[beadman]

Alex:
How machine-specific are the wisdom files? For example, I have a 1.33 GHz iBook G4 - can I use a wisdom file created for a 1.67 GHZ G4 PowerBook?

beadman

[BTBlomberg]

I take it the wisdom is tuned to the processor and it's capabilities. I fhte iBook G4 and PB G4 are using the exact same CPU it may be OK. But keep in mind that just because the CPU model number may be the same that does not mean the processor model has not had revisions over the time between the two models came out. CPUs often get fixed along the way as they find glitches in the core and fabrication, so...

It would likely be best to just download the FFT_TEST3 and run it on each machine. That way you know for certain you have the best one of each machine.

[BTBlomberg]

OK, not this observation is not related to the client but to SETI itself:

I have been checking my results on SETI's site as most of us here do, but I have notice quite a few complete and valid results disappearing early from some of my computers results lists. Normally they are there for a couple weeks but some pop up fine just after the result is submitted and then a short time later you refresh and they are gone.

My IBM P3 550 has been cranking along at a good and gladly slower pace than my PB G4 500 for the last couple of weeks and has returned a couple dozen results at least. I looked at it last night and it only shows a result that was returned the day before, my last SETI (pre-enhanced result), my outstanding WUs in progress and the WUs I lost when changing to crunch3rs SETI client and BOINC 5.5.0. No other recent units that have been completed show.

Then on my PB G4 I have the same problem. I just complete at least 8 to 10 4 hour WUs (12.5-14.5 credits) and now my list only shows 3??? I also think some other longer ones vanished too.

Anyone else notice this?

It's not like they are too old. Older WUs from the end of may are showing still. Just wierd.

[Thanar]

Updated my online wisdom file using the latest test executable... wisdom file for iBook G4 @ 1.2.

The worker (v5, G4 opt.) works like a charm, btw... Keep up the good work, everybody!

[Gecko_r7]

Alex: I ran fft_test3, but need you to look at the results. It looks slower to me than fft_test_shell in most places unless I'm reading it wrong.
Higher numbers = faster, correct? Except weighted summary at bottom, lower is better?

http://homepage.mac.com/gecko_r7/.cv...t3.txt-zip.zip

I can't post the results here (from txt file) in a readable format. The boad is jamming everything togther.

Thanks!

[sdubz]

Originally Posted by BTBlomberg

OK, not this observation is not related to the client but to SETI itself:

I have been checking my results on SETI's site as most of us here do, but I have notice quite a few complete and valid results disappearing early from some of my computers results lists. Normally they are there for a couple weeks but some pop up fine just after the result is submitted and then a short time later you refresh and they are gone.

My IBM P3 550 has been cranking along at a good and gladly slower pace than my PB G4 500 for the last couple of weeks and has returned a couple dozen results at least. I looked at it last night and it only shows a result that was returned the day before, my last SETI (pre-enhanced result), my outstanding WUs in progress and the WUs I lost when changing to crunch3rs SETI client and BOINC 5.5.0. No other recent units that have been completed show.

Then on my PB G4 I have the same problem. I just complete at least 8 to 10 4 hour WUs (12.5-14.5 credits) and now my list only shows 3??? I also think some other longer ones vanished too.

Anyone else notice this?

It's not like they are too old. Older WUs from the end of may are showing still. Just wierd.

I think they are validating and "completing" their end faster now.

I had a g3 350mhz imac crunching for a while, and it would only show the last one completed because it was so slow!

[Todd Madson]

Latest update: with the latest wisdom generated and v5 I'm getting presently
two work units that top out around 1 hr and 43 minutes.

I haven't had a chance to try the "reference" work unit but we'll see how the
next two or three days goes, should be very interesting.

[alexkan]

Originally Posted by Gecko_r7

Alex: I ran fft_test3, but need you to look at the results. It looks slower to me than fft_test_shell in most places unless I'm reading it wrong.
Higher numbers = faster, correct? Except weighted summary at bottom, lower is better?

I see what you're talking about, and I have some idea why.

When I compiled FFTW for fft_test2 and the old optimized SETI clients, I used GCC 4, since I was making no effort to maintain backwards compatibility. However, the official SETI build system pays more attention to this, and uses GCC 3.3 when compiling for PPC to make sure binaries run on versions of OS X older than 10.3.9. Apparently, using GCC 3.3 instead of GCC 4 produces a noticeable speed difference. (Perhaps boog can attest to this.)

However, BOINC only runs on OS X 10.3 and above, so all this trouble seems to be for nothing, since there's no reason that anyone running 10.3 couldn't upgrade to 10.3.9, as far as I can tell. I'm going to recompile fft_test3 and the optimized client with GCC 4 and see if that makes a difference.

If you are in any way affected by this change, please speak up now. For now, rest assured that the weighted time is the only number that ultimately matters, and if you're looking at the MFLOP numbers, the only ones that make an appreciable difference are the ones where the first column (FFT size) are 16384 or more.

[Todd Madson]

Alex:

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/resul...hostid=1876496

Last six: 6591.64, 6228.24, 2476.88, 2464.56, 2859.86, 9554.82.

My feeling is the most recent the 6591 and 6228 were done with the "new"
wisdom generated. I'm running 10.4 so no issues of compatibility.

[arkayn]

I generated my new wisdom file this afternoon so it will be at least a day before I see if there is any positive results.

[fran]

Originally Posted by Todd Madson

...
I haven't had a chance to try the "reference" work unit but we'll see how the
next two or three days goes, should be very interesting.

How does one try the reference unit? I would really like to give it a shot since everyone one of my boxes is different, and I want to see an apples to apples comparison.

TIA!

[Gecko_r7]

Originally Posted by alexkan

If you are in any way affected by this change, please speak up now. For now, rest assured that the weighted time is the only number that ultimately matters, and if you're looking at the MFLOP numbers, the only ones that make an appreciable difference are the ones where the first column (FFT size) are 16384 or more.

Thanks Alex!
I'm running 10.4, so good to go.
Thanks for the sanity check!
Looking forward to trying/testing the revision.

[halimedia]

Originally Posted by alexkan

I'm going to recompile fft_test3 and the optimized client with GCC 4 and see if that makes a difference.

I have not yet had time to try your universal compile of fft_test3, and will therefore wait for your GCC 4 compile. While on the GCC-subject, do you know if the stock intel mac worker was compiled w/ GCC 3 or 4? If the former, compiling it with GCC 4 might be an easy way to boost intel Mac performance by a little bit. Just a thought...

Cheers,

Ron

[brysonda]

Originally Posted by halimedia

While on the GCC-subject, do you know if the stock intel mac worker was compiled w/ GCC 3 or 4? If the former, compiling it with GCC 4 might be an easy way to boost intel Mac performance by a little bit. Just a thought...

I believe that the only version >= 4 of gcc can generate intel mac binaries.

[halimedia]

Weee! Forums up again!

I suppose you're right - not many reasons why Apple would have adapted GCC 3 to the Intel platform (except for highly backward compatible universal binaries, maybe)...

[gulliver]

A good prove how good the .v5 really is: My G5 Dual 2.7 GHz is 1/3 faster then a P4/3.4 GHz running the Crunch3r-app and the optimized 5.5.0 client!

Here is the result: http://setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu/work...?wuid=81618404
340728696 633575 12 Jun 2006 1:45:32 UTC 14 Jun 2006 17:00:00 UTC Over Success Done 10,708.61 61.43 pending
340728697 48090 12 Jun 2006 1:46:14 UTC 12 Jun 2006 22:04:29 UTC Over Success Done 15,536.33 61.78 pending

Well done, alexkan!

[alexkan]

Originally Posted by gulliver

A good prove how good the .v5 really is: My G5 Dual 2.7 GHz is 1/3 faster then a P4/3.4 GHz running the Crunch3r-app and the optimized 5.5.0 client!

Here is the result: http://setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu/work...?wuid=81618404
340728696 633575 12 Jun 2006 1:45:32 UTC 14 Jun 2006 17:00:00 UTC Over Success Done 10,708.61 61.43 pending
340728697 48090 12 Jun 2006 1:46:14 UTC 12 Jun 2006 22:04:29 UTC Over Success Done 15,536.33 61.78 pending

Well done, alexkan!

Let's not get carried away--that's not a fair comparison. That P4 3.4 GHz has HT, so that core is running 2 WUs simultaneously at about 15000 secs each. If you want to talk about overall throughput, then yeah, you win, but on a per-core basis, the P4 still has us beat.

[arkayn]

I figure that I average about 2 units a day on my eMac, but I seem to missing quite a few results for it.

The 2 dells do not seem to have that problem though.

[arkayn]

Maybe they are missing some as I have a gap between the 6th and the 9th.

[lepetitmartien]

Hi all, I'm unfortunately out of the game for 2 weeks as my G5 decided to have a permanent issue instead of an erratic one. It's at the repair shop and the G3 has already enough to do with me already

Seemingly my erratic freezes and now permanent ones are motherboard based, I'm still waiting for the diagnosis…

First time a desktop mac fails me and it's less than 3 years old.
/rant

I've just been able to recover a proper user account with keychains etc. Optimize this thing good, I'll be back to make it scream (well… as much as my G5 can) as soon as possible. Or maybe it'll be a macbook… or a mini… let's see…
/OT