Folding@Home bigadv EOL 4th Anniversary Challenge: [H] vs TAAT

[motqalden]

I was planning to do stats potentially for both teams here.
The stats site seems to end at 10:00 PM PST / 1:00AM EST so that would be a good time to start this on the 26th (1:00AM EST). Obviously users can start before that to some extent but the first points that would show up would be the next update 3 hours after that.

I will try to grab the total output of both teams and make some bar graphs twice daily. I did a bit of practising with that after copying the user points for the day into excel so I think its not too hard.

Basically that will mean the first stats update of the contest will be just after the update at 1:00 PM EST which will be the mid point of the first day.

I am just going to sort on the "points today" column and grab all the stats each day for anyone from either team that generated points on that day which should be the same thing as total points for the day.

Let me know if you have any concerns or objections about this.

 

[Skillz]

What stats site are you using?

 

[motqalden]

I was planning to use https://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/

 

[motqalden]

but I am open to suggestions if there is a reason for one site over another

 

[Skillz]

I was just curious.

 

[StefanR5R]

@motqalden, you probably know that already, but if not: EOC's stats pages are not up-to-date within seconds after their CST based 3h update points. Rather, they take a little while to get everything into a consistent state. This is shown in the top left of each stats page as "Update: Processing". It varies how long it takes to complete that. From what I remember, it's usually in the ballpark of 10…15 minutes, although in rare cases it can be considerably longer than that.

(But when it is complete, it apparently can be taken as the true and official stats from back at the 3h point which just passed.)

Edit: As soon as all stats are consistent, the top left text changes to "Update: Current".

It makes a lot of sense to use EOC's stats for the competition. Stats fetching is not actually trivial, and its good to rely on EOC's implementation which is very robust AFAICT, and their web site is highly available.

 

[StefanR5R]

I gather the start is at
Thu 26 Jan 00:00 CST =
Thu 26 Jan 06:00 UTC, 01:00 EST / Wed 25 Jan 22:00 PST

…and the finish is at
Thu 2 Feb 00:00 CST =
Thu 2 Feb 06:00 UTC, 01:00 EST / Wed 1 Feb 22:00 PST

Right? (I looked at https://www.timeanddate.com/time/map/ for time zone offsets.)

 

[motqalden]

I gather the start is at
Thu 26 Jan 00:00 CST =
Thu 26 Jan 06:00 UTC, 01:00 EST / Wed 25 Jan 22:00 PST

…and the finish is at
Thu 2 Feb 00:00 CST =
Thu 2 Feb 06:00 UTC, 01:00 EST / Wed 1 Feb 22:00 PST

Right? (I looked at https://www.timeanddate.com/time/map/ for time zone offsets.)

Yes this is my understanding and what I communicated to the [H] side!
I will post the first "mid day" stats at 10:00AM PST / Noon CST / 1:00PM EST on the 26 and then the "end of day for first day" stats at 10:00 PM PST Jan 26 / 1:00 AM EST Jan 27th (midnight CST)

With of course enough wiggle room in stats posting to make sure the stats are current.
also the mid day stats might be a bit delayed depending on my work or what not so I might be posting those when i take my lunch break or there abouts.

 

[motqalden]

Alright so this is officially kicked off as of 30 minutes ago!

Here is the starting numbers for posterity

[H]ardOCP

Rank Overall Change 24hr Change 7days Points 24hr Avg Points Last 24hr Points Last 7days Points Update Points Today Points Week Points Total WUs Total 13​ ​ ​ 213,522,706​ 276,474,433​ 1,494,658,942​ 50,437,720​ 0​ 841,794,638​ 229,813,625,731​ 23,284,300​

Team AnandTech

Rank Overall Change 24hr Change 7days Points 24hr Avg Points Last 24hr Points Last 7days Points Update Points Today Points Week Points Total WUs Total 14​ ​ ​ 257,985,778​ 159,758,305​ 1,805,900,445​ 30,558,544​ 0​ 635,054,177​ 223,836,867,836​ 5,334,186​

 

[motqalden]

 

[StefanR5R]

Given that my GPUs are outdated, I tried CPU folding overnight again on two 2x[32c/64t] computers, each with one 64-CPU slot. As to be expected, PPD/W was generally much worse than on my old GPUs. Which wouldn't be such a big issue in itself, because I need to keep these computers switched on for the next several days simply to upload a large amount of CPDN results.

This would be a typical workunit:
slot 00 unit 00: RUNNING project 16969, 9.73% done, ETA 01:39:00, 762 k ppd

However, finally one of these slots caught this workunit:
slot 00 unit 01: RUNNING project 18407, 8.25% done, ETA 17:01:00, 152 k ppd
Blocking the slot for almost 19 hours with a WU with such poor points? I don't think so.

That's exactly the thing which I remember from FahCore_a8 trials about a year ago: *Extreme* variation of PPD, not comparable at all with the PPD variations which we are used from GPU folding.

I stepped the affected CPU slot down two 32 CPUs, and the progress rate of this WU stood almost exactly the same. (Went from 100000 steps per ~11 minutes to ~11.5 minutes.)

Back when FahCore_a7 work was still available, the experience wasn't flawless but a lot better. This stuff scaled easily to 128 CPUs, and gave consistent and decent PPD.

 

[StefanR5R]

Update:
I shutdown the client and restarted it with CPU affinity set to a single socket, one set of SMT threads only. Slot size remained 32 CPUs. The progress rate went up to 100000 steps per 4.5 minutes.

AFAIR FahCore_a7 used MPI which scaled very well across sockets. FahCore_a8 uses Posix threads and evidently has considerable synchronization overhead, be it due to a high synchronization frequency, or a large shared memory pool, or a combination, making it entirely unfit for NUMA computers.

 

[mmonnin03]

Reminds of folding on Q66 CPUs where 2x VMs would run with more PPD than one client across the whole CPU.

 

[motqalden]

first update. sorry no graphs yet... busy working my day job. will add some graphs tonight
Team AnandTech

Rank Overall Change 24hr Change 7days Points 24hr Avg Points Last 24hr Points Last 7days Points Update Points Today Points Week Points Total WUs Total 14​ ​ ​ 246,406,564​ 252,599,171​ 1,724,845,950​ 37,882,555​ 146,216,769​ 781,270,946​ 223,983,084,605​ 5,334,623​

[H]ardOCP

Rank Overall Change 24hr Change 7days Points 24hr Avg Points Last 24hr Points Last 7days Points Update Points Today Points Week Points Total WUs Total 13​ ​ ​ 230,677,806​ 396,545,242​ 1,614,744,639​ 60,656,158​ 228,494,581​ 1,070,289,219​ 230,042,120,312​ 23,285,032​

 

[motqalden]

Alright! This contest is off to a roaring start. Here is the stats for the first two updates on day 1
Daily Totals:
[H] = 481,929,392
TAAT = 303,028,782

 

[motqalden]

 

[motqalden]

 

[motqalden]

General reminder that it is not to late for new users to join or for users who are sitting out to join in.
Still 6 days left so plenty of time for surprises.

I would love to see you guys making points like you were a week ago as it would actually be really close.
Edits for spelling and mistake in days remeaining

 

[biodoc]

Thanks for the stats @motqalden . The first boincgames sprint was announced (SRBASE) so I strongly recommend you and your teammates move some or all of your GPU power to that project, lol.

 

[[H]Coleslaw]

Thanks for the stats @motqalden . The first boincgames sprint was announced (SRBASE) so I strongly recommend you and your teammates move some or all of your GPU power to that project, lol.

Start holding that breath...I'm on my way....hahaha

 

[Assimilator1]

Opps, I forgot about this, sorry guys

Anyway, just set my main rig folding (GPU only).

 

[blckgrffn]

Darn it, I’ll be in but not until Monday. I was building a rig out for some DC to heat my office (power is in the lease ) and I should have been a little more on the ball and I could have got the rig going. If I have a chance, I’ll stop by and get the client and all that setup.

Now to find my key to go with my ID!

 

[Ken g6]

View attachment 75414

I don't see myself there? I should be somewhere around Bikthar.

 

[TennesseeTony]

That chart shows your INCREASE from day one I think, not daily output.

 

[motqalden]

I don't see myself there? I should be somewhere around Bikthar.

I apologise about a few members being missing from the first users charts. When i grabbed user stats at start time I grabbed anyone with an update when i should have grabbed more i guess. This meant that for a couple users on both teams I did not have enough data to calculate the points they had earned that day. Assuming they got points today I should show them in the charts inc.

Charts for EOD day 2
TAAT Points total for Day 2 = 307,864,170
[H] Points Total for Day 2 = 516,166,119
TAAT Contest Total after day 2 = 610,892,952
[H] Contest Total after day 2 = 998,095,511