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Jim Wilkins

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Message 6913 - Posted: 28 Nov 2008, 17:07:17 UTC

Is there any way to run JUST the test apps? I am aborting all of the version 1.22 apps as they my machines to go into instant high priority mode.

Thanks,
Jim
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Alinator

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Message 6914 - Posted: 28 Nov 2008, 18:07:56 UTC - in response to Message 6913.  
Last modified: 28 Nov 2008, 18:17:13 UTC

Yes, but you have to make an app_info file to specify just the current MW test app yourself.

You do realize though, that even though the current 'production' app drives the CC into EDF, the accumulated debt that generates will shut down MW DL's for a while after the task completes so your host has a chance to get back to it's assigned Resource Share.

<edit> I also should have mentioned that you have to keep an eye on things, manually download and install the current test app, then modify the app_info file as things develop as well. Almost as annoying as what you are seeing! ;-)

Current BOINC server packages do allow participants to specify what apps to run from the web page UI, but that hasn't been enabled here at MW.

Alinator
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Sysadmin_Ed

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Message 6915 - Posted: 28 Nov 2008, 18:19:09 UTC
Last modified: 28 Nov 2008, 18:20:05 UTC

I just aborted all of the remaining WUs also. I think the production version needs a lot of tweaking.

First of all, it downloaded 20 WUs with a runtime showing about 11 minutes.

When they started running, the run time turned out to be 9 hours!

The deadline was 11/30. There's no way my dual-core can finish all of these before the deadline, and my other project on this computer had deadlines, too.

Another thing - although my CPU is at 100%, it is running a full 10 degrees cooler with these WUs as compared to other projects. While this is not very scientific, it does indicate an app that's not doing very much work - very wasteful.

I've read the threads about the inefficient code of the new WUs and I'm seeing it.

Sorry to have to do this.
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Alinator

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Message 6917 - Posted: 28 Nov 2008, 18:24:21 UTC
Last modified: 28 Nov 2008, 18:25:31 UTC

The problem here is that the FPOP estimate for the current production work is way off, and thus your TDCF is way low.

This can be remedied by manually setting the TDCF for MW to about 60 times whatever it is showing in the host's client_state file.

That doesn't do anything for the state of the code in the current app, but at least the CC will then know how to deal with work fetches and scheduling correctly. ;-)

Alinator
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Jim Wilkins

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Message 6950 - Posted: 29 Nov 2008, 20:50:33 UTC - in response to Message 6914.  

Erk! Sounds too hard for this computer challenged guy.

I knew about the response to the accumulated debt and that works fine on my 4 core Mac, but doesn't work at all for my poor single CPU not-very-fast PC. The combination of long runtimes and short deadlines really honks up the other projects on the PC.

Jim

Yes, but you have to make an app_info file to specify just the current MW test app yourself.

You do realize though, that even though the current 'production' app drives the CC into EDF, the accumulated debt that generates will shut down MW DL's for a while after the task completes so your host has a chance to get back to it's assigned Resource Share.

<edit> I also should have mentioned that you have to keep an eye on things, manually download and install the current test app, then modify the app_info file as things develop as well. Almost as annoying as what you are seeing! ;-)

Current BOINC server packages do allow participants to specify what apps to run from the web page UI, but that hasn't been enabled here at MW.

Alinator

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Alinator

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Message 7024 - Posted: 30 Nov 2008, 3:09:16 UTC
Last modified: 30 Nov 2008, 3:38:54 UTC

OK, I finally had a chance to sit down and work out how to get my K6/300 back in the game.

The problem for me was I was not getting credit for running the stock Astronomy app on this host most of the time (due mostly to the deadline being a few hours too short for this host and with the large numbers of folks running the opti there was no 'fudge factor' left) and the opti won't run on NT4.

So what I needed to do was to write an app_info which specified that this host was to run only the new Milkyway tasks, and here it is:

<app_info>
<app>
    <name>milkyway</name>
</app>
<file_info>
    <name>milkyway_0.4_windows_intelx86.exe</name>
    <executable/>
</file_info>
<app_version>
    <app_name>milkyway</app_name>
    <version_num>4</version_num>
    <file_ref>
        <file_name>milkyway_0.4_windows_intelx86.exe</file_name>
        <main_program/>
    </file_ref>
</app_version>
</app_info>


So what you can do if you want to run the opti and the new Milkyway tasks is to take everything between the <app_info> and </app_info> tags and add that to your current app_info file and you should be able to run both.

Don't forget to DL the 0.4 application from the project download directory and put it in the MW folder, and make sure you have enabled Beta apps to be run for the venue your host lives on before you restart BOINC.

HTH,

Alinator
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Message boards : Number crunching : Running test apps

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