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zombie67 · Mar 22, 2007, 11:52 AM

Here's the situation: We're currently 61st. We've been crunching at ~350k/month, and it's been declining.

In about two months, we will be passed by two teams, PC Club Folding@Home Team (~450k/month) and Ukraine (~1,400k/month).

I don't see any hope in stopping Ukrane. That leaves increasing our crunching by ~100k/month just to keep from losing a second notch.

Furthermore, the only way to get back to 61, is to pass the team in front of us, Mac Folders @ Macresource.com (~750k/month). To do that, we would need to increase our crunching by ~300k/month to keep up, and then gain on them by ~240k overall.

So here we are.

I started crunching for Folding again a couple weeks ago. It's a bit early to tell where it's going to level out, but my guess is somewhere around 5k/day. To that, I will be adding a C2Q X6700, OC to 3.32ghz, in a few days. (First, I need to take the #1 computer RAC spot on QMC.

) I think all of this should keep us from losing the 2nd notch.

But we need help beating the Mac Folders team, to keep 61st place!

Who will join me?

gumby5647 · Mar 22, 2007, 12:05 PM

Ive got a 1.8GHz G5 iMac and a 600MHz G3 iMac on Folding@home right now.

reader50 · Mar 22, 2007, 12:26 PM

I'll be a few more days benching Predictor. It's actually benching since they settled on homogeneous redundancy. After that, I'll put some power on Folding until the local temps go up again.

zombie67 · Mar 23, 2007, 12:31 AM

Alright! We have some more machines on board!

I also decided to heed my own call. I just added a dual quad (X5355). It's running two WinSMP clients. Can't wait to see what it will do.

Who's next?

ChillyWilly5280 · Mar 23, 2007, 02:02 PM

Looks like OS X, Linux and Windoze are up against some very stiff competition!

PS3 Triples Folding At Home's Computing Power to Over 500 TFLOPS

zombie67 · Mar 23, 2007, 02:07 PM

We just got a PS3 (I assume) working for out team!

Team MacNN : Fold : Stats : Personal (Advanced)

reader50 · Mar 23, 2007, 02:23 PM

It's possible their name gives them away. I'm just saying.

macdude22 · Mar 23, 2007, 03:37 PM

Since BONIC has been giving me the damn oddest errors since I installed the latest version I tossed it off for now and installed the SMP folding beta. So expect a slight boost from my MBP and iMac.

drengy · Mar 23, 2007, 09:40 PM

The PS3 client is gorgeous if you haven't seen it. There's a interview and demo here if you want to see it: http://www.gamevideos.com/video/id/10200

P.S. I wanted to play with the new SMP Intel Folding client on my MacPro, but it doesn't work for me at all. The window comes out with total display corruption, and the menus are disabled. Anyone know if there's a trick to getting it to work?

drengy · Mar 23, 2007, 09:47 PM

Nevermind, I just figured out that F@H is actually a prefpane. The app is just a viewer.

Embarrassing…

nobitacu · Mar 24, 2007, 12:44 AM

Well, I haven't folded for years, but I'll start again for you guys. =)

Ming

nobitacu · Mar 24, 2007, 04:24 AM

Ok, I've been folding for hours now, but it still shows I'm inactive and that I haven't completed one wu yet. I don't remember ever taking this long to complete one before... The displace program for intel mac sucks, it only shows me the demo protein, not what I'm actually folding, and I know I've activated in my pref. But I don't even know if I'm actually folding. My CPU is running at full speed, so I know it's doing something, at least I hope it is, I have no way of finding out just how far I'm into folding and completing one yet. Anyway I could find out somehow?

Thanks,

Ming

macdude22 · Mar 24, 2007, 08:07 AM

In your library there is a file called MyFolding.html. It has all that information. I think it takes a couple days to complete a WU(folding isn't for the instant gratification types). Then you are assigned some sort of credit based on the WU. Not sure of the specifics. Check that html file it has your status on it.

zombie67 · Mar 24, 2007, 10:59 AM

Yep, It can take 2 days or more, depending on the type of client, and the type of WU you get. If you have a core duo or core 2 duo, please be sure you are using the SMP client! Way more points!

nobitacu · Mar 24, 2007, 05:35 PM

Yep, I'm using the SMP client, thanks.

Ming

zombie67 · Mar 25, 2007, 03:30 AM

Originally Posted by zombie67

I also decided to heed my own call. I just added a dual quad (X5355). It's running two WinSMP clients. Can't wait to see what it will do.

Wow. Do *not* add a dual quad running two WinSMP clients. Each SMP client runs on 4 threads. One client alone did about one step (1%) in 7 minutes. Adding a second caused each client to run at about 13.5 minutes per step. Yep, that means I am wasting 4 cores. I could do as much or more with my OC CQD. Sometime this week, I am going to move my dual quad to Linux, to see if maybe it is a limitation of the Win OS. Very disappointing so far.

reader50 · Mar 25, 2007, 03:53 AM

zombie, how were you running the dual clients? You can run multiple clients with the CLI package, but you have to specify a non-default work directory for all but one of them. Preferably for all of them. Otherwise, they fight over the default directory.

Also, I'd think it would make more sense to use one client and specify that it can use up to 8 cores. If a single Windows SMP client can scale that high.

zombie67 · Mar 25, 2007, 04:28 AM

All CLI, all done by the book. FYI, SMP clients are all 4 threads each, period. No scaling, at least not yet. That means that when you run them on C2D Macs, they are really running 4 threads on two cores. That's okay, as the points still are *much* better than running two single thread clients.

reader50 · Mar 25, 2007, 01:15 PM

It will be interesting to see the Linux results. I'm thinking it's either an OS scheduler problem with Windows (very possible) or you've hit the RAM (or HD) bandwidth limit (in which case Linux results will be the same).

Was it running the HD constantly? If so, you could place the work directories on different HDs. If it's hitting memory bandwidth bottlenecks (or overflowing the L2), then there's nothing to be done.

nobitacu · Mar 26, 2007, 12:55 AM

I'm still being listed as "inactive"...

Ming

zombie67 · Mar 26, 2007, 10:01 AM

It will do that until you return a WU, it gets validated, the credits get exported, and the stat sites pick it up. Team MacNN updates stats more frequently than anyone, I believe. I think F@H is having delays lately, in exporting the data. If I look at my stats on their site, and compare it to the stats on this site, I am missing about 5k credits.

reader50 · Mar 26, 2007, 01:18 PM

You don't show as Inactive anymore.

Folding is doing something with their stats system lately. They possibly retotalled, which would return everyone's stats to their current account - this would remove their stats from teams they have left.

I haven't investigated closely enough, but there have been a bunch of "error" messages from the fold scripts lately. Specifically, people leaving teams. That isn't supposed to happen on Fold, since you previously couldn't remove your stats when you left.

zombie67 · Mar 28, 2007, 09:34 PM

The good news: We have increased our PPD, big time! See here:

Folding@Home Stats - Production History - Team MacNN

The overtake dates for the teams I talked about earlier have started to move out significantly! But they aren't gone yet.

The bad news: Some of the PS3 teams are skyrocketing up the charts. The closest is 2ch@PS3, which is making over 400,000 PPD!

Question: What kind of PPD can one expect to get with a PS3 dedicated to F@H?

reader50 · Mar 28, 2007, 11:17 PM

I don't know about the PS3 question, but we'll know soon enough from our own PS3 member. In the meantime, I have 3 cores crunching Fold, which won't show at all for another day. 47%, 24%, 47%.

SciFrog · Mar 29, 2007, 08:37 AM

900 to 1,100 PPD for the PS3, still less than a C2D on the 260x cores.

Side note: the PS3 uses 200W of power, so C2D laptops have a much better PPD/wattage.
But the PS3 is more powerful for some type of calculations, but not as versatile than the SMP clients, thus less PPD.

The SMP clients were built for quad core computers, we are just lucky they run well on 2 and 8 cores Mac OS X (linux).
The win SMP client are nowhere near as efficient and scalable.

zombie67 · Mar 29, 2007, 03:37 PM

Just to be clear for the other folks reading this thread, on 8-way machines, you need to run two SMP clients. Each client uses up to 4 cores.

zombie67 · Mar 30, 2007, 10:48 AM

All right! We've had a lot of new folks join, or start crunching again. We're really starting to turn this thing around! We have gone from "imminent death" to "holding our own". Now there are Teams who have Team MacNN on *their* radar...and not in a good way for them! If we can turn the nob up a few more notches, we can start making some real progress!

drengy · Mar 30, 2007, 02:18 PM

Originally Posted by zombie67

Question: What kind of PPD can one expect to get with a PS3 dedicated to F@H?

I can't tell you exactly what my PS3 is getting per day until I get home to check it, because I have a Mac Pro and five G5s also crunching for me, so my total stat isn't pure PS3.

All I know is that the PS3 is definitely cranking. I joined Folding @ Home last week when the PS3 client came out, and already have a score of 17933. That's with just the PS3, the Mac Pro and one of the G5's (just added the other G5's yesterday, so they reported yet).

Any team with a lot of PS3's is really going to move up fast.

SciFrog · Mar 30, 2007, 04:19 PM

A little more firepower and we could take team Mac Addict... Maybe that would entice some of them to switch...

Shaktai · Apr 1, 2007, 04:53 PM

Hmmm! I haven't crunched folding in ages(not since 2005-07-23) and am not crunching anything right now. Maybe I'll have to take a look at this for my Mac Mini just to see what it can do.

sarged · Apr 1, 2007, 06:04 PM

SETI.USA is in a competition with P3DN in Spinhenge. P3DN is not crunching or downloading many Folding@Home WUs because of this. Now would be a good time for Team MacNN to grab all of the WUs you can and make up a lot of ground on P3DN.

Happy Crunching!!

zombie67 · Apr 1, 2007, 06:17 PM

For not crunching, P3DN sure is making a lot of points! They are averaging ~40k/day. We're only up to ~30k/day. We'll need more help to take them.

zombie67 · Apr 3, 2007, 02:53 AM

Originally Posted by Shaktai

Hmmm! I haven't crunched folding in ages(not since 2005-07-23) and am not crunching anything right now. Maybe I'll have to take a look at this for my Mac Mini just to see what it can do.

Be sure to run the SMP client! Any machine with a dual core (or more) should be crunching with the dual client. *way* more points, and helpful to the project too.

Shaktai · Apr 3, 2007, 11:18 PM

Definitly am running the SMP. Had some errors on the first 2605 POPC unit. Will see what happens over the next few days. 20% into the second unit.

SciFrog · Apr 4, 2007, 03:31 AM

It is beta, you loose a unit once and a while.

Don't switch network settings, it can cause the unit to fail.

Also you can't really resume a unit. Once stopped, it either restarts a new one, or finishes it with an error...

SciFrog · Apr 4, 2007, 11:05 AM

So these new 8 cores Mac Pro, they reach 10k PPD with two clients?

zombie67 · Apr 4, 2007, 12:24 PM

Has anyone tried running two clients on an 8-way mac? Any issues?

Also, how does one install a second client with the recommended auto-installer?

SciFrog · Apr 4, 2007, 01:19 PM

I wonder how much overhead is lost...

Shaktai · Apr 5, 2007, 12:56 AM

You got that right sci-frog. Unfortunately that poses a problem for me. Memory is friggin expensive over here, and without more memory I can't run it full time non-stop. Everytime I stop it so I can do my photo stuff, it starts over. Dang, I like FAH but until I get an upgrade doesn't look like I can keep it going. Poorest country in Asia, and everything is cheap except technology which comes at an outrageous premium. Serious imbalance. Such is life.

zombie67 · Apr 5, 2007, 01:39 AM

Well, I have one on order. We'll see how it goes, once it arrives.

zombie67 · Apr 5, 2007, 02:15 AM

F U very much, Microsoft.

When I woke up this AM, I discovered that all my windows boxes were sitting at the login screen.

!!!!

And the way the windows SMP client works, you must have a password, so not auto-login, and you can't run it as a service.

Oh yeah, and the security patch adds a bug that requires *another* manual patch download/install/reboot cycle for each machine.

So I lost about a 1/4 day of crunching.

So I have moved all my windows boxes from auto download and install, to auto download and notify. More manual work for me, but better than having this mess happening again.

Shaktai · Apr 6, 2007, 07:36 AM

Originally Posted by SciFrog

It is beta, you loose a unit once and a while.

Don't switch network settings, it can cause the unit to fail.

Also you can't really resume a unit. Once stopped, it either restarts a new one, or finishes it with an error...

Well, that poses a problem then. Guess I can't do folding with the SMP client right now. Resources are limited so sometimes have to shut it down so that I can switch things over to the work computer and work from home. Too bad. It looks nice. Maybe that will be fixed once it gets out of beta. Looked pretty good when it was running, but 3 unit failures in a row, several days and I have nothing to show for it.

I'll keep an eye on how this progresses.

SciFrog · Apr 6, 2007, 09:33 AM

I usually wait for a unit to finish to reboot when needed, not the easiest way.

zombie67 · Apr 6, 2007, 10:10 AM

Yeah. If you have need to reboot, or to stop the WU, then you should probably run it with the -oneunit setting. That way it will stop upon completion, then you can do your other stuff, and then run it again with the -one unit setting. It can mean some down-time if it happens to end in the middle of the night. But at least you aren't wasting crunching time by unintentionally aborting WUs, and it gives you regular opportunities to do things like reboot.

zombie67 · Apr 11, 2007, 09:51 PM

My dual-quad arrived today!

Like with 8-way windows machines, you get about 10% more PPD by running 3 SMP clients.

Here we go!

ChillyWilly5280 · Apr 12, 2007, 01:46 AM

Originally Posted by zombie67

Like with 8-way windows machines, you get about 10% more PPD by running 3 SMP clients.

I wonder why three is the optimum number? Seems to me that having two quad core processors, running one SMP client for each of the two CPU's, or one for each of the eight cores would be optimum. I'm curious as to where three clients fits into the equation.

reader50 · Apr 12, 2007, 04:14 AM

I'd assume it's caused by poor resource scheduling within each SMP client. That it tends to have the four threads doing the same things at the same time. Modern CPUs have multiple execution units within each core, optimum use requires a mix of different code types.

SciFrog · Apr 12, 2007, 08:07 AM

I believe they asked not to run 2 clients on 4 cores or 3 clients on 8 cores because they want the results to come back faster. If too many people do it, they will have to tighten the deadines. The current clients were built to use only 90% CPU.

zombie67 · Apr 12, 2007, 09:32 AM

The problem is that the point system doesn't match the claimed desire of the project.

In any case, by running 3 clients, I am still returning them all 1) well before the preferred deadline (which is 1/2 the time of the final deadline), and 2) in less time than someone running one client on a dual core machine. So if anyone is going to be causing the tightening of deadlines of the SMP client, it is the folks with dual core machines (which is me too).

zombie67 · Apr 12, 2007, 09:36 AM

Originally Posted by SciFrog

The current clients were built to use only 90% CPU.

I have to challenge that. On my Windows machines, they run at 100% CPU usage. Same thing when I dual booted one of my boxes with Linux.

So it seems hard to believe that they would design only the mac client to run at less than 100% intentionally.