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Message 10215 - Posted: 26 May 2009 | 22:36:56 UTC

I just wanted to go to bed after a really long day and discovered that my 6.5.0-machine was about to run dry! It's so unbelievably stupid, I can not even find words..

All I have running are QMC and MW@GPU. Since MW never gives out enough work for GPUs I could set which ever ressource share I want, it would either be violated or the GPU would idle even if there is GPU work available. There is no other way to obey a ressource share which counts for both ressources simultaneously.

Well, right now it turned out that QMC had accumulated to much long term debt (as MW *never* has work) and even 6.5.0 decided it was a good idea to keep asking MW for new work and to let the cpus run dry..

Really, we need two things:
- scheduler policy change: keeping ressources busy is ALWAYS more important than obeying ressource share
- separate ressource shares per compute ressource, or something better

What good does it do anyone if debts are used to strictly obey ressource share.. at the cost of running dry? I mean, really, you can't have both at the same time if you have different compute ressources and a global ressource share!

MrS
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Message 10220 - Posted: 27 May 2009 | 1:22:07 UTC

You really should post this on the BOINC Dev or BOINC Alpha mailing lists ... not that the developers will pay any attention to it ... but ... even the Don had his windmills ...

Alpha <boinc_alpha @ ssl.berkeley.edu>
boinc_dev @ ssl.berkeley.edu (BOINC Dev Mailing List)


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Message 10240 - Posted: 28 May 2009 | 3:03:06 UTC

You're absolutely right. This is one of those things that we keep waiting to have fixed and it never seems to happen.

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Message 10244 - Posted: 28 May 2009 | 6:28:14 UTC - in response to Message 10240.

You're absolutely right. This is one of those things that we keep waiting to have fixed and it never seems to happen.

Not gonna happen unless enough people and project types complain.

The project types because they have to handle the issues on the boards, and the participants because it screws up their systems.

I have already documented the issues as I have found them the best that I can ... of course I have through round about channels that the developers don't look at my posts because they are too long ... of course they have also complained oft times that they are too short ... or too much speculation, to much analysis ... not enough facts ... too many facts ... too many complaints too often ... I could go on ... but, my take on it is that they just don't want to hear it ... in that I am one of the few that posts on the dev and alpha lists that makes me a target ...

Seriously, you want it fixed, post on the lists ... though it does not seem to help much ... it is the only string to the bow ...

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Message 10246 - Posted: 28 May 2009 | 7:25:19 UTC - in response to Message 10244.

I think one of the problems with the Boinc Alpha lists is that it doesn't necessarily easily reflect the bugs "popularity" so even though it may be causing a lot of grief they (Boinc Devs) may not see that. JIRA bug tracking has a fantastic tool to not only allow users to log bugs, but also to follow them and for others to vote them up for resolution. Boinc don't use JIRA, but the voting element could be integrated other ways even if it is an unofficial vote list. Make it important enough to the community in general and it could strengthen the development priorities (maybe not for GPUGrid, but for the apps in general).

Anyone think this is a good idea?

Rob

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Message 10257 - Posted: 28 May 2009 | 15:47:30 UTC

I like your ideas and the need for a way to vote about the severity of a bug. Where can we go now to post bug reports? (links please)

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Message 10265 - Posted: 28 May 2009 | 17:27:32 UTC - in response to Message 10257.

I like your ideas and the need for a way to vote about the severity of a bug. Where can we go now to post bug reports? (links please)

BOINC uses Trac Wiki for bug reports. [url=http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/newticket]New Ticket[url] is used for new reports, though you have to create an account first I think ...

The bad news is that the developers seem to pay about as much attention to Trac reports as they do to any other sources ... little to none... As evidenced by the fact that several bugs rated "critical" have been around for several years ...

One of the most powerful tools known to the software development community which costs absolutely nothing to buy is also the one tool that they are completely uninterested in using ... a thing called "process" ... as part of that process you rank your issues and then work them off in priority order. As new issues arise, you document them and rank them and work them off in turn ...

Oh, and you don't turn down help ... even if you don't like the guy offering to help ...

But, what do I know ... :)

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Message 10266 - Posted: 28 May 2009 | 17:32:22 UTC

Talk about being oblivious ... all the troubles with GPU applications and we have this announcement:

GridRepublic has been working on a Facebook application for use with
Volunteer Computer via BOINC. While the Facebook application isn't
quite complete yet, the 6.8 client will be focusing on features and
functionality geared toward that effort. We are looking for the client
software to be finalized and finished by mid-June.

To that end the only new features that are going to be included with
this client version is the new screensaver framework and the ability to
attach to an account manager via a web browser cookie.

A new BOINC-based client will be making its entrance next week, we will
be focused on that until it is ready to go. After the new client is
wrapped up we will follow up with an updated GridRepublic client
followed by a BOINC client. The new client has a hard deadline of
mid-June.

GridRepublic has updated their server-side software to put cookies on
your system during the sign-up process to help test the new cookie
attach mechanism. We have packaged up an experimental client with the
new features to begin testing and we will be following up with the new
client software as soon as I get the new skin and artwork.

In order to test the cookie mechanism you'll need to create a new
GridRepublic account at http://www.gridrepublic.org/. When it gives you
the link to download the new client click on it and then abort the
download. Launch the experimental client. It should automatically
attach to GridRepublic and then attach to whichever projects you have
signed up too. The supported browsers are Internet Explorer 5.x+,
Safari 3.x+, Firefox 2.x+. If you use a different browser go ahead and
give it a try, let us know if it works.

To see the new screensaver you'll need to suspend the client before
letting the system start the screensaver. Other ways include letting
the client go idle, or the only active tasks do not support graphics.
This new screensaver component is OpenGL based, at some point we hope to
incorporate project news via RSS feeds and the like. For now it
displays the basics.

I'll be updating the BOINC Alpha website with the instructions for
testing the cookie attach process and new screensaver framework after
this email goes out.

Here are the links to the experimental clients:
X86:
http://boinc.berkeley.edu/dl/gridrepublic_6.7.5_windows_intelx86.exe
X64: http://boinc.berkeley.edu/dl/gridrepublic_6.7.5_windows_x86_64.exe

Thanks in advance.

----- Rom


Just what the doctor ordered, more "eye-candy" no one needs or wants ... the use of Account Managers is miniscule ... so lets add more complicating features on the AM instead of curing the bugs in the GPU implementation ... clueless ...

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Message 10269 - Posted: 28 May 2009 | 18:06:00 UTC
Last modified: 28 May 2009 | 18:15:28 UTC

It`s a shame...
My only hope is that Synecdoche will hopefully be ready soon.
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Message 10270 - Posted: 28 May 2009 | 19:20:58 UTC - in response to Message 10269.

It`s a shame...
My only hope is that Synecdoche will hopefully be ready soon.

When last I spoke with NA about it he was not planning on CUDA support anytime soon ... so, it would leave me out anyway ...

I get 10-20K a day on my 5 systems with 26 CPUs and 100-150K a day off of 6 GPU cards (8 total "cores")...

Which would you rather give up? :)

What is even more appalling is that the number of people using Grid Republic is vanishingly small and they only support a limited set of the totality of BOINC projects. Even BAM! leaves quite a few out ... I grant that many of them are Alpha class projects, but, if you have to manually support 5-10 projects ANYWAY ... what is the point of an AM?

I don't know how many use AMs, but, I will bet that it is in the low thousands... though I bet BAM counts me as a user even though I am not attached to it at the present time. I usually only use it to set up a new computer and attach it to my list of 50 some projects ... then I detach and finish up with manual attaches to the rest ...

The only good news is that they have a hard date of June so that should mean that they expect to be done by Christmas of next year ...

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