If you are not going to equalize the credits granted between the various types of work you are giving out for the time it takes to run them....ie: GPUTEST...USPME....and ....US...you will notice a lot of work that is being aborted so that crunchers can pick up only the GPUTESTS which pay the best for the time spent.

I would think it would be in the projects best interests to do something about the disparity of credit granted ASAP

Hopefully, users aborting tasks just to pick up some more credit is not the general rule and they are in the minority. I have obviously noticed the discrepancy (with the 18xx credit WU's), but it never even crossed my mind to abort WU's.

I agree something should be done to minimize any difference in the WU's credits / time worked, however in the end this is about science and not personal gain.

Just my opinion...

The admins have been aware of this for a while. They chose to do nothing about it, so sometimes users need to take actions on their own when the admins don't seem to care.

Xaak:

Actually, after checking my last 40 WU's (in progress and completed), 13 where aborts. 4 out of 7, 1887 credit WU's were aborts as well as 3 out of 7 2435 credit WU's were aborts. This would mean that over half of my lower end WU's were aborted by other users.

Could this be a trend, I don't know. I would hope not.

However since going to the 4 different types of WU's my RAC has dropped 5000-6000 a day. Do I care, no but this was done to allow lower end GPU's to run. There is no discimination though. WU's get assigned randomly and not according to GPU. So they should just go back to one WU unless there is going to be some future change to the program.??

Jayargh:

The time/steps don't equalize, and they are aware of this problem. GDF does know that the 1887 credit WU take longer. I do believe that they are going to sort something out and patience would be a prudent course of action.

Pat

Jayargh:

The time/steps don't equalize, and they are aware of this problem. GDF does know that the 1887 credit WU take longer. I do believe that they are going to sort something out and patience would be a prudent course of action.

Pat

Pat if you take a look at my hosts(never hidden) you will see no aborts except for the Linux memory leak problem which was fixed. That doesn't mean I won't start aborting.....I bought these cards to crunch and not for gaming and I expect fair payment for work done.......I spent big $ on hardware and spend major $ on juice for credit.Anyone who thinks most users put science before credit is only fooling themselves.

I am just reporting to admin a trend I am seeing that has gotten no attention.... only lip service....changing credits per task type is not a major change and should not take this long and as XaaK says users are taking the situation into their own hands ;)

JR

That doesn't mean I won't start aborting.....I bought these cards to crunch and not for gaming and I expect fair payment for work done.......I spent big $ on hardware and spend major $ on juice for credit.Anyone who thinks most users put science before credit is only fooling themselves.

The point of BOINC is to promote science and technical advances using hardware. It was the idea to use existing hardware and free cpu (and now gpu cycles) to do scientific and other calculations to provide some benefit to research or further knowledge.

If anyone is just buying extra hardware for the sole purpose of doing this just to get a big number and say "I have more credits than you", it might be good idea to look into a more productive hobby.

I commend you for spending your money as you choose, however this is a very new venture into GPU computing. Issues will always present themselves in something this new -- just look at the issues with SETI and computers / graphics drivers locking up. To go as far as aborting good WU's that provide a benefit to the admins, that's competition gone a little too far.

If anyone is just buying extra hardware for the sole purpose of doing this just to get a big number and say "I have more credits than you", it might be good idea to look into a more productive hobby.

Errr I don't say anything to anyone about doing more or bragging...its called personal satisfaction...and I never said I didn't crunch for science. I also don't tell my neighbors to find more productive hobbies than bass boats,fast cars,or motorcycles.

I think this has probably gotten a little out of hand. Feel free to crunch as you would like, as everyone else should and will do the same. To each his own.

I was just expressing my opinion that BOINC projects are a donation of everyone's time, money, and cpu/gpu cycles.

I too hope the admins will review the issue of the 18xx WU's not being quite equal to all the others. It is probably just not their biggest concern at the moment.

I think this has probably gotten a little out of hand.

Yeah, might be good if everyone relaxed a bit.

As much as I'd like to say that everything will be fine I have to admit Jay raises a valid point. The credit problem is known since approximately christmas, so it's been a rather long time for what seems like a simple fix (*). It may not be important for science, but it alienates users. Therefore a kind inquiry for more information is justified.. and I'm confident we'll get some answer tomorrow.

MrS

(*) Fixing it correctly is not simple, but a work around could just assure the WUs get the same credits/time as the others.

---

Scanning for our furry friends since Jan 2002

If anyone is just buying extra hardware for the sole purpose of doing this just to get a big number and say "I have more credits than you", it might be good idea to look into a more productive hobby.

Personally I think anybody running this Project is out for more Credit's whether they want to admit it or not. I have yet to run across anybody in any Forum that says "I think I'll spend about an extra $300 - $400 for a 260 or 280 Video Card so I can help the GPU Project out, it's always more like Watch my Credits & RAC Climb.

I always have been a Credit Whore I guess but I always have thought of it as just trying to get as much Credit as I can & in the process maybe/hopefully I'll do the a Project & their Science some good. After all the more I crunch the more Credit I get & the more I do for Science or am I wrong on that ... ;)

I have obviously noticed the discrepancy (with the 18xx credit WU's), but it never even crossed my mind to abort WU's.

A discrepancy may arise from using flops as a sole basis of credit. A separate biased credit that varies depending on the relative task priority seems more logical for credit payment or ranking purposes.

Meanwhile...

I've noticed that the BOINC manager (version 6.4.5) seems to disregard actual CPU usage required for processes involving the GPU.

Some work units may require three times the CPU resources as others to satisfy the GPU. When the BOINC manager disrespects the overall CPU limit assigned to it and fails to limit these CPU-heavy work units, rejecting them becomes desirable.

Program processes that don't play nice become subject to termination.

I always have been a Credit Whore I guess but I always have thought of it as just trying to get as much Credit as I can & in the process maybe/hopefully I'll do the a Project & their Science some good. After all the more I crunch the more Credit I get & the more I do for Science or am I wrong on that ... ;)

Um, rising to your defense I don't think you are quite THAT much of a, um, well, not what you said you were ...

Were you that you would be running essentially one and only one project on your CPUs and one and only one on the GPUs you have ... the project that paid the most per CPU second. But I know that you have run other projects than just the one that pays the most ...

But, a workman is due his pay ... even the bible says that ...

And I do agree that credit is important to me, as I think it is for more people than will admit it ... for this is the only way that we can say, "I did this" ...

THAT being said ... I have hardly seen that many projects where I have felt that the credit is fair and rational at all times... Sadly the developers early on took a position that the main motivating force in BOINC is of no importance when even today, as we can see, fair wages *IS* important to the participant community.

Yet I agree that getting TOO worked up about it is rarely productive. But, if you are leaning in the direction that those tasks are unfair ... then by all means abort them ... I know that people over at SaH are still combing the AR of tasks to get the ones that will complete the soonest so that they can boost their RAC, or something, in the long run ... it will matter little ...

A guy like my friend PoorBoy (I can still call you friend, can't I?) will always be able to beat my score, he has more machines ... all I can do is set my own goals and strive to reach them ... knowing that we both are helping, he just can help more than I ...

But, I really did buy the 280 to see what the difference was compared to the 9800 GT ... not that I am not pleased with the rise in credit ... but this project is not really my interest ... but with no real alternative ... what the heck ... I can run up my numbers till REAL projects come along .... :)

Just my thoughts ... not that they are different than what others have said ... I just felt like "talking" ....

Happy to crunch for worthwhile science - but I also want to be paid credits for my outlay.

Whilst some may naively believe that no one would abort an incorrectly tariffed WU or choose not to believe that people may spend more resources here for credits than elsewhere - let's acknowledge that the Project team have decided that they need to attract volunteers by paying credits in the first place.

In a nutshell - I do crunch for credits, I have bought hardware for crunching purposes, when I do crunch I want the best credit return available & I am a member of a team that 'races' other teams in Boinc projects. I would be crunching elsewhere if this project did not grant credits.

How worthwhile my choice of hobby is I decide - and I expect others to make their own choices in that respect and not judge my choices. Whatever my motivations, lots of science is being done.

Just my £0.02 worth.

Um, rising to your defense I don't think you are quite THAT much of a, um, well, not what you said you were ...

Well I was just "Quoting what others have called me at times Paul, and yes I stil consider you a Friend or at least somebody I can talk to fairly level headedly without a lot of Trash Talk thrown in ... :)

Um, rising to your defense I don't think you are quite THAT much of a, um, well, not what you said you were ...

Well I was just "Quoting what others have called me at times Paul, and yes I stil consider you a Friend or at least somebody I can talk to fairly level headedly without a lot of Trash Talk thrown in ... :)

That is good ... I have so few friends ...

I like to think that I can disagree without being disagreeable... I know others don't think that of me though I do try ...

I have noted to myself and my own private amusement that many of those that claim that credit is not why they attach to a project, yet they have their posts tagged with a signature banner announcing their totals to the world as I do (well, everywhere but here as I cannot get the preferences page to work, or anyone in the project to acknowledge that there is a problem, but I digress...)

I don't know that I really regard it as keeping score as much as I see it as measuring my contribution ...

Dear all,
the "reduced credits" WUs should in fact return more credits than the normal one.
This is not the case, because we could not measure all the flops accurately as we use precompiled libs from nvidia. We have asked help from them to have a better way to measure this in the future.

For the time being we will set the credits to be the same. The delay in doing this change is that we had a very bad period with the server scheduler which drained a lot of human resources.

We are also looking at the avatar problem.

gdf

Thanks GDF!

I would offer a suggestion if it is planned to continue with different kinds of workunits that have different set structures (by this I mean a limited set of workunit types--e.g., the 4 types we have now--rather than continuously varying types). Several projects utilize server features that offer the option to the user to select the type of work that they will crunch. A good example can be found at the PrimeGrid project where the feature list also includes a setting that alows the user to choose to crunch "other available work if the type(s) that they have chosen is/are not available." The MalariaControl project also used this feature, but with particular emphasis on allowing users to opt-in for crunching "test" units (e.g., beta application versions) which might also be of interest here at GPUGRID.

We will keep increasing the number of different WUs, but with no drawbacks on the volunteers. That is, same elapsed time approximatively and same credits/day.

gdf

WU's get assigned randomly and not according to GPU. So they should just go back to one WU unless there is going to be some future change to the program.??
Pat

I tend to disagree, I'm getting equal amounts of low, mid, and high end credit tasks. Not EXACTLY equal, but close enough.

Just my thoughts ... not that they are different than what others have said ... I just felt like "talking" ....

And here is my "taking" :P, I use http://burp.boinc.dk both for my own 3d animations and to help other artists.

The user base over there is low, and the submitted tasks tend to be as buggy as hell, tasks frequency is also extremely low, but I set my project priorities in such a way that when a burp task is submited, boinc will be totally dedicated to that project.