12:20 am

aardvark wrote:Mae dafad wedi bwyta fy mrechdanau!

A little confused by this ??????????

His sheep has eaten my sandwich?

alw a bydda 'na

Post by **Megacruncher** » Wed Aug 11, 2010 12:44 am

His sheep has eaten my sandwich?

B*st*rd! Go get your revenge!

Anyhoo. Thanks to Steve's arrival we are within 2.5K of reclaiming 5th from AMD users.

Post by **aardvark** » Wed Aug 11, 2010 12:48 am

Well the toaster reliably informed me that the literal translation was "The great and mighty dragon awakes, and will smite all before it"

Methinks I need a new toaster.

:)

Post by **Megacruncher** » Wed Aug 11, 2010 11:15 pm

Speaking of toast, we have left AMD Users well behind in the NFS challenge and are once again gaining on BOINC@Poland though with just three days left of the challenge it might be unrealistic to expect to catch them.

Don't forget that the Primaboinca http://www.primaboinca.com/ challenge kicks off in just 2 hours. So far just MacDitch, Merlyn 8) and myself are signed up for it. I'm confident that we will start in the top 4 teams!

MacDitch · Post by **MacDitch** » Thu Aug 12, 2010 7:03 am

...Don't forget that the Primaboinca http://www.primaboinca.com/ challenge kicks off in just 2 hours. So far just MacDitch, Merlyn 8) and myself are signed up for it. I'm confident that we will start in the top 4 teams!

The challenge is underway and we are a mighty... ...4th! That said, there do appear to be nine teams enterred now, just only four with a score.

TSBT account creation is here: http://www.primaboinca.com/create_account_form.php?teamid=70

PinkPenguin · Post by **PinkPenguin** » Thu Aug 12, 2010 9:15 pm

Tomorrow evening I am going to have to shutdown a couple of machines as I'm away for the following week. This means a drop in NFS credits which may lead to AMD Users overtaking as they are right on our tails....

If anyone can take up the slack it should only need 2.000-3.000 extra on saturday to cover... (unless the, undoubtedly, nefarious competitor really decides to pile in...)...

All the best for the holidays whatever you are up to!

P.S. In favour of Aardvark's toaster I should point out that one could do quite a lot of smiting with a British Rail sandwich... though I'm not sure how one would achieve that if it was inside a sheep...

Post by **Megacruncher** » Thu Aug 12, 2010 10:57 pm

As predicted AMD Users have got ahead of us in the NFS challange though only by a few hundred. I'll shift some of my cores from Primaboinca back to NFS. I'll also stop running the bigger NFS units which were awfully prone to crashing a few hours in greatly reducing my returns.

As regards Primaboinca we are a good 2nd (of 4) now.

Post by **Megacruncher** » Sun Aug 15, 2010 2:18 am

Woo Hoo!

We finished the NFS@Home challenge in a strong 5th! 8)

As regards Primaboinca nobody seems to have much appetite for it - only 5 teams have entered the challenge & Temujin hasn't acknowleged it in his otherwise excellent stats despite UBT having a presence in it.

All of which apathy takes the shine off the fact that we are world 20th for the project & UK 1st

and second in the challenge.

Inconveniently there are 2 GPU challenges ongoing at present. One day in we are a poor 6th (of 10) for the Milkyway one & , after just 80 minutes , an only slightly more acceptable 5th (of 10) for DNECT.

Post by **aardvark** » Sun Aug 15, 2010 8:30 pm

I've just joined DNETC, damned good credit on the GPU. Only problem is it's only using one of my two GPU's, also running DNECT CPU tasks. Any idea's as to why second GPU not being used ? Win7, 2X GTX260 (216 cores).

EDIT:- only runs one WU but uses both GPU's

Credit still reasonable, but not quite what I initially thought (X2) 8)

Post by **Megacruncher** » Sun Aug 15, 2010 11:16 pm

I've a couple of dual card PCs now & I too had noticed that DNEC only runs one WU on them. Accordingly I had switched them to Collatz.

From what you say this may have been a mistake. Do you have a reference for the stuff about DNECT using both GPUs?

MacDitch · Post by **MacDitch** » Mon Aug 16, 2010 12:18 pm

I've a couple of dual card PCs now & I too had noticed that DNEC only runs one WU on them. Accordingly I had switched them to Collatz.

From what you say this may have been a mistake. Do you have a reference for the stuff about DNECT using both GPUs?

Can't give you any ref, but I do recall some comments appearing in some e-mail chains about multi-gpu tasks similair to the multi-cpu tasks that some projects (though not mainy) are using.

Sorry, my brian has apparently completely failed as I can't even think what the proper name for this is!!

MacDitch · Post by **MacDitch** » Mon Aug 16, 2010 12:26 pm

Assuming my system at work is playing ball today, here's the weekly round-up of all things BOINCstats Challenge related. :)

Completed Challenges:
5th (out of 16) for NFS@home

Current Challenges:
2nd (out of 7) for PrimaBoinca - (Ends: 01:00 (BST) 19-Aug)
7th (out of 16) for Milkyway - (Starts: 18:00 (BST) 20-Aug)
5th (out of 19) for DNETC@home - (Starts: 01:00 (BST) 22-Aug)

Upcoming Challenges:
AQUA - (Starts: 01:00 (BST) 23-Aug for 7 days)
PrimeGrid - (Starts: 21:00 (BST) 30-Aug for 4 days)
SIMAP Scramble - (Starts: 17:00 (BST) 01-Sep for 6 days)

Should we join in?? Challenges:
None

Post by **aardvark** » Mon Aug 16, 2010 7:44 pm

Do you have a reference for the stuff about DNECT using both GPUs?

The task shows as using 0.05 CPU's + 2 GPU's (device 0).

I also used GPU-Z to check load on GPU's, and certainly on some WU's I looked at, both GPU's were in operation.

I'll stick with it for the challenge, always a good reference for future. Hmmmm, I wonder if they would do better with SLI on

Post by **Megacruncher** » Tue Aug 17, 2010 12:34 am

Certainly, in the 24 hours since I decided to switch the one of the double card PCs back to DNECT my credit for the project has soared from an average of 125K to 213K yesterday! I'll switch the other dual card rig to it too and see what heights I can hit. :)

MacDitch · Post by **MacDitch** » Tue Aug 17, 2010 10:09 am

[quoteAs regards Primaboinca nobody seems to have much appetite for it - only 5 teams have entered the challenge & Temujin hasn't acknowleged it in his otherwise excellent stats despite UBT having a presence in it.

All of which apathy takes the shine off the fact that we are world 20th for the project & UK 1st

and second in the challenge.[/quote]

Participation is up to six (active) teams but the French appear to have woken up at some point and are now only about a thousand behind us!

1. 59073 - AMD Users
2. 23968 - The Scottish BOINC Team
3. 22542 - L'Alliance Francophone
4. 03153 - X Grubbers Kick Ass
5. 01432 - Stephenson Clan
6. 00515 - Team China
7. 00000 - Belgium Heavy Metal Wired Federation

Post by **Megacruncher** » Wed Aug 18, 2010 1:05 am

Yep the french are now 3.5K ahead of us and with just a day to go all I can say is well done to them.

We are languishing a little for Milkyway 8th/17, but more than holding our own in DNETC 5th/18. DNETC pays much better than Milkyway so it makes sense to concentrate on it.

The AQUA@Home challange still has 5 days to go before kick-off but as the work units take so long to crunch, or at least the high credit multi-threaded ones do, it would be sensible to down-load and part crunch a few prior to kick off.

Post by **aardvark** » Wed Aug 18, 2010 7:05 pm

DNETC pays much better than Milkyway

Did I miss something ? My two GTX260's (55nm 216 core) could only knock out about 1500 credits per hour on DNETC. GPU-Z reported GPU load as about 50% on each. Whereas Collatz gives > 3k at 90% load on each GPU.

Post by **Megacruncher** » Wed Aug 18, 2010 11:19 pm

The 402K I got today, 295K of it from DNETC, speaks for its self. I've still got some Milkyway and Collatz left to crunch but all my GPUs should be on 100% DNECT by tomorrow. Once the current challenge is over I'll try the other GPU projects on 100% or as close as I can manage given that not everything runs on ATI.

Post by **aardvark** » Sun Aug 22, 2010 11:11 am

Aqua.

I've set it to use 100% CPU, so far it's multitasked one unit (4 CPU's used ). Using about96%, with the GPU project Collatz the remaining.

I'm getting >19k for 11 and a bit hours work. That'll be over 40k per day for a i7 920. Brilliant credit

PinkPenguin · Post by **PinkPenguin** » Mon Aug 23, 2010 8:36 am

I'm getting >19k for 11 and a bit hours work. That'll be over 40k per day for a i7 920. Brilliant credit

... yep! it really messes up the bar charts on TJ's stats... after all that effort to get the colours right!

MacDitch · Post by **MacDitch** » Mon Aug 23, 2010 10:51 am

Attempt two at the weekly round-up...

Completed Challenges:
3rd (out of 8) for PrimaBoinca
9th (out of 24) for Milkyway
5th (out of 21) for DNETC@home

Current Challenges:
8th (out of 22) for AQUA - (Ends: 01:00 (BST) 28-Aug)

Upcoming Challenges:
Yoyo - (Starts: 01:00 (BST) 25-Aug for 7 days)
PrimeGrid - (Starts: 21:00 (BST) 30-Aug for 4 days)
SIMAP Scramble - (Starts: 17:00 (BST) 01-Sep for 6 days)

Should we join in?? Challenges:
SIMAP Extra - (Starts: 01:00 (BST) 25-Aug for 6 days)

MacDitch · Post by **MacDitch** » Mon Aug 30, 2010 9:19 am

An early morning weekly round-up...

Completed Challenges:
10th (out of 22) for AQUA

Current Challenges:
6th (out of 18) for Yoyo - (Ends: 01:00 (BST) 01-Sep)

Upcoming Challenges:
PrimeGrid - (Starts: 21:00 (BST) 30-Aug for 4 days)
Einstein - (Starts: 01:00 (BST) 01-Sep for 7 days)
SIMAP Scramble - (Starts: 17:00 (BST) 01-Sep for 6 days)

Should we join in?? Challenges:
Einstein - (Starts: 01:00 (BST) 01-Sep for 7 days)

Post by **Megacruncher** » Thu Sep 02, 2010 1:22 am

Should we join in?? Challenges:
Einstein - (Starts: 01:00 (BST) 01-Sep for 7 days)

Yes.

In fact we already did!

Probably we should enter everything going so long as we have an active team for the project. It's not the winning but the taking part that counts.

MacDitch · Post by **MacDitch** » Thu Sep 02, 2010 8:31 am

Should we join in?? Challenges:
Einstein - (Starts: 01:00 (BST) 01-Sep for 7 days)
Yes.

In fact we already did!

You're right, my mistake

Probably we should enter everything going so long as we have an active team for the project. It's not the winning but the taking part that counts.

I generally do enter us into everything, unless we end up with several running at the same time! I try and keep it to two or less overlapping challenges...

PinkPenguin · Post by **PinkPenguin** » Thu Sep 02, 2010 7:01 pm

I generally do enter us into everything, unless we end up with several running at the same time! I try and keep it to two or less overlapping challenges...

... probably a good idea, at least in my case, us tropical penguins get easily confused or is it distracted ?

MacDitch · Post by **MacDitch** » Mon Sep 06, 2010 8:58 am

Another early morning weekly round-up...

Completed Challenges:
6th (out of 18) for Yoyo
13th (out of 27) for PrimeGrid

Current Challenges:
9th (out of 28) for SIMAP - (Ends: 17:00 (BST) 07-Sep)
11th (out of 35) for Einstein - (Ends: 01:00 (BST) 08-Sep)

Upcoming Challenges:
PrimeGrid - (Starts: 12:00 (BST) 10-Sept for 7 days)
CPDN - (Starts: 01:00 (BST) 12-Sept for 7 days)
SIMAP Scramble - (Starts: 17:00 (BST) 01-Oct for 7 days)
Collatz - (Starts: 01:00 (BST) 03-Oct for 3 days)
Malaria Control - (Starts: 06:45 (BST) 09-Oct for 6 days)

Should we join in?? Challenges:
None!!

Post by **Megacruncher** » Tue Sep 07, 2010 1:18 am

Sadly I discovered the delights of Primegrid GPU [NVidia only, much better credit than SETI but not quite as good as Collatz] just a little too late to contribute anything at all to the Primegrid challenge.

Since the challenge closed I have crunched 66K in 3 days [a figure which will improve] which, had I done it during the challenge, would have raised our placing from 13th to 8th, or maybe even 7th. Sadly I didn't.

Sorry!

However, I am going to aim for a personal million for Primegrid ASAP, so if you were to issue another Primegrid challenge, to run anytime in the next 25 days, I can guarantee a much better showing!

MacDitch · Post by **MacDitch** » Tue Sep 07, 2010 7:44 am

However, I am going to aim for a personal million for Primegrid ASAP, so if you were to issue another Primegrid challenge, to run anytime in the next 25 days, I can guarantee a much better showing!

As requested...

TSBT Challenge
Project: PrimeGrid
Start: 10th September, Noon
Ends: 17th September, Noon

I'll update the previous post to include this and CPDN (which appeared this morning!).

Post by **Megacruncher** » Fri Sep 10, 2010 12:58 am

Right here is my strategy for getting us a good start in the Primegrid & CPDN challenges, which start in 12 & 48 hrs respectively.

I've got everything that will run it doing Primegrid GPU.
All the CPUs, a little mopping up work aside, are on CPDN.
I have suspended network activity for Boinc Manager for all but one of my crunchers.
The idea is to accumulate as many completed PG WUs & CPDN trickles as possible.
Because of early deadlines and short work-queues, I will have to reconnect a couple of machines after the Primegrid comp start, but before the CPDN one, but the rest I will keep offline until 48 hour are up. Then ker-pow! mega-upload & torrential trickle!

This is gamesmanship not cheating BTW!

Post by **aardvark** » Fri Sep 10, 2010 9:21 pm

Then ker-pow! mega-upload & torrential trickle!

I don't suppose the 170k credits you accumulated in primegrid this week were part of the ker-pow

Post by **Megacruncher** » Fri Sep 10, 2010 11:03 pm

I don't suppose the 170k credits you accumulated in primegrid this week were part of the ker-pow

They were a taste of things to come.

Sadly primegrid WUs have a very short shelf life and you can't download more than a couple of days worth so I couldn't save up for a week & do a 170K ker-pow.

Still, I've just done a 60K one which has propelled me to the top of the users leaderboard for the challenge & has lifted the team into 3rd place which we can reasonably aspire to hold onto.