Sure It causes problems, Frequently My Quads operate on just one or two of their cores, 20 was better, 8's a waste of time, Mine.

I don't quite understand how this is possible, unless your clients are not connected all the time. Why don't they ask for new work when it's running dry? Is it because communication is deferred?

The BOINC Manager doesn't really care one way or the other if you have work or not Tutta, it just goes by your Settings and the Servers settings. I've seen this wonderful phenomenon (NOT) myself & not only @ this Project.

Usually the call for work space is 20 Minutes @ this Project but I have seen it a lot higher especially since the longer Wu's came out. So say the call for work period somehow got up to 2 hours & the last load of work you got from the Project were all short Wu's your Box is going to be sitting Idle for most of the 2 hr's until the Manager calls for work again.

Like I said, the BOINC Manager has a mind of it's own and really doesn't care if you have any work or not. Thats the chance you take running just 1 Peoject that will only give you a short supply of Wu's ... :)

I actually wish all projects used optimized apps. Or that BOINC had the built in ability to pass different apps to different CPU types.

It seems such a waste to have a brand new SSE4 machine that isn't even using SSE2 because the project's apps have to remain backwards compatible with old processors.

Cappy if it smells like a troll...and feels like a troll....and looks like a troll....then it probably is a troll...Don't feed the trolls! hahaha!

the point is this will put 1 man in control

of every project that uses Boinc. he will have

total control over the credit granting system.

ok so who made him GOD, what right does he have

to control the credit system, what right does he

have to say what a project is worth or its

volunteers???

ya know i think Spock said it best

the needs of the many out wheigh the needs of the FEW

or the ONE! so what gives him the right to make

this choice for us??? the people that seti lost didnt

leave becasue another project gives out more credit,

they left becasue of STUPID CRAP like this. SETI

prolly has 75% of all the crunching power in the DC

community. and the key word is volunteers, we dont work

for these projects we volunteer our time and money.

could you imagin SET@home trying to crunch all their

data by themselves?? what we the volunteers do in a day

would take them years on their own??? keep frakin with

the ONLY thing we get for VOLUNTERRING our time and machines.

1 man should not have control over every projects credit, only the

project admin's for said projects should have that control

NOT 1 MAN !!!!! thats called a DICTATORSHIP PEOPLE !!!!!!!

The project operators should always have the power over their projects and this includes the granting of credits. I like the credits granted here (And I really liked them in the past), but this is not the only project that I crunch for. I currently have one on climate prediction.net that is currently over 6 million seconds completed and is at only 77% done. They grant only 311 credits per timestep (25920) which takes my computer about 13.5 hours to complete. The higher credit offered here at M@H makes up for that lost on other projects. I could have my dual core process only M@H and rake in almost 2400 credits per day, but I like doing other projects. Leave the credit system alone and let the projects get by on the merit of the project.

By the way, does anyone know what is going on at the RieselSieve project. I haven't been able to get in contact with them for a couple of months.

The change I believe that you are talking about is an attempt to raise the credit grants of those projects that are too low, and lower the credit grants of those that are too high to make them more closely equal. I really don't understand how this is giving S@H a credit advantage.

lol this has nothing to do with leveling the playing field,

this has to do with well i wont name names but lowering every other

projects credits to try to gain back what seti has lost all on their own.

people have tried to get other projects to lower their credit with SETI

hoping it would gain back their VOLUNTEERS but being that hasnt work

the maker of the BOINC client has firgured out a way of making his own

DICTATORSHIP!!!!! were the credit granted will be FORCED APON the project

that wont comply to THEIR way of thinking. each project will no longer be

able to grant the credit they think is fair for the work being done, the BOINC

client will now TELL THEM what it thinks their project is worth. in my eyes

this is Bs. What the hell gives the creator of BOINC the right to determine what a project

can give out as far as credit for work done???? what gives him the right to

put a noose around these other project admins neck and force them to comply???

its spelt out in 1 word Dictatorship!!!!!! well there goes freadom of speech,,

freedom of choice, projects freedom to grant THEIR volunteers the credit

they think their worth.

Equal crunch times does not work for the science on the various projects.

Rest of post trimmed off.

John, you gave good reasons for not having equal crunch times here, although I would like to say that I was by no means seriously making the suggestion.
I was just poking some fun at the whole argument for and against cross project parity that this thread has been having lately. I quote from my own posting:

[tongue in cheek]
Hey there we go, maybe Boinc should insist that all projects must have equal crunch time WUs!
[/tongue in cheek]

I'm glad it didn't trigger a bad reaction!

Regards
Rod

Hey there we go, maybe Boinc should insist that all projects must have equal crunch time WUs!

Yes, that would probably make the Cross project Parity much more easier to implement.

Buuuutt I doubt it would make the Group of People with the Idea that if I crunched 10 Hours on a Wu while my Wingman only crunches 2 hours then I think I should get 5 Times as much Credit for the same Wu as he got think any different ... :P

stream processing isn't yet ready for BOINC.

Ever heard about gpugrid? ;-)

I'm fully aware of it, but Saenger covered part of it - at the moment a CPU task controls the use of the GPU, which means that when that task isn't running the GPU lies idle.

Add to that only Linux 64-bit support, requiring specific drivers and many cards not being supported and what you find is that stream processing, whilst now a reality, isn't yet ready for BOINC. I'd love it if it was, because there's huge amounts of untouched computing power out there, but it's not quite ready.

I have (well, my computer has :p) ) just succesfully finished this WU, of which another instance was previously canceled by the server for being redundant. Some incidental leftovers, or work that needs to be redone?

Chances are that by the time you read this, the WU will be purged already. They're still disappearing as fast as you can read. Makes it hard to check out what's going on with your results. But that's another thread.

First, I've had a lot of fun reading this thread. It has taken up a lot of my boring time at work.

Now for my 5 cents (inflation). Inflation is a fact of life. I can remember buying gas for my car for $.17 a gallon. Try that now. Not everybody gets paid the same for the amount of effort they provide. If you work at a burger place and make $6 an hour and I work at another one and make $7 an hour are you saying that my pay should be reduced? Have you never changed jobs for better pay? Are you saying that a Doctor and an EMT should be paid the same?

The bottom line is that life is not about everything being fair and equal. Most of us do not live in a communist society. We have the right to make decisions. I, along with many others, made the decision to leave SAH and Predictor because we didn't like what was going on. There are only 2 ways that I see that everything can be made equal. 1. wipe out all credit given across the board and give out no credit at all, which is not likely to happen. 2. Have a credit system incorperated into Boinc that does not allow the projects to set the credit given. Also not likely to happen.

I will continue to work the projects that I like without concern about the amount of credit given compared to other projects.

Credt....ohhh yes Credit.

I see the argument continuously that BOINC Credits have no real value. However these credits do have an intrinsic value. A participant's mere possession of credit in relation to other participants creates that intrinsic value. This feeling of value provides participants information of how much one has contributed towards "real" science.

So yes, one can argue that this value of credit should be equal among the projects.

I would even be willing to concede to the notion of cross-project parity.

However when DA and the self-appointed "credit police" continuously attack the projects that "pay" more credit than the norm and blatently ignore those projects that grant less credit, it is impossible to give any credibility to this crusade.

Case in point: When DA approached QMC and practically threatened them that if they did not reduce their credits they would be adjusted via the stat sites. QMC quickly did what they were told. Did DA approach any projects that grant sub-par credits, like Spinhenge@home? Well I'm still waiting on that one.

It is quite possible that the BOINC Community would adopt the cross-project parity campaign with open arms if all projects were treated equally. Until then participants, like myself, that have and continue to be alienated (no pun intended) by DA and the "credit police" will continue to be vocally opposed to the notion....

It bothers us. Any real solution has to include those projects as well.

Ok then...why haven't DA, yourself, or any other member of the "credit police" attack projects that are sub-par to the norm?

I have seen countless threads across BOINC projects from the CP screaming "FOUL" your credits are too high!! Not once, have I ever seen a thread from this same group crying "FOUL" your credits are too low!!

This is NOT Cross-project parity...and if your going to see any type of success ALL projects need to be adressed with the same passion.

This is *great* information, especially for a newb like me. Like many others, apparently, I got hammered with long WUs and short deadlines not long ago. Since they finished, I've been wondering -- and fretting, sorry to say -- why I've heard nothing from MW@H in several days. I now regret my bit of manual intervention -- several updates and a reset or two -- to try and coax a few WUs my way.

I've also learned that computations don't always quit after the deadline and you don't necessarily have to abort WUs in fear of wasting CPU time and not getting credit for what you've done. If you check the WU ID, you can, among other things:

(1) See how many results a project requires;
(2) See which other host(s), if any, have been given the same WU; and
(3) Get a pretty good idea whether or not you can finish before anyone else.

If you finish after your deadline, but before other hosts who have been given the same WU, you should still get credit. I'm not sure how all projects work, but my experience with MW@H bears this out.

LOL...

Yes, you have discovered a large part of the fun of the game! Normally, BOINC takes care of the day to day routine on it's own quite well, and is quite boring from the user's POV.

The trick is knowing when and where to intervene when unusual things happen and it gets into trouble for one reason or another.

FWIW, many of the third party tools available for managing and monitoring BOINC, like BoinvView, BoincLogX, etc. can help you get a better feel for what's going on than BOINC Manager can, and are a big help in deciding when to step in.

In any event, they sure beat having to root around in the BOINC directories and state files to get the answers to simple questions! ;-)

Alinator

Credt....ohhh yes Credit.

I see the argument continuously that BOINC Credits have no real value. However these credits do have an intrinsic value. A participant's mere possession of credit in relation to other participants creates that intrinsic value. This feeling of value provides participants information of how much one has contributed towards "real" science.

So yes, one can argue that this value of credit should be equal among the projects.

I would even be willing to concede to the notion of cross-project parity.

However when DA and the self-appointed "credit police" continuously attack the projects that "pay" more credit than the norm and blatently ignore those projects that grant less credit, it is impossible to give any credibility to this crusade.

Case in point: When DA approached QMC and practically threatened them that if they did not reduce their credits they would be adjusted via the stat sites. QMC quickly did what they were told. Did DA approach any projects that grant sub-par credits, like Spinhenge@home? Well I'm still waiting on that one.

It is quite possible that the BOINC Community would adopt the cross-project parity campaign with open arms if all projects were treated equally. Until then participants, like myself, that have and continue to be alienated (no pun intended) by DA and the "credit police" will continue to be vocally opposed to the notion....

The design of BOINC was to have approximate cross project parity in credits. Any project that is grossly out of line intentionally is intentionally breaking a design goal of BOINC, and has been a goal of BOINC since the very beginning.

Interesting. Perhaps you should read "BOINC: A System for Public-Resource Computing and Storage" by Dr. Anderson written in 2004. Particularly section 2.1. You can find it here...http://boinc.berkeley.edu/grid_paper_04.pdf

This is going to be long, so I apologize.

2.1 Goals of BOINC
BOINC’s general goal is to advance the public resource
computing paradigm: to encourage the creation of
many projects, and to encourage a large fraction of the
world’s computer owners to participate in one or more
projects. Specific goals include:
Reduce the barriers of entry to public-resource computing.
BOINC allows a research scientist with moderate
computer skills to create and operate a large public-resource
computing project with about a week of initial work and an
hour per week of maintenance. The server for a BOINCbased
project can consist of a single machine configured
with common open-source software (Linux, Apache, PHP,
MySQL, Python).
Share resources among autonomous projects.
BOINC-based projects are autonomous. Projects are not
centrally authorized or registered. Each project operates
its own servers and stands completely on its own. Nevertheless,
PC owners can seamlessly participate in multiple
projects, and can assign to each project a ”resource share”
determining how scarce resource (such as CPU and disk
space) are divided among projects. If most participants
register with multiple projects, then overall resource utilization
is improved: while one project is closed for repairs,
other projects temporarily inherit its computing power. On
a particular computer, the CPU might work for one project
while the network is transferring files for another.
Support diverse applications. BOINC accommodates
a wide range of applications; it provides flexible and scalable
mechanism for distributing data, and its scheduling algorithms
intelligently match requirements with resources.
Existing applications in common languages (C, C++, FORTRAN)
can run as BOINC applications with little or no
modification. An application can consist of several files
(e.g. multiple programs and a coordinating script). New
versions of applications can be deployed with no participant
involvement.
Reward participants. Public-resource computing
projects must provide ”incentives” in order to attract and
retain participants. The primary incentive for many participants
is credit: a numeric measure of how much computation
they have contributed. BOINC provides a creditaccounting
system that reflects usage of multiple resource
types (CPU, network, disk), is common across multiple
projects, and is highly resistant to ”cheating” (attempts to
gain undeserved credit). BOINC also makes it easy for
projects to add visualization graphics to their applications,
which can provide screensaver graphics.

Maybe it is in secret code, but I do not see "cross project parity in credits" as a goal of BOINC.

When it is all said and done, when my bones have turned to dust, it will matter not how much credit I was granted. It will matter to me that I have made some contribution to the scientific community. (I know...I'll be dead and no one will care what matters to me). Fate did not deal me the "Brilliant Scientist" card, but BOINC gives me the opportunity to contribute something. And that something is better than nothing. All I ask for is some credits. Credits that do not cost anything.

The last part of section 2.1 above talks about incentive and credit being the primary one. If all credit were to be equal then the only incentive left (as mentioned) is visual graphics. We are not children who are easily amused by shiny, pretty objects (okay...maybe a little.) This leaves the scientific value of a project. This can be measured in many ways but is completely subjective and is based on the perceptions of the volunteer. Feedback can be one of the ways of measuring value. "Show me what we have done." I can think of several projects that fall short in that aspect. Don't worry, I'm sure someone will come along and point them out to you.

I do not post often. And I pretty much avoid this nonsense. But I can take only so much. Why does the credit mean so much to you? I'm a Credit Whore and I don't go around to the low paying projects and raise a stink, but I still participate. Why do you want us to get less? Why don't you spend your time on something that really needs saving like the environment and leave the credit system alone.

Reward participants. Public-resource computing
projects must provide ”incentives” in order to attract and
retain participants. The primary incentive for many participants
is credit: a numeric measure of how much computation
they have contributed. BOINC provides a creditaccounting
system that reflects usage of multiple resource
types (CPU, network, disk), is common across multiple
projects, and is highly resistant to ”cheating” (attempts to
gain undeserved credit). BOINC also makes it easy for
projects to add visualization graphics to their applications,
which can provide screensaver graphics.

Okay, at least something will be done it sounds like to help either stop or at least Deter somebody from trying it. I like the Idea of having to be on a Team for a certain Time Period before that person can even ask for a Transfer of Foundership.

But that shouldn't stop a Voluntary Transfer of the Foundership to that person or even another another person if so desired. I say that because I know some Teams are Founded by the only person on a Team who gets into a Project & then Account Creation is closed for a time period.

Then when Account Creation is re-opened & other Team Members get into the Project the Foundership is transfered to a Central Person. I know thats how the AMDUser's Team does it because I founded a few Teams for them & the when Vaughan manged to get into the Project I transfered the Foundership to him & lots of other people on the Team did the same thing.

There is currently a move to undo the damage done by the Space Families team. They like to take over teams where the founder did not for some reason get the transfer email. I am hoping that they lose all credits across BOINC.

Yes, they took over a Team I had originally Founded & then Transfered the Foundership to another Person. Apparently he never responded or just plain quit the BOINC Projects so they took over the Team

But the Project did some back tracking and my User Name came up as being the original Founder and Ageless contacted me about it & with Eric's help @ the Project I got the Team back & was restored as the Founder once again ... :)

Congratulations on getting your team back. Do you have any ideas on how to prevent this from happening in the future?

Not really, all you can do is hope to get the Founder Transfer Request & reply one way or the other to it. If you don't get the request then after a certain period of time I think the Team can be Transferred to whomever's requesting it.

Thats the way it's set up now so you have to live with it or die by it ...

That is how it works currently. It could be changed if it needed to be.

Okay then how about making it a Pre-Requisite that a Person has to be a member of a Team for at least say 1 Year before they can even ask for Founder Transfer. That way it would take the 1 Year the person has to be on the Team Plus the 2 Months the Original founder has to reply before a person could pull the rug out from under an existing Team Founder & Team Members already on the Team.

I don't know if that would be feasible or could even be written into the Code but it would be a Deterrent anyway knowing you would have to be on a Team 14 Months before you could take control of it ... ???