Hi, we need more CPUs on Linux to run QM simulations. Anybody can help?

Do you want to make them more appealing to crunch?? Take the QMML tasks OFF the Boinc CreditNew credit award mechanism and assign them fixed values like you do for the gpu tasks.

Sure, I can help.

This forum news post was syndicated to your Twitter account, however, the link is broken.

Relevant post: https://twitter.com/gpugrid/status/960604705171808256

The link resolves to https://www.gpugrid.net/extra_arg_utm_source.html

I have reposted your call to the BOINC subreddit

Do you want to make them more appealing to crunch?? Take the QMML tasks OFF the Boinc CreditNew credit award mechanism and assign them fixed values like you do for the gpu tasks.

+1

PS Unfortunatelly, they crash my computer with my strongest GPU frequently, so I will not run them on this computer.

Unfortunately, I gave up on Linux and run Win 10.

Hi, we need more CPUs on Linux to run QM simulations. Anybody can help?

---

John

Do you want to make them more appealing to crunch?? Take the QMML tasks OFF the Boinc CreditNew credit award mechanism and assign them fixed values like you do for the gpu tasks.

We are testing this.

I've had good luck with the Linux apps up until the recent gpu application errors that started this month. The cpu tasks ran fine.

I and others have voiced our displeasure with the credit awarded for the flops used for the QM tasks in this thread.
New Student and QMML Project

we are testing different credit systems now.

We don't use CreditNew but the previous credit system. In any case, two changes were made yesterday:

* CPU threads are limited to 4 (you should still be able to crunch multiple WUs at once, please check)
* Credits should be in line with other projects'

Let us know.

* CPU threads are limited to 4 (you should still be able to crunch multiple WUs at once, please check)

Let us know.

Boinc is still assigning all of my 32 threads to one task even though it is only using 4.

Hi, we need more CPUs on Linux to run QM simulations. Anybody can help?

I have three machines on it, but I can run only one work unit at a time on average. That is because when any more start up at once, they error out, as has been discussed before. And I run two cores per work unit for efficiency. But if you could solve the start-up problem, I could run more.

I don't see that you have made an announcement on the BOINC forum yet. The Projects section would probably be best.
http://boinc.berkeley.edu/dev/forum_forum.php?id=11

I have an Intel 2600K with 8 logical cores. I wanted to reserved 2 cores for feeding 2 GPUs that are running Folding@home. I set the computing preference in boinc to use, at most, 80% of processors (6 cores).

Data on 19 WUs before GPUGrid changes (processor usage varied but 5-6 cores on average I think)

Average run time (sec): 3,129.23
Average CPU time (sec): 16,122.19
Average credit per WU: 228.7
Average WU per day: 27.6
PPD: 6314.8

Data on 15 WUs after GPUGrid changes. Processor usage was 4 cores even though set at 6)

Average run time (sec): 3,566.32
Average CPU time (sec): 14,114.28
Average credit per WU: 819.284
Average WU per day: 24.2
PPD: 19848.5

Summary: Processor usage seems to be maxed out at 4. Run time has increased, CPU time has decreased, WU completed per day has decreased and PPD has increased significantly.

Boinc is still assigning all of my 32 threads to one task even though it is only using 4.

Ouch. This should not happen. May be fixed now.

Hi, we need more CPUs on Linux to run QM simulations. Anybody can help?

I have three machines on it, but I can run only one work unit at a time on average. That is because when any more start up at once, they error out, as has been discussed before. And I run two cores per work unit for efficiency. But if you could solve the start-up problem, I could run more.

I agree. There were too many issues that had not been resolved. On top of that the credit much worse than even CreditNew. I see the credit has been changed just saying there are reasons for the lack of CPU time.

Are you sure that you are using an "older" credit mechanism? From the response in the "New Student and QMML" thread from Richard Haselgrove who corrected me in my assumption you might be using an "older" mechanism.

Be careful of your terms. 'CreditNew' has been the default BOINC mechanism since 2010. I suspect this is what GPUGrid is using for these tasks: the support mechanisms for 'even older credit' have been removed from the codebase.

I wonder where you found the older codebase that has been removed that contained the "older" credit award algorithm. If you do in fact have such, I would like access to it. Or have it reinstituted into the BOINC Github codebase.

It would be helpful in persuading the BOINC maintainers that there is in fact a way to return to the older credit algorithm. One of their stated reasons why they said they would not change from CreditNew is that they said they no longer have the original code and can't replicate it.

That said, it looks like the award for QC cpu tasks is much more appealing now.

Hmmm ... I just ran a new QC task with the supposed new credit. Not seeing any difference.

Run time 3,292.22
CPU time 12,925.47
Validate state Valid
Credit 110.63

I used 4 cores to generate 110 credits for 54 minutes of compute time.

I can use one core to generate 108 credits for 60 minutes of compute time for SETI CPU tasks.

No reason to run these tasks still for me.

Since just after mid day yesterday (UTC) I have noticed an increase in credit awarded for the QC WU's. Doing some quick calcs, it appears the increase is about 4.5x of what we were getting. It also appears they are more fixed in value proportional to the size of the WU. My faster machines are getting over 500 credits/hr (4 cores) compute time whereas the slower machines are getting proportionately less/hr and still getting equivalent credit but over a longer period of time than the faster ones.

Well, at least my avg credit per day will not be taking as much of a hit per day as it has been without Linux GPU WU's :).

So far, I have 5 machines with 4 cores each running the QC project and will add one more when I install the memory upgrade on one of the headless systems.

I'm not sure the higher credit is not due to the larger molecule size in the latest tasks that Dominik explained to me here.