it might depend on the WU. The new application uses some more CPU for some runs.

gdf

Should state again, that WU's becomes longer & longer.
I do not make any changes in the system, nor in SW or in HW, but my RAC becomes to decrese step by step & reason is the long time running WU's.
Checking the run times shows, that most of WU's, are lasts much longer, up to 8,5-9 hours. This means also, as I understand, some kind of infaltion of the given credit points, isn't it ?
Can somebody explain this more in details, greatly appreciated !

I've seen this as well -- it is quite noticeable with the slower cards I run (9600GT to GTS 250). In fact, with the 'run time creep' which seemed to start over the summer, I found 9400GT cards which could just squeak in under the 120 hour run limit had no chance to complete any longer. I'm running Collatz for that.

On a 9800GT I used to see 1 WU per 12 to 13 hours. Now it is more like 16 to 18 hours. Same credit for it.

What I've taken to doing is splitting between GPUGrid and Collatz -- which has forced a move to the 6.10 series of the client (Collatz requires 2.3 CUDA support). One big thing with Collatz -- *if* (relatively big if) you can live with the 6.10.x client, it supports not only slower CUDA cards -- all the way down to a 8400GS I pulled out of the 'give to the needy' collection I have, but also with ATI GPU's -- including embedded 3100/3200/3300/4200.

If GPUGrid is to consider moving to CUDA 2.3, in my view (since that will force the 6.10 client as well as driver updates), along with that stick, they ought to offer the carrot of ATI GPU support as well.

Should agree with you, Paul.
Unfortunately, couldn't find the records earlier 31 of July ( when software was updated to CUDA 2.2 capability), to confirm your thoughts, but anyhow, sure that you are totally right: WU's becomes longer.
New WU's are lasts longer (from 6-6:30 hours to complete till 7:30++ hours), according to my feelings. Previously my station was able to complete at least, 3,5 - 4 WU's\day per GPU, right now I'm happy with 3 WU's\day. OK, to keep station more stable, I was downclocked GPU's a bit ( from 1,63gHz till 1,57gHz), but that wasn't the main reason.
Running damn stable GTX260 x3 under BOINC 6.10.0, 190.38 driver on Win Server 2008.

Though it is not a "cure" and I have not done it universally yet... I have started to run MW on one of my CUDA equipped machines. With the longer run times here, I hate to say it, but, based on my thumbnail calculations the pay is better with MW ... I have not yet tried Collatz on the CUDA cards yet to see what the time is ... but ... with the time creeping higher and higher ...

Anyway, you can tell that the run times are longer by looking at the queued tasks where the DCF shows the expected run times and for 260 cards that is now 7:40 vice prior 6:00 ...

Stable versions of 6.10 are 6.10.3, 6.10.7 and 6.10.11 ... I have run, was running, or am running those versions. There are issues with work fetch and resource share and running MW ... You have to trim your cache settings back to about 0.1 to have RS work properly ...

The problem has been reported ...

I have updated the recommended client to 6.10.3.

thanks, gdf

I found that, at least for the 64-bit Windows versions, simply upgrading from 6.6.36 to 6.10.3 makes a large increase in the initial expected time to completion for GPUGRID workunits. All I've had has since then ran in much less time than the initial expected value, though, so the initial expected value is gradually coming down. Now down from about 120 hours to about 31 hours for me, compared to the 20 hours they typically take.

Also, I've found that at least this 6.10.3 version has a problem with ignoring the memory limit when any memory-demanding CPU project in the queue has enough workunits in the queue to be unable to run them on only the number of CPU cores it can use while obeying the memory limit and still get enough CPU time to finish them all by their deadlines without switching more than that number into high-priority mode immediately.

Could you let me know if you've found a 64-bit Windows BOINC version that does not have similar problems and is still recent enough to use with GPUGRID?

I have updated the recommended client to 6.10.3.

thanks, gdf

I found that, at least for the 64-bit Windows versions, simply upgrading from 6.6.36 to 6.10.3 makes a large increase in the initial expected time to completion for GPUGRID workunits. All I've had has since then ran in much less time than the initial expected value, though, so the initial expected value is gradually coming down. Now down from about 120 hours to about 31 hours for me, compared to the 20 hours they typically take.

Also, I've found that at least this 6.10.3 version has a problem with ignoring the memory limit when any memory-demanding CPU project in the queue has enough workunits in the queue to be unable to run them on only the number of CPU cores it can use while obeying the memory limit and still get enough CPU time without switching all of them into high-priority mode immediately.

Could you let me know if you've found a 64-bit Windows BOINC version that does not have similar problems and is still recent enough to use with GPUGRID?

You will find that later BOINC versions don't react as badly. A bug was intoroduced back in Feb where the <on_frac> value didn't get updated. 6.10.3 fixed this. The <on_frac> value tells BOINC how much time your computer is on during a day, so it can estimate how long things will take, taking this figure into account.

As I don't have a 64 bit windows so I can't comment on not honouring the memory limits. I haven't seen any reports about it on the Boinc_Alpha mailing list. I found 6.10.11 to be stable, for me anyway. The current BOINC version is 6.10.13 which, unless there is a major bug found, will probably become the "release" version soon.

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BOINC blog

Sounds like it's a good time for me to start preparing to check the 64-bit Windows 6.10.11 version for similar problems, then.

I may have to wait for The Lattice Project to release another batch of their workunits that ask for 1 GB each to check the memory limits problem; I'll let them know so they have more chance of getting their alpha testers to check for this problem before deciding whether to report it to the BOINC alpha testers group.

Could you modify the procedure for creating new posts in this thread so that I don't often have to wait until the next day after the last post until I can see the last post without the graphics and ads for the bottom of the thread overlaying it and keeping me from seeing all of the last post? A number of other threads need this as well.

Since the button to add another post to the thread is visible this time, I've decided to try that and see if it helps.

Note - I finished uninstalling 6.10.3 and started looking for 6.10.11 to install. Surprise - 6.10.11 is no longer available at any site I've found.
Finding this and downloading 6.10.13 instead took long enough that I plan to wait until tomorrow to do the installation.

Since the button to add another post to the thread is visible this time, I've decided to try that and see if it helps.

It did help this time. That button isn't always visible in such cases, though.

Note - I finished uninstalling 6.10.3 and started looking for 6.10.11 to install. Surprise - 6.10.11 is no longer available at any site I've found.
Finding this and downloading 6.10.13 instead took long enough that I plan to wait until tomorrow to do the installation.

You can find all of them here.

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BOINC blog

Note - I finished uninstalling 6.10.3 and started looking for 6.10.11 to install. Surprise - 6.10.11 is no longer available at any site I've found.
Finding this and downloading 6.10.13 instead took long enough that I plan to wait until tomorrow to do the installation.

You can find all of them here.

Thanks. I've just downloaded 6.10.11 and am about to start installing it.

Have finished installing and found the following:

Under 64-bit Vista, it is not adequately compatible with Norton Internet Security 2009, which prevents boinc.exe and boincmgr.exe from communicating with each other. That version offers some capability to give certain programs more internet access, but when I tried it, I found that it will let you do this only for 32-bit programs.

I was able to handle this by upgrading to Norton Internet Security 2010 instead, although that version took more Vista restarts than I expected before it stopped causing error messages every time I restarted 6.10.11. This version starts out with boinc.exe (64-bit version) able to reach the internet.

The first GPUGRID workunit after that would not start until I adjusted the local preferences to allow GPU use while I use the computer. It then ran about 5 hours, then had a computation error, and have been unable to download another GPUGRID workunit since even though the GPU is still waiting for its next workunit. It keeps asking all the BOINC projects I participate in for GPU workunits, even though none of the others are supposed to have any.

The first GPUGRID workunit after that would not start until I adjusted the local preferences to allow GPU use while I use the computer. It then ran about 5 hours, then had a computation error, and have been unable to download another GPUGRID workunit since even though the GPU is still waiting for its next workunit. It keeps asking all the BOINC projects I participate in for GPU workunits, even though none of the others are supposed to have any.

Re: The checking for GPU work

This is normal behaviour with the BOINC 6.6.xx versions onwards. It doesn't know which projects have GPU apps and which ones have CPU apps, so it asks for each sort. It has backoff mechanisms to it will cut back on the frequency it checks if it doesn't get any for each project. One of recent changes is to allow the projects to tell it not to bother asking for types of work (CPU/ATI or Nvidia) for up to 28 days.

As for the error, can you give us a link to the work unit in question and then we can try and see what its doing.

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BOINC blog

The first GPUGRID workunit after that would not start until I adjusted the local preferences to allow GPU use while I use the computer. It then ran about 5 hours, then had a computation error, and have been unable to download another GPUGRID workunit since even though the GPU is still waiting for its next workunit. It keeps asking all the BOINC projects I participate in for GPU workunits, even though none of the others are supposed to have any.

As for the error, can you give us a link to the work unit in question and then we can try and see what its doing.

This workunit:

http://www.gpugrid.net/result.php?resultid=1374844


BOINC finally downloaded and started another workunit, after leaving the GPU idle for several hours.

Talking about runtimes and me crunching my first NVidia wu for GPUGRID, how long will it take for my XFX 9600GT 512MB to finish the wu? It has run now for almost 9 hours, progress showing 22% now. Other projects are running on the CPU (POEM@Home and WCG).

Talking about runtimes and me crunching my first NVidia wu for GPUGRID, how long will it take for my XFX 9600GT 512MB to finish the wu? It has run now for almost 9 hours, progress showing 22% now. Other projects are running on the CPU (POEM@Home and WCG).

My guess would be around 18-30 hours if it's running continuously. Recent work units have been running between 6 to 9 hours on my GTX280, and judging by this table, your GPU should be about 1/3 the speed of mine. However, my card is factory overclocked, so it's a bit faster than the reference numbers in that table.

My last few WUs have been at the high end of the spectrum, so I'm guessing you'll see closer to 30 hours than to 18 hours.

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Want to find one of the largest known primes? Try PrimeGrid. Or help cure disease at WCG.

Thanks for the info Michael.

Will see how long it takes. Estimated time of completion in BOINC is about 30 hours as of now (25% after 10 hours).

Thanks for the info Michael.

Will see how long it takes. Estimated time of completion in BOINC is about 30 hours as of now (25% after 10 hours).

Just so you know, running other tasks on the CPU has negligable effects on running GPU tasks on virtually all projects. It is nice to now have a selection of projects for GPUs (thoiugh the ATI selection is still weak) so that if one goes down there are others to fill in ...

You may be able to also run Colaltz and/or Prime Grid on your card, been a long time since I ran such a low end Nvidia so you will have to try or wait till someone tells me I am all wet ... :)

I've recently run both Collatz and PrimeGrid successfully on an G105M Nvidia card, which is near the low end of the Nvidia cards now available.

They both appear to require CUDA 2.3 or higher and computing capability 1.1 or higher, but no other special requirements.