The Scottish Boinc Team

Former Scotland's Seti member Nightlord recently joined this forum.

His profile lists his interest as "Stomping Megacruncher".
To be fair he is about 143K ahead of me and manages to be UK 24th whereas I am "just" 27th (Scottish 3rd & 4th respectively). However I am gaining on him (17K in the last week and I'd have been well ahead over the month if some of my PCs hadn't been slacking while I took 2 weeks holiday).

So, I'm all up for a stomp-fest.

My challenge to you, Nightlord, is to make this battle as public as possible by rejoining TSBT so that the whole team can watch this titanic struggle!

Anyway, welcome back, to whatever extent you decide to return, & prepare to be stomped!

Well hello again everyone, nice to see you all again!

Must say, I'm impressed at Mega's bravado. It almost seems a shame to put such a worthy competitor to the sword, but if that's how it should be, then The Nightlord has never been known to ignore a challenge

So, I pick up thy gauntlet Sir Megacruncher, (what's this....I find it to be a limp piece of lettuce!) and I do slap thee on both cheeks.

/shhh........ can anyone keep a secret round here? Don't tell him, but the last week or so, the farm was under renovation and should be back up to full steam once more.......Quad core, 5 dual cores plus sundry bits and pieces

welcome back Sir Nightlord of the limp lettuce!

Just the one Quad? Ha! This is going to be easier than I thought. My RAC is 11,014 compared to your puny 11,002. So prepare to be stomped. :) Eventually anyway. Err..maybe.

May the best -as in the one with the most absurdly overequiped farm- man win!

To battle!

Aye, my quad has only just come on stream and has a good way to go before it get's maxed out on the overclock. Got a new mobo coming soon that should get it well past 3Ghz.

Stock check as of last night......
Two E6700's @ 3.1GHz on Fedora FC6
Two E4300's @ 2.75Ghz under XP and Ubuntu 7.04
Q6600 @ 2.65Ghz XP
X2 3800 @2.5Ghz Vista
and some sundry P4's

How to Stomp a Megacruncher

In the three weeks since I issued this challenge the gap twix Nightlord and your noble Megacruncher has narrowed from 143K to 122K. This is slow but real, unrelenting even, progress. Boincstats predicts that I will overtake him in 89 days. :)
The overtake date could be the subject of our next competition NL et Moi being excluded from it of course.

Time for an update.
I'm gradually hacking away at Nightlord's lead. The gap is down to 5 figures - 82K to be precise. The end is nigh! [ish]

Ahhh, but the closing gap is mainly due to the recent generosity of CPDN and some reduced RAC on a box or two while I plug away at ABC to find a way to run 64bit.

If I can get the latter running, I'll let you know how.......in a month or two

A month or two might be too late!

The CPDN uplift helped a little. But mainly the gain is because day after day (with the odd exception) I'm crunching more than you. Be resigned, be very resigned! To defeat!

Anyhoo I'm thinking of adding another quad to the stable - one of th 95W Q6600 which are supposed to be very good for overclocking.

For the record I will note that we are both doing rather well. Nightlord is UK 22nd whereas I am 24th. Awesome dude!!!

Another quad! :pale:

For now, my young guns run free enjoying the clean and fresh air atop the mountain. They know not of the other pack of hounds that is slowly but surely making it's way toward their position.

/me wonders if Mrs N might notice another cruncher or two under the desk

/edit

Alrighty mate, now were in business!

Just returned my first 64 bit ABC units and it looks like I'm achieving 55 cobblers per hour per core on a E6700 running at 3.2GHz WU details here This should take that box from around 1700 per day on QMC to 2600 per day on ABC.

In the words of the immortal Duke Nukem......Come get some! 8)

Another quad! ...
me wonders if Mrs N might notice another cruncher or two under the desk

In my experience once you get a certain number of boxes the only way to get away with expansion is to upgade.

The next Quad will be in place of the 4400+ so it won't be immediately devastating - merely increase the rate of attrition of your lead.

that's probably my problem now, no Mrs to keep an eye on the number of PC's I have.

....or find a project that has a native 64bit science app which runs twice as fast as the 32bit version

hmm... do I sell my car to compete with you all...

Nope sorry I'm going to continue adding a variable to the climate projects.

One day i will compete properly.... one day

Just sell everything and put all real life on hold. Or do you not truly believe?

I got to get me some of the action on 64bit

Its just that i have never tried linux before any pointers anyone or should i just stick to 32bit windoze? and yes i know this should probably be in the help section

Your wish is my command oh master....

Click me> Nightlord's brief guide to Boinc under Linux ......Also known as "how to get 50pts per hour per core at ABC"

To return to the epic struggle between Hightlord et moi, he is now about 120K ahead of me. This is less than when I issued the challenge but about 40K adrift of our closest.

House guests this weekend and next are likely to widen the gap - Jo has this ridiculous idea that children will find it difficult to sleep in a room where the average night-time temperature is 30degC and the fan noise prompts eight-month olds to utter the phrase "What the **** is that racket? " I feel I must humour her.

So I reckon that this will cost at least 40K before the end of the month.
But I shall not give up.

All of which reminds me of the "olde west" in the states where the cry was
"here's a blanket, go sleep outside. Oh, by the way, beware of any noises, they might eat you."

It's not just the weekends that you will have to play catch up now the farm is running on ABC

No sleeping outdoors round these parts Buster - the midges seems to like the taste of my blood

I must confess you are currently kicking 7 shades of ordure from me.
I've got one box moved over to ABC and I'm working on others, but this Linux thing is awfy tempremental and also I've got already downloaded QMC and CPDN workunits to think of: This contest hasn't turned me into such a shameless credit-whore that I would be happy to abort perfectly good work just so I could crunch something more profitable!
It's not over yet. I will stay in contention until I can't.

Linux tempremental no never its just infuriating which makes you mental but I am going to stick with it on my two faster machines just need to learn more code and then some

yup, the CPDN units can be a pain 'cos they take so loooonggg to crunch. Here I'm running CPDN on two boxes that can't for various reasons be switched to run Linux or VMware.

I must admit though it looked a rather different story a week or two back. I couldn't get the 64 bit app to download on ABC and you had me in the crosshairs.

Was in a similar position a couple of years ago when I had a 10 day broadband outage. After 3 days I was dead in the water and the guy I was racing walked it.

/me peers nervously out the window for signs of Willie, a pair of ladders and some wire clippers.....

Good idea. I've got to go to Ayr tomorrow afternoon. I'll be passing Symington.

Or, a slightly more sporting approach might be to raise my 64 bit ABC output. I have managed tonight to get a Pentium 805D and a CoreDuo E6600 to run Ubuntu, Boinc and ABC. All 64 bit versions of course.
Now this cost me at least 500 credits in footering about time but I reckon I'll recoup that investment within 24 hrs. :)
After that, now I'm getting the hang of this Linux thingy, and as soon as my QMC caches are depleted, I'll make all 3 Q6600s dual boot and run 64 bit Linux ABC & Windows CPDN on an 3:1 time share.
So I'm not promsing to kick your Nightlord but at least I might manage to keep it in sight!
Of course, as well as moral problems with an atack on Nightlord's domicile, there is the problem that I don't know exactly where he lives (I wouldn't recognise a tum-tum tree if it fell on me ). But I suppose I could always take out the local sub-station or telephone exchange!

Well then Mega, after a few weeks of me pulling ahead, it looks like you are matching my output again. Looking at your stats, I must say I'm impressed since around 1/3rd is on 64bit ABC, the remainder coming from QMC, CPDN etc yielding much lower than the high performance 64bit app.

I wonder what you could achieve when the CPDN units complete and you are able to swap more boxes to ABC.

Still, I have some breathing space now

oh....and BTW, you would have had fun looking for me in Symington, Ayrshire ....the clues can be found in the signature.

Well then Mega, after a few weeks of me pulling ahead, it looks like you are matching my output again.
....
Still, I have some breathing space now .

Or do you? As well as getting a few boxes onto Linux I invested in a copy of 64 bit Vista as ABC now does a 64 bit Windows version. From what I can see it's every bit as generous with the credit as linux is. :) One of the Q6600s has just churned out 14,000 in the first 4 days with an awful lot of pending credit yet to be added.

I'm just about to install it - or at least a totally different and paid for copy of it, oh yes - on another of the Q6600s. Scared yet?

The tide has turned: prepare to drown!

Scared yet?

Little old ladies get scared......Real crunchers just plot their next upgrade!

/me hides behind the sofa wondering just what kind of monster I've awoken.....

Well passed through Symington today, decided I've been driving past it for the last year and a bit I may as well pop in past.
Nearly blinked and missed it

passed through Symington today.........Nearly blinked and missed it

Hey, we've got a hotel, a garage, a shop and a school.

No gas mind

....and the lights are a little dimmer at this end of the the village (especially when the farm is running full bore )

Did think about stopping and following the humming noise!

....and so an update...

Willie has had the pedal hard down for the last month or two and is closing in fast. Every day I think I post a decent total, I look over the shoulder and see him closer still

Depending on day to day variations I'll be done over and stuffed like a plum turkey just in time for Christmas, or even a bit earlier.

So, this looks like it's the last chance hotel, the point of no return: the thin red line.......here standeth The Nightlord, loud, proud, tall and noble. Facing the mighty Megacruncher steamrollering toward him, with nostrils flaring and eyes a bulging, determined to regain his position at the top of the hill.

But what's this, a last minute reprieve? JavaJoe sends a message from across the pond....."30% extra credit by running command line Linux" goes the cry...Has Mercury the winged messenger brought salvation for our hero, or will he hasten his own demise by directing his trusty hounds to follow the hard unforgiving path of the command line rather than the smooth and easy path of the GUI.

Time will tell my friends, but fear not you will not have to wait too long for the answer.


BTW, please no popcorn in the front rows, it makes a frightful mess, and keep the noise down in the cheap seats please were trying to make a living here....

I, too, will very interested in what speedups (if any) you achieve.

I have the popcorn cookin' even as I type. :)

Cheers--
Charles aka JavaJoe

Well I think I'll just spectate as well.

There seem to be three possibilities.
1. It works as stated in which case Nightlord might begin to pull ahead of me again and I will also have to make a similar move.
2. It doesn't make that much diference. In this case Nightlord will have suffered some footering about downtime which he can ill-afford with just 19,000 credits between us. :)
3. Nightlord falls flat on his face and the Megacruncher steamroller (I don't want to undermine your metaphor, but aren't they usually somewhat ill-suited to successful racing ) turns him into some seriously flat road-kill ahead of schedule.
So no pressure - on me anyway.

Well, if I can't beat him, I'll just have to mount an attack on Boincstats so he doesn't know when he has passed the finishing line 8)

Oh, look what's this?...... Boincstats offline, how convenient

You wish. BoincStats says just 17K to go.
To quote the great Spongebob
"I'm ready. Promotion.
I'm ready . Promotion"

14K in it just now!

And more good news - one of the E6600s had been crashing all the time over the last week (I didn't like to mention it before in case I gave Nightlord false hope ) but a couple of sticks of RAM later it's going like a train and steady as a rock. 8)
I'm off to find those stompin' boots.

Is it just me or does Vista seem to be very RAM sensitive?
I'm about to change out the RAM on the lasses machine as it just crashes all the time for no apparant reason.I've already had to do the same on two of my Vista machines as well.
Hmmm

This problem was on one of the Win2000 machines so for once I can't blame Vista.
Having said which, I've not had much success in overclocking under Vista which might be a measure of how much it stresses resources generally.

Woohoooo, I made the top 300 Boinc Combined before being stomped!! :wav:



I have to admit that I thought I would be caught today, but I seem to have been given an extra day's reprieve....I thank you sir!

So, tomorrow, it's likely we will have a new king of the hill, a new big cheese, a new head honcho, a new...awe well you get the idea. I wish him well and salute an extra special effort to haul in what to most would have been an uphill struggle. I't taken he best part of 4 months, but dedication and a fair few Kilowatt hours later and he will have regained his position.

So, in all seriousness, I say well done Sir! :thumbup:

congratulations, but Nightlord it's time to pick up your game and get the top again? What's a few more computers for the prestige of being on top???

What's this?.....a reprieve?.....

8th December 2007 credit:
Nightlord +24262 = total 5765971
Megacruncher + 7951 = total 5742640

....our hero opens a small gap!

Is Willie offline, or is he just teasing

I think he will just be teasing you Nightlord

Not teasing really. I was travelling beyond the reach of the interweb this weekend & rather than stomp you and miss it I put most of the machines offline for 48hrs so I could be there at the end.

A few minutes ago I uploaded a shedful of completed ABC and QMC units which once they appear on the stats should settle it.

Thanks anyway for the only slightly premature congratulations!

...
A few minutes ago I uploaded a shedful of completed ABC and QMC units which once they appear on the stats should settle it.
...

Or not quite!
After the last incremental update there is about 3,600 in it.
Maybe tomorrow!

Hmmmm......Roast Nightlord on the menu tomorrow eh?

Well, I'll just have roll out my master plan for global domination slightly earlier than first planned......

All I need to do is tweak my positronic super-cell load balancer coils, adjust the thermal dilation gradient of the anti-matter generator, plug in the phase matching parameters and enhance the seemingly random fluctuations in the space-time continuum. With luck this should produce a shatteringly brief but nonetheless real electromagnetic discombobulation over Edinburgh, resulting in a localised power surge fit for a king......

A preview of the prototype test run can be viewed here

OK, so there was a slight hiccup on the prototype, but a small tweak to the phase parameters should do the trick......

Call me a Luddite but a lower-tech, but possibly more reliable, option might be a drive-by firebombing of Megacruncher Mansion!

I just checked the stats:
Megacruncher 5,807,650
Nightlord ..... 5,801,295
Ole! Ole! Ole! Ole! etc ad tedium
Thanks for a splendid, and lengthy, fight Nightlord. I look forward to round two!

Well done Megacruncher !!!!!!

- although maybe Nightlord has some Xmas money to spend !!!!! - Me I'm hoping for a PS3 or another Quad

Especially keeping him on tenderhooks all weekend and then hitting him with 50K units overnight !!!! - that was cruel

Maybe he will twist the knife back at you :)

Well Done !!!!