BOINC

Jathanis, thanks for the heads up. From that thread, it looks like they have a lot of work still to do. Hopefully they continue the legacy video cards like the 47xx series and below. There are very few projects that still support these to begin with. Since they are still better than a lot of CPU's, I would hate to lose that extra bump.

Collatz is apparently still planning on supporting a CAL app for older cards and are having a lot of problems with the new OpenCL app. I highly recommend avoiding the project for now if you don't like losing crunching time or trouble shooting the issue with the work units.

http://boinc.thesonntags.com/collatz/forum_thread.php?id=1113#18361

One third of the lost credits have been restored. The remaining credits will be restored of the new several days. If your account does not exist because it was lost between the last full backup and now, please re-create your account using the same login name and email address and send me a PM and I will manually restore your stats.

A Windows ATI (CAL/Brook+) app was successfully compiled under VS2012 and is currently being tested so AMD HD 2400 thru HD 47xx GPUs will be able to participate.

The OpenCL CPU apps are not suspending properly. The issue has been replicated and is under investigation.

A number of volunteers are returning results with the error: "couldn't start app: CreateProcess() failed - (unknown error)". This is due to a missing Microsoft C++ Runtime library required by the nVidia OpenCL DLLs. The MSVC Runtimes are available from Microsoft at
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30679 or from here for 32-bit or 64-bit hosts.
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One of the Admins @ WCG mentioned that they were at the beginning stages of a new sub project coming on board. This means it is still months out, but it is about the most news we typically get from WCG in advance.

https://secure.worldcommunitygrid.org/forums/wcg/viewpostinthread?post=447914

Thanks everyone for your comments. Rest assured that we continue to work towards adding more research projects. We've already started the very early stages of bringing on board the next project - a process which typically takes a few months.
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I made it to 9th on the team for over all BOINC points. That should last ~ a week before Grandpa mows past me.
 
POEM gave an update:

Hi Rick, and all others who are waiting desperately...

it's been a sobering week for me... every solved problem brought up a new one, and the application is still not running properly.
I'm now at a point where the standalone executable runs fine, but when started by the BOINC client, it fails immediately. So it's still useless to start the beta test.
This is kind of the worst case situation, because it's hell to debug that.
I did my best to get the thing running in time, but I'm not able to solve that problem in a night shift.

Sorry for the delay. I'll give you an update on Monday.
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Well, at least he's forthcoming with problems during development. That's a good sign. I'm intensely interested in this new OpenCL app. I think it'll be the one thing that can bring a lot of folders over to the dark side. If they can generate enough actual work units for it.
 
Exactly. This kind of communication is key to keeping donors happy. Something I find lacking at WCG quite a bit... Don't get me wrong, WCG is still a great project. I just get tired of never knowing until I get slapped upside the head.
 
I'm finishing up an Optiplex GX520 (dual core) for donation. If it can get wifi in its location, it should be borged and crunching ~12 hours a day.



Make that 2 Optiplex GX520's. :)
 
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Anyone had an experience running 2 completely different AMD GPUs in the same box with BOINC? I currently have an XFX 7870 running and I have a free slot. I have a friend who wants to sell a R7 260X (not XFX).

Figured if the different cards would play nice I'd take it off his hands and let BOINC crunch with it. I only game once in a great while and I am fine only using the 7870 for gaming so that's not an issue. Mostly wondering about general system stability and BOINC compatibility. Thanks.
 
I had a 4870 and a 4550 in the same box ok until the 4870 started having driver problems. The only issue I had was that I had to write a cc_config to tell BOINC not to use the 4550 on projects with dual precision or limit which sub projects it could run.

Edit: I will note that I think the driver issue was probably stressing the card or the card going bad. It's fan is now terribly loud too. I only had it in the box to put use to the AMD cards I had laying around.
 
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the 260X is essentially a 7790 so the cards are basically both 7000 series cards. Looks like both cards are dual precision - so that shouldn't be an issue I hope. (Is Milkyway the only project that requires DP?)

I would think that these two cards would work together. Im not too worried about them being different brands. If people can get Nvidia and AMD to work in the same box this should work right? :)
 
I have no doubt in my mind that those two cards could work in the same box.

As far as dual precision, I think PrimeGrids Genefer work units need dual precision, but you would have to double check that one.
 
ABC Lattices and Correlizer are now retired projects according to BOINCStats.com I am updating the DC List.
 
As one of those who have a GTX680 and a 4850 in the same box, no it shouldn't be a problem. Most projects are good about not running work on hardware that's not qualified, so there shouldn't be any conflicts. I think the worst that would happen would be the problem I have now on GPUGrid - even though the 680 can run it, because the 4850 is the primary card, BOINC refuses to download WUs...
 
Jathanis, that is odd that it wont download work units. Is there any errors in the Event Log? It should still ask for nVidia work. The only issue I had mixing cards was when dual precision cards asked for dual precision work and then BOINC tried running it on single precision only cards. That is why I had to do the exclusions in the cc_config and app_config's
 
Hold on, let me go look... Trust me, it's been pissing me off for some time!

On a different note, there's some good info out for optimizing settings files for anyone running Collatz: http://boinc.thesonntags.com/collatz/forum_thread.php?id=1115#18417 Seems like the generic setting is for very low end cards like an old AMD HD 4350 or an nVidia 8400GS. This leads to well <50% GPU usage on newer cards, which, when fixed leads to a reduction of run times and a doubling to tripling (or more) of PPD!

Update: Thanks to Gilthanis and Murphy's Law, I came up and reattached GPUGrid to get the error message, and it actually began downloading a WU! Go figure...
 
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Jathanis said:
Hold on, let me go look... Trust me, it's been pissing me off for some time!

On a different note, there's some good info out for optimizing settings files for anyone running Collatz: http://boinc.thesonntags.com/collatz/forum_thread.php?id=1115#18417 Seems like the generic setting is for very low end cards like an old AMD HD 4350 or an nVidia 8400GS. This leads to well <50% GPU usage on newer cards, which, when fixed leads to a reduction of run times and a doubling to tripling (or more) of PPD!

Update: Thanks to Gilthanis and Murphy's Law, I came up and reattached GPUGrid to get the error message, and it actually began downloading a WU! Go figure...
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Good to know Jathanis. I'm glad you got GPUGrid working. You will be pleased with the points payout. Collatz looks to be going the PITA route. I have a feeling my PPD there will dwindle as I'm getting to the point of not wanting to tweak and babysit every time there is an "upgrade". Whatever happened to the set and forget days of BOINC....
 
Physics@home website is hacked yet again and pointing to a malicious website.
 
Gilthanis said:
Good to know Jathanis. I'm glad you got GPUGrid working. You will be pleased with the points payout.
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Heh, looks like I spoke too soon - I got the usual 1 WU when attaching a project via BAM! last night, but now all I'm getting is "Project isn't highest priority." I've set the project to 256 priority when all my other projects are 192, 128 or 64 (yes, I know those numbers mark me as a total geek...), but nothing so far. I'm hoping that as it runs out of the last two Seti beta WUs and the GPU goes dry, it might get something...

EDIT: I tried detaching and reattaching the project, and got one new WU like usual. Hit Update and got one more - so I may have finally found success! Keep your fingers crossed...
 
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Ok guys Grandpa needs some help, thanks to Kai I have this new 770 Classified, (Thank you Kai) and I put it in alongside one of the GTX 680's in a Windows 7 rig updated to the latest drivers and fired up GPUGrid the 770 started crunching the problem is the 680 did not. I shut down boinc and started F@H v7 and set up 2 GPU's they both started folding no problem. I am sure this is just a config problem that I have no idea of how to fix it or where the config file is. Anybody have a guide they could point me to where I would not look so dumb about this little problem. :confused:


Edit Yea never mind I found it both are running now :)
 
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So I was bored and playing with custom badge sites, and came up with this:

sig-775.png


Thought it looked like it was [H]ard enough to blend right in here... :D Couldn't quite get the Orange text right, but that was the best they had without getting too yellow!
 
This was posted at PrimeGrid

If you've been having trouble getting BOINC tasks on Primegrid or other projects for your new AMD r9 280x and similar GPUs, there may be a fix.

Please see this discussion for details.

In short, you'll need to upgrade to at least version 7.2.39 of the BOINC client (which can be downloaded here), and you'll need the AMD APP (which can be downloaded here.)
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http://www.primegrid.com/forum_thread.php?id=5523#73408
 
Granpda; I'm glad you've been able to get things up and running, that's awesome. I hope the thing is fast enough for you! I think it should be able to do a few GPUGrid WU's in a few days time or so yeah?? ;)
 
I think I have my 780ti almost dialed in for GPUGRID. Long runs are averaging 19.5k -20k seconds and for short runs my best was 6097 sec.
 
This was taken from their forums:

I have to pause the project at the moment for few reasons.

I'm quite busy now on my work, can't find enough time to work with project application to solve stability problems... Also, I found that with current way of how project work, we can search whole Internet in few hours which is great result but also this give back tons of results - proper way to clear this data is hard task for current server and I need to find way to sort this out as well.

I will inform you as soon as I solve this but that can takes months with current quantity of time I can spend on project...
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http://plagiarism.boincpolska.org/plagiarism/forum_thread.php?id=43#311
 
Here is an update I received via email.
Hello!

I'm Henri Heinonen from a BOINC project called Bitcoin Utopia.

Our Master URL has changed.
The old URL was: http://www.bitcoinutopia.com/
The new URL is: http://www.bitcoinutopia.net/bitcoinutopia/

If you are still attached to the old URL, please detach, and then attach to the new URL. Also notice, that the top level domain is now ".net", not ".com" anymore.

We are currently sending workunits for a 64-bit Linux CPUMiner. If you want to participate you need to enable test applications.

PS. The "old" site, http://www.bitcoinutopia.com/, will have the crowd-donation campaign pages. The BOINC server (.net) is meant to be the main funding source for the campaigns...

Yours sincerely, Henri Heinonen.
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Feb 10th
Back to topic...

The URL to our Test Server is: http://int-boinctest.int.kit.edu/poem
You can attach to this server by adding the URL manually in the "Add project or account manager..." dialog in your BOINC manager (you'll have to use the advanced GUI).

At the moment there is only a Linux version for the new POEM binary, so you won't get any workunits when attaching Windows hosts.
The Win executable will be added at the end of this week (hopefully).

We are currently only serving new OpenCL test jobs, so you won't get any work for your CPU.

Please note:
The Test System does not fulfill the security standards of our Live Server. The distributed files come with no warranty and are not properly signed, so attach on your own risk.
Credits will not be realistic and not have a meaning. This project should not be listed by BOINC Stats and similar websites.

Thanks in advance for your help!
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Feb 12th
It's no problem if you have crunched more tasks, it just isn't necessary.
I've limited the cache size for clients on the Test Server, so I hope the few jobs are better distributed now. I don't want to send out more jobs, because as I already mentioned they won't be evaluated.

I've just set up some of the known fastfolding jobs to test the compatibility.
To minimize efforts in the future, we're trying to merge the CPU and GPU binary for the coming release. That means it's essential to run CPU tests with this app.
Just to forestall false hopes: It doesn't mean our current CPU jobs will run on GPUs, they're only running with the same executable.

The most important questions:
- Is the CPU application running properly on a system without any GPU and without an installation of any OpenCL libraries / drivers?
If you're crunching with such a computer and fastfolding jobs validate, please let me know.

- Are there runtime differences in comparison to the stable poempp version?
If you experience big slowdowns for identical work unit types in contrast to the Stable Server on any system, please let me know.

Thanks again for your active participation in these tests!
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BOINCStats has retired Plagiarism until they return. I have also updated the All Inclusive DC Project list.
 
BitcoinUtopia now has a working Linux application. I think it is CPU based and is crunching AltCoins instead of Bitcoin.

http://www.bitcoinutopia.net/bitcoinutopia/forum_thread.php?id=138#584

Actually, this is mostly about Scrypt-based cryptocurrencies (litecoin, dogecoin, lottocoin, fedoracoin, etc.): https://www.multipool.us/

If/When we add FPGA/ASIC support, we could do SHA256 mining (bitcoin, terracoin, etc.), too...

Henri.
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I will update the All inclusive DC Projects list when they finish their testing.

Also, http://www.bitcoinutopia.net/bitcoinutopia/forum_thread.php?id=137#549

Hi!

Yes, my plan is to reintroduce CGMiner (the latest version w/o GPU support, because GPU mining SHA256-based cryptocurrencies is not very useful). I'm planning to introduce CGMiner for FPGA/ASIC machines...

Henri.
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http://boinc.thesonntags.com/collatz/forum_thread.php?id=1121#18534

Testing is finishing up on the Collatz v6.xx application for CUDA. Before I release it, I'd like your opinion on how I should configure the scheduler on the server. Should it:

a) Send the CUDA if available and only send an nVidia OpenCL version if there is no CUDA version for the platform

b) Send the nVidia OpenCL version if available and only send the CUDA version if there is no nVidia OpenCL version for the platform

c) Let the BOINC client learn which is faster over time

Note: The CUDA application uses less than 1% CPU whereas the OpenCL versions use considerably more - sometimes up to 80%.
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Borged another Laptop (SONY Vaio) for another 4 very part time cores for the cause.
 
What's the deal on the correct way to set up BOINC on multiple machines? I set up the 2nd machine like I did the 1st but it got everything wrong. This machine only has 4 actual cpu cores (Q6600) and a single NVidia card (550Ti). Boinc Manager loaded up 6 instances of WCG, I only want 3. And it loaded 2 instances of GPUGRID, I only need 1. My 1st machine has a 2600K cpu and dual 560Ti cards.
 
Have you taken a peek at your cache settings? What is BOINC estimating the run times to be vs. what you have set as cache?


Oh...and not all work units are the same size. Especially at WCG, so you could have downloaded 2 longer running work units and a couple shorter running ones. BOINC manager isn't super smart when learning estimated run times when work units from the same sub project can vary.

And when you say it loaded up 6 instances, is it running 6 or just running 4 of the 6?
 
It's only running 3 instances of WCG. The other 3 are just waiting. GPUGRID is waiting till tonight to download wus. The 2 instances are doing nothing right now. The BOINC Stats page isn't showing info for the cpu on the 2nd machine. Part of the issue might be things won't get straightened out until tonight when BOICN Manager can communicate with the server. If this gets fixed I have another machine to set up. An 8 core server.
 
Well..depending on your cache settings and how long BOINC guestimates the run times, it may very well have work units sitting in "ready to start" or "waiting to run" status.

Which BOINC Stats page are you referring to? www.boincstats.com or one of the individual project's pages? Post a link if you can and I would be happy to take a glance at the page.
 
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