SETI@Home Wow!-Event 2014

[biodoc]

Thanks for the stats, Peter!

Just got a bunch of AP GPU WUs on my 2 linux boxes. I have a GTX570 and GTX460 chugging through them. None of the AP WUs showed up on my windows machines. They must have thrown a bone to the linux users!

 

[Pokey]

biodoc
You may have been the catalyst that got me looking at Linux & Linux dual boot, and despite the learning curve, I did switch in order to do better at F@H, but it is not the way to go for S@H. It looks like over 80% of their clients are windows flavors. That is a pretty big dog to feed. Plus there are virtually no gpu units for other OSs............ Seti is pretty much a windows world.
Good to have you on board.

 

[Terminator_1]

SETI.Germany invites all Members to the SETI@Home Wow!-Event 2014.Everyone is welcome.Register here:

http://www.seti-germany.de/Wow/anmeldung.php?lang=de&lang=en

Many Greetings: Terminator

 

[Pokey]

observations:

48 countries involved, that's impressive.

Pitcairn Islands is represented................... I did not think much about where they are until I checked google earth..............they are about as far away from anywhere as you can get............. amazing.

I wonder if newegg delivers............

 

[GLeeM]

they are about as far away from anywhere as you can get

Beautiful place - population 67 - but it gives new meaning to "the middle of nowhere"

 

[petrusbroder]

Stats as of August 21, 2014, 04:00 UC:

Pos ___ Name ____________ Points _
01 ____ Pokey ___________ 829,074
02 ____ Lane42 __________ 693,581
03 ____ petrusbroder ____ 482,493
04 ____ GLeeM ___________ 392,021
06 ____ biodoc __________ 315,259
06 ____ salvorhardin ____ 200,373
07 ____ Ingleside _______ 151,273
08 ____ Joe _____________ 145,277
09 ____ Orange Kid _______ 79,874
10 ____ Quietdad _________ 47,656
11 ____ strider7 _________ 47,523
12 ____ [TA]Assimilator1 _ 45,993
13 ____ minendo __________ 20,352

Pos ___ Team __________________ Members ____ Points _
01 ____ GPU Users Group __________ 25 ____ 22,530,794
02 ____ SETI.Germany ____________ 130 ____ 12,063,091
03 ____ The Knights Who Say Ni! _ 131 _____ 5,979,818
04 ____ ngb:setiteam _____________ 18 _____ 5,140,192
05 ____ L'Alliance Francophone ___ 31 _____ 4,924,301
06 ____ TeAm AnandTech ___________ 13 _____ 3,450,749
07 ____ Team China _______________ 51 _____ 2,873,986
08 ____ Crunching@EVGA ___________ 12 _____ 2,729,355
09 ____ Planet 3DNow! ____________ 21 _____ 2,485,496
10 ____ BOINC.Italy ______________ 26 _____ 2,148,541
11 ____ Racoon Lovers ____________ 11 _____ 2,034,330

Five of our team members are among the top-100:
Pokey, Lane42, petrusbroder, GLeeM and biodoc.
There are 819 crunchers in the race, and 134 teams!
We are doing good, but Team China is coming very strong and may pass us ...

 

[biodoc]

biodoc
You may have been the catalyst that got me looking at Linux & Linux dual boot, and despite the learning curve, I did switch in order to do better at F@H, but it is not the way to go for S@H. It looks like over 80% of their clients are windows flavors. That is a pretty big dog to feed. Plus there are virtually no gpu units for other OSs............ Seti is pretty much a windows world.
Good to have you on board.

It's been a couple of years since i crunched Seti and I admit, this is a fun event. I'm a linux guy at heart, but I do keep windows on at least one machine for the rest of the family.

I just don't like paying $100+ for an OS license. I'd rather spend that money on hardware.

EDIT: Forgot to thanks Peter for the Stats! :thumbsup:

 

[GLeeM]

Going to try the optimised app latter.

I want to encourage everyone to upgrade to the Lunatics' optimized apps. The installer works great.

My old computer (i7 920) already had the optimized apps from a while back. But the numbers seemed a little off. I upgraded to the new Lunatic optimized apps last night and now the numbers are improved

It just installed over the old apps - all I had to do was open app_info.xml and "Find" every MB v7 "count" and change the "1" to "0.5" so that my video cards will run two multibeam v7 WUs at the same time.

Does anyone run two AP (astropulse) WUs at the same time on GPU? Is there much improvement?

If anyone has questions or needs clarification about any of this, just ask :thumbsup:

Thanks for the stats, Petrus

 

[Orange Kid]

all I had to do was open app_info.xml and "Find" every MB v7 "count" and change the "1" to "0.5" so that my video cards will run two multibeam v7 WUs at the same time.

please enlighten me :?

 

[lane42]

Hi OK

First make sure Boinc's not running. Then search app_info.xml
right click folder and open with notepad. just change the entries from
<count>1<count> to <count>.5<count> I.e. just backspace the 1 and replace with .5

I think you have to do it 16 times. Then up top file and save.

 

[Assimilator1]

All I had to do was click next , actually I did have to select a few options too relevant to my CPU & GPU but it was easy.

Thx for the stats Petrus.
A huge number of teams racing!

Seems I'm closing in fast on Quietdad & Strider7 , can't catch you though Orange Kid!

 

[Rattledagger]

Hi OK

First make sure Boinc's not running. Then search app_info.xml
right click folder and open with notepad. just change the entries from
<count>1<count> to <count>.5<count> I.e. just backspace the 1 and replace with .5

I think you have to do it 16 times. Then up top file and save.

And for the lazy ones, we use app_config.xml instead, since only needs to specify once for setiathome_v7 and once for astropulse_v6. Of course another advantage is you don't really need to shutdown BOINC, just "Read config files" from the advanced-menu in the BOINC Manager. Personally I use this version:

<app_config>
   <app>
      <name>setiathome_v7</name>
      <max_concurrent>8</max_concurrent>
      <gpu_versions>
          <gpu_usage>0.5</gpu_usage>
          <cpu_usage>1.0</cpu_usage>
      </gpu_versions>
    </app>
   <app>
      <name>astropulse_v6</name>
      <max_concurrent>8</max_concurrent>
      <gpu_versions>
          <gpu_usage>0.5</gpu_usage>
          <cpu_usage>1.0</cpu_usage>
      </gpu_versions>
    </app>
</app_config>

Just change <max_concurrent> to how many cpu-cores your computer has, and depending on GPU it's also possible using fractional <cpu_usage> will work nicely.

 

[Pokey]

You beat me to it Rattledagger.

I use use a variation of this also. The beauty of course is you can update Lunatics app and not have to worry about changing those "16" settings again because their updates do not change the app_config.eml file.

I do not use the <max_concurrent> setting because I found that if I set my BOINC advanced>config to 100% cpu it will automatically take the cpus not assigned to the gpu and use them.

One other thing I found is that if you assign a cpu to each gpu wu, (as Rattledagger's setting indicate) your cpu's will not get pushed to full use thereby keeping the heat down.
I typically get 100% gpu usage and approx 70-80% cpu usage. That and some fan settings keep temp's within reason. But that is just me. YMMV

I only do this once a year and it is like learning all over again...........

 

[GLeeM]

Thanks for the information, Rattledagger and Pokey

Can we leave the app_info.xml and just add the app_config.xml? Or do we have to delete app_info.xml? (I thought the special Lunatic executable needed the info in the app_info.xml)

 

[Pokey]

Thanks for the information, Rattledagger and Pokey

Can we leave the app_info.xml and just add the app_config.xml? Or do we have to delete app_info.xml? (I thought the special Lunatic executable needed the info in the app_info.xml)

Keep both files.

I don't know why or how the app_config file overrules the app_info file but it does.

 

[petrusbroder]

"Almost halfway" stats as of August 22, 2014, 04:00 UC:

Pos ___ Name ____________ Points _
01 ____ Pokey ___________ 978,223
02 ____ Lane42 __________ 810,216
03 ____ petrusbroder ____ 559,243
04 ____ GLeeM ___________ 471,127
06 ____ biodoc __________ 404,949
06 ____ salvorhardin ____ 223,740
07 ____ Joe _____________ 185,369
08 ____ Ingleside _______ 151,273
09 ____ Orange Kid _______ 98,513
10 ____ [TA]Assimilator1 _ 60,777
11 ____ strider7 _________ 53,188
12 ____ Quietdad _________ 50,732
13 ____ minendo __________ 24,557

Pos ___ Team __________________ Members ____ Points _
01 ____ GPU Users Group __________ 25 ____ 26,288,526
02 ____ SETI.Germany ____________ 132 ____ 14,093,416
03 ____ The Knights Who Say Ni! _ 136 _____ 7,087,177
04 ____ ngb:setiteam _____________ 19 _____ 6,115,564
05 ____ L'Alliance Francophone ___ 34 _____ 5,762,542
06 ____ TeAm AnandTech ___________ 13 _____ 4,100,122
07 ____ Team China _______________ 54 _____ 3,540,565
08 ____ Crunching@EVGA ___________ 13 _____ 3,285,929
09 ____ Planet 3DNow! ____________ 21 _____ 2,938,133
10 ____ BOINC.Italy ______________ 27 _____ 2,644,043
11 ____ Racoon Lovers ____________ 11 _____ 2,318,107

Five of our team members are among the top-100:
Pokey, Lane42, petrusbroder, GLeeM and biodoc.
There was also a major re-arrangement in the order of the team ...
Many of the other teams are still recruiting members.
There are 890 crunchers in the race, and 136 teams!
We are doing good. Team China is coming slowly approx 12000 - 40000 points/day) and may pass us unless we increase our output...

 

[Assimilator1]

Thx for the stats Petrus

I'm already flat out, & I've now passed Strider & quietdad , doubt I'll catch anyone else!

 

[QuietDad]

Have a ton awaiting validation. Should jump ANY MINUTE now, or 5 minutes after the event ends..

 

[petrusbroder]

Does anybody here know how much of anmprovement the Lunatics optimized app gives on an i7-cpu (non-AVX), on some NVIDIA GPUs?

BTW: I have more than 1700 WUs pending or inconclusive ...

 

[biodoc]

Using the lunatics apps for 1090T and 9550 seemed to make a big difference for me. My i7's are sandy bridge so AVX for them. I don't have a non-AVX i7 so i can't comment directly.

I have 5 gpus in the race so watch your backs guys! :biggrin:

I'm trying to catch the top cruncher from team china. I'm on his heels but can't seem to pass. :|

 

[salvorhardin]

I'm already all in, but just started crunching two gpu wus at a time (forgot to set it). Just realized that the lunatics optimized apps installer was hosted. Does anybody know if I update the apps will I lose my progress?

 

[Pokey]

Have a ton awaiting validation. Should jump ANY MINUTE now, or 5 minutes after the event ends..

LOL. True, true.

The Astropulse units take longer to complete and therefore longer to validate. I have set my preferences to not do AP wus unless there is no other work available.

Peter I have always run the lunatic's app so honestly can't tell you the upside. What made me a believer is that most, if not all, of the top producers use that app.

salvorhardin I recommend you create the app_config.xml Rattledagger wrote about above. Then you can update the lunatics app without upsetting your cpu number or wu/gpu settings or having to go back and redo the app_info.xml. I think it is good practice to shut down Boinc manager before updating. And No you do not lose your progress. It should pick right up where you left off.

Keep in mind all this is from someone who only does seti once a year.

 

[Rattledagger]

Can we leave the app_info.xml and just add the app_config.xml? Or do we have to delete app_info.xml? (I thought the special Lunatic executable needed the info in the app_info.xml)

Just to make it absolutely clear, to use optimized applications you MUST USE app_info.xml while app_config.xml works alongside regardless of optimized or non-optimized applications.


petrusbroder, I've been using optimized since pre-Lunatics days, so haven't got a clue on the actual performance of the stock application now...

 

[Orange Kid]

So I had no app_config, just changed the app_info. We'll see what that does for production. Lunitics apps increased my production by about 33%. Definitely the ones to run.

 

[Pokey]

So I had no app_config, just changed the app_info. We'll see what that does for production. Lunitics apps increased my production by about 33%. Definitely the ones to run.

There is no app_config.xml file. You create it yourself and put it in the same folder with app_info.xml. Or do what you did, and edit app_info.xml and change the "16" settings manually.
The advantage to adding the app_config.xml is that it does not get changed when you update the lunatics optimized app. In fact they point this out in their readme.txt file.

So we are now a week into the challenge now with a week to go. ^_^

I think it was Engineer who used to say: More, more, more..............