To all folders "Folding Forum" needs your help

Upcoming changes to bigadv threshold
by kasson » Tue Dec 17, 2013 8:43 am

We have a policy of periodically re-evaluating the bigadv program, including the threshold required to run bigadv projects.
It is the intent of bigadv to match large and resource-intensive work units with some of the most powerful machines used by FAH donors. This "most powerful" line naturally advances with computing power. To date, bigadv has been a CPU-based program, and with increasing numbers of CPU cores and power of those cores, we have decided to lay out a roadmap of bigadv threshold changes for the next several months.

Feb 17 (two months from today): bigadv threshold will become 24 cores
Apr 17 (four months from today): bigadv threshold will become 32 cores

We want to give advance notice of these changes, and we recognize that change is not always welcome or comfortable. We should also emphasize that the science performed by donor machines is valuable in all parts of the FAH project, and part of the change in bigadv threshold is because we would like to encourage moderately powerful machines to help boost the capabilities of non-bigadv SMP projects where we do a lot of this science.

We also recognize that core count is not the most robust metric of machine capability, but given our current infrastructure it is the most straightforward surrogate to evaluate.
Click to expand...

It appears to me many are reading more into this than is intended, at least that is the way it seems to me and many have gone way out of line in providing answers to something that was never asked for by Stanford. What is happening is nothing more than human emotional reaction generated from an incomplete statement. I do not see anywhere that it says there is a huge backlog or that they want bigadv capable rigs to switch to smp at this time.

We have a policy of periodically re-evaluating the bigadv program, including the threshold required to run bigadv projects.
It is the intent of bigadv to match large and resource-intensive work units with some of the most powerful machines used by FAH donors. This "most powerful" line naturally advances with computing power. To date, bigadv has been a CPU-based program, and with increasing numbers of CPU cores and power of those cores, we have decided to lay out a roadmap of bigadv threshold changes for the next several months.

Feb 17 (two months from today): bigadv threshold will become 24 cores
Apr 17 (four months from today): bigadv threshold will become 32 cores
Click to expand...

I see nothing here that says they are doing anything other than attempting to lay out a roadmap for future bigadv qualifications. Could have this road mapping have been done better ? (YES) hopefully they are working on that. But they are doing what they said they were going to do several months back and attempting to give a heads up. And let’s face it Bigadv was and is designed for the most powerful machines and unfortunately most of the 2P rigs do not fall into that class.

We want to give advance notice of these changes, and we recognize that change is not always welcome or comfortable. We should also emphasize that the science performed by donor machines is valuable in all parts of the FAH project, and part of the change in bigadv threshold is because we would like to encourage moderately powerful machines to help boost the capabilities of non-bigadv SMP projects where we do a lot of this science.
Click to expand...

I do not see where it says they need us to switch over to smp from bigadv or anything else for that matter, This is just shear panic caused by people not reading what was written and listening to others who did not read what was written it is the proverbial (snowball rolling down hill) who on earth from PG asked us to switch our machines to smp if Stanford wanted more machines running smp they will take the appropriate steps to either entice us or force us. Hopefully not the second I doubt that would accomplish the desired effect.

Also I would say the title of this thread is appropiate because it is people at the FF who are asking for the switch not Stanford.
 
It was not Stanford asking for the switch, just Bruce @ foldingforum. That is why I ask for and feather provided a title change for this thread.
 
Grandpa_01 said:
. And let’s face it Bigadv was and is designed for the most powerful machines and unfortunately most of the 2P rigs do not fall into that class.
Click to expand...

Just curious, what would you consider to be a "powerful" 2p machine?
 
Nathion_P, I myself find many 1P machines powerful, what I believe is a powerful machine does not matter, what Stanford determines is a powerful machine does matter. And in reality they have not made that determination yet since they have not given a completion time deadline . I do know that if was myself building right now I would not be building a 2P just from what they have said about the core count.
 
Grandpa_01 said:
Nathion_P, I myself find many 1P machines powerful, what I believe is a powerful machine does not matter, what Stanford determines is a powerful machine does matter. And in reality they have not made that determination yet since they have not given a completion time deadline . I do know that if was myself building right now I would not be building a 2P just from what they have said about the core count.
Click to expand...

As much as I want a 4p machine, 2 things will get in the way, SWMBO and space
 
Grandpa_01 said:
It appears to me many are reading more into this than is intended, at least that is the way it seems to me and many have gone way out of line in providing answers to something that was never asked for by Stanford. What is happening is nothing more than human emotional reaction generated from an incomplete statement. I do not see anywhere that it says there is a huge backlog or that they want bigadv capable rigs to switch to smp at this time.
Click to expand...

Disagree completely. Kasson's post contains a clear statement that the rationale for arbitrary core restriction on BA is to get more SMP work done (note Kasson's use of word "encourage", which in this case actually means "force" - ironically, something that you note in your own post that you do not believe will work). This is the central issue at hand and the key point of my earlier post, namely whether PG should be using arbitrary core limits to "encourage" (force) more multi-core rigs to SMP rather than using the points incentive scheme which PG themselves came up with.

Certainly, the rationale and/or catalysts behind PG's decision on its future policy is speculation and a secondary issue, but it does no good to ignore the primary issue because there exists speculation on potential secondary issues - nor does it do you any good to claim that because of speculation on secondary issues, that commentary on the primary issue is not meaningful.
 
Ummm by using only a part of the statement made by Kasson a person can manipulate it to mean anything they want to the very first part of the statement is very important also especially knowing the history of the bigadv program :)

I do agree it should be on TPF not core count but I have always known and I would say the vast majority have always known that bigadv requirements will continually go up. Hopefully Stanford will get a decent roadmap out for future adjustments.

We have a policy of periodically re-evaluating the bigadv program, including the threshold required to run bigadv projects.
It is the intent of bigadv to match large and resource-intensive work units with some of the most powerful machines used by FAH donors. This "most powerful" line naturally advances with computing power. To date, bigadv has been a CPU-based program, and with increasing numbers of CPU cores and power of those cores, we have decided to lay out a roadmap of bigadv threshold changes for the next several months.
Click to expand...
 
Grandpa_01 said:
Ummm by using only a part of the statement made by Kasson a person can manipulate it to mean anything they want to the very first part of the statement is very important also especially knowing the history of the bigadv program :)
Click to expand...

It is the only point in his entire statement where he provides rationale for the change. Dismissing this fact by arguing that it is only "part of" his statement is playing semantics.

Your continuing insistence on casting aspersions on those who disagree with your point of view (accusations of "manipulating" the statement, being "out of line", "not reading what was written") is even more disappointing, especially in light of the fact that you agree that an arbitrary core-based limitation on BA is not the best practice.
 
They would be better off making a simple statement such as:-

From such and such a date BA machines will need to be 4p 2011, 1567 or G34
 
That is correct I do not agree with manipulating statements we can turn anything into what we want by using a given part of a statement. I have always said that I do not agree with the core count and in reality it is a mute point it can be manipulated. The only measure of requirement will be TPF. Ignoring what was said months ago about bigadv qualifications is not going to change what was said or what is going to happen.

Many of us were caught off guard in the last qualification change myself included I was running 7 - 980X rigs doing bigadv which were no longer able to run them. I also know that my current rigs will someday be unable to run them and that does not make me happy but I am not going to blame PG for doing something I new was going to happen when I built them.

You can be disappointed in me if you wish that is your choice, I do take responsibility for my choices and actions and I choose to do bigadv, I know I will constantly have to upgrade to continue to do them and someday I will decide that I am no longer willing to do it. I will not blame somebody else for my choices though.

I totally agree with Nathan_P's statement and have said it many times.

Nathan_P They would be better off making a simple statement such as:-

From such and such a date BA machines will need to be 4p 2011, 1567 or G34
Click to expand...
 
I asked right up front @FF for an answer from PG


OK we are parsing words here.
Can someone from PG define what boost the capabilities means exactly Please?
And make clear, once and for all, is there a need for more CPUs, to be directed at getting SMP WUs done, because of some "perceived" backlog that may or may not exist?

I have yet to receive an answer.

Bruce may have plaied me when he said "please focus you BA on SMP" (more or less)

If so, the best thing that could happen is he gets what he asked for.
You have to be careful what you wish for.
You just may get it.

And at least we proved all they have to do is ask and we would help.
May be it is a start to a better relationship.

Maybe it is a waste of time.
I will give it two or three weeks to see how this shakes out.

Again thank you for hearing me out, and for all your help over the years.
 
Upcoming changes to bigadv threshold
by kasson » Tue Dec 17, 2013 8:43 am

We have a policy of periodically re-evaluating the bigadv program, including the threshold required to run bigadv projects.
It is the intent of bigadv to match large and resource-intensive work units with some of the most powerful machines used by FAH donors. This "most powerful" line naturally advances with computing power. To date, bigadv has been a CPU-based program, and with increasing numbers of CPU cores and power of those cores, we have decided to lay out a roadmap of bigadv threshold changes for the next several months.

Feb 17 (two months from today): bigadv threshold will become 24 cores
Apr 17 (four months from today): bigadv threshold will become 32 cores
Click to expand...
After this announcement I have turned off my SR-2 rig. Why? Yes because PG has made it into scrap, as they did with my 6 x 2600K rigs, my 2 x 980x rigs, and it is under two years ago. And they certainly will do the same with my 5 x 4P rig sometime in the near future. I therefore think it is direct rudely by Bruce to ask me to give up BA and folding standard SMP for an indefinite period of time, without doing anything about the bonus system for SMP. One can not avoid the fact that the most important for us (me and my team) is still to get the most of PPD for my electricity bill.

I also wondered about if bruce and 7im folds themselves, and I find that both of them have been or is very close to the zero PPD line in the stats.

For some time now I have pondered whether I should have my servers doing anything other than work for f@h, but I have not decided yet! Well, now I can sleep good to night.:D
 
Don't give up on the sr-2 just yet, depending on tpf deadlines for the new projects that come out for BA 24/32 it may still complete in time.
 
-alias- said:
After this announcement I have turned off my SR-2 rig. Why? Yes because PG has made it into scrap, as they did with my 6 x 2600K rigs, my 2 x 980x rigs, and it is under two years ago. And they certainly will do the same with my 5 x 4P rig sometime in the near future. I therefore think it is direct rudely by Bruce to ask me to give up BA and folding standard SMP for an indefinite period of time, without doing anything about the bonus system for SMP. One can not avoid the fact that the most important for us (me and my team) is still to get the most of PPD for my electricity bill.

I also wondered about if bruce and 7im folds themselves, and I find that both of them have been or is very close to the zero PPD line in the stats.

For some time now I have pondered whether I should have my servers doing anything other than work for f@h, but I have not decided yet! Well, now I can sleep good to night.:D
Click to expand...

Plus the fact neither of them have a 4P but yet feel like they know enough about the [H] 6.34 folding image to STRONGLY tell people to upgrade to v7 then argue about it, Then argue over v4 and v5. GRRRRRRRRRR:mad:.

What really sucks about the SR-2 and other P2 intel 1366 is the hexcore chips are now a reasonable price.
Maybe PG sees this and gives them their bright ideas. We will have to start to hide our threads on where to get cheap parts.

I am not going to do this for long. But if enough do it for a few weeks then everyone stops at the same time.
They may see that we can make a difference.

I wonder if they could take several SMP WUs and bundle them into one BA wu, call it a 8107 and give the same BA points. Maybe they can get more done that way.
If there is even a SMP backlog problem.
I asked again and I will keep on asking until I get an answer.
 
Bill1024 said:
I asked right up front @FF for an answer from PG


OK we are parsing words here.
Can someone from PG define what boost the capabilities means exactly Please?
And make clear, once and for all, is there a need for more CPUs, to be directed at getting SMP WUs done, because of some "perceived" backlog that may or may not exist?

I have yet to receive an answer.
Click to expand...
And from my past experience of asking questions to PG you won't either. The only answers that you'll get will be from the usual group (apologist) for PG and the FF and most of that will be in the form of berating.

Hopefully though PG will answer your question and start to put an end to this PR nightmare.
 
shrae said:
rationale for arbitrary core restriction on BA is to get more SMP work done
Click to expand...
I believe Grandpa's point was not that demand was not indicated but that there was no request to switch
from BA to SMP, per se, coming from the project (by my standards, bruce only plays a project rep on TV).

Semantics aside -- like you mentioned earlier, point economy exists for a reason and denying it makes
donors/observers not treat the project seriously.

Grandpa does bring a valid point though. Eventually, every bigadv-capable system will become obsolete.

If the project wants to retain the point incentive for bigadv-systems builders it needs to explain/prepare
donors for the inevitable. Or can you think of another possibility?

They would be better off making a simple statement such as:-

From such and such a date BA machines will need to be 4p 2011, 1567 or G34
Click to expand...
That's what I practically asked for (to provide new preferred deadlines) -- didn't get very practical
response: https://foldingforum.org/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=25411&p=253980#p253980

Lack of this information makes planning (which is something the announcement was supposed to
help with -- sic!) very difficult if not impossible.
 
Last edited:
PG is going to have to understand one thing.
The number of folders is not unlimited. They want to grow the base to one million folders.
The number of folders had dropped to a quarter million.
Most of the donors do not have unlimited funds to keep building more, of the more powerful systems.
Many who build the new G34 and Intel servers are buying used CPUs off e-bay.
Right there is shows they should be a generation behind the newest, greatest, latest development.
Maybe I am missing something. They have enough corporate donors or wealthy who can spend 15 to 20 thousand dollars on a computer.
I myself am done riding on this merry-go-round chasing points.

I am burning out, I am going to take a break from all this for a few days as I pump out a few SMP wus.
Points be damned,
 
I started folding because I was keen on the science and I still am. It is just unfortunate that the PG's PR has been, well, shaky. I am heartened that they are going to recruit a dedicated PR role, but as suggested elsewhere in the forums, I think they should get an economist's opinion on how best to implement a points system. To be honest, I don't care how it is done, as long as it serves the needs of the science and that PG clearly communicate why.

They've stated that donors shouldn't buy dedicated kit for folding but the current points system with QRB optimises for exactly that. I've seen others suggest a loyalty bonus. This might be a good way of reducing donor churn and in conjunction with a rationalized points scheme could be a winner. What we do know is that the current scheme is untenable as it stands.
 
Last edited:
MikeTimbers said:
bruce may not be a big folder like some. he folds for The Genome Collective which is one of the earliest teams in Folding. He folds as b.borden.
Click to expand...
Based on the stats from EOC with that UserID, then Bruce has not Folded a single WU in over 3yrs. If that is accurate, I'd question why he is so active in the FF. Seems odd for someone that has that kind of activity talking to Folders would at least be Folding something in 3yrs time wouldn't it? Maybe he has moved on and has another Folding ID?
 
texinga said:
Based on the stats from EOC with that UserID, then Bruce has not Folded a single WU in over 3yrs. If that is accurate, I'd question why he is so active in the FF. Seems odd for someone that has that kind of activity talking to Folders would at least be Folding something in 3yrs time wouldn't it? Maybe he has moved on and has another Folding ID?
Click to expand...
Or it's just a typo and he fold under Borden.b; same group as mentioned above and a pure guess from my side.
 
My bad. That is he. And just in case anyone should wonder why I'm posting on this subject (as MikeTimbers has also not folded for a long time) I fold and post on FF as HaloJones.
 
I am preparing a prioritized list of requests to pass on to PG, to (hopefully) fix this problem. Several of you have received PM's on FF, but everyone is welcome to PM their list to me, either here, on FF, or at Overclockers.com.

I'd like to have a list from all concerned folders who are so inclined, within a week.

We can't grow membership in the folding community if we're alienating so many of our folders.

What sends me spinning, is that second increase in BA cores required (and deadlines according to Kasson), in April. Just two months after the first increase! :(
 
Adak said:
What sends me spinning, is that second increase in BA cores required (and deadlines according to Kasson), in April. Just two months after the first increase! :(
Click to expand...

maybe they're testing to see how many people leave after the first core increase...
 
No need to do that Adak 7im wrote a letter with good solutions to all the problems.
They do not need a letter. All they have to do is read that thread, plus all the other threads in the teams forums.
You can be sure they do read them. They post on them so I am sure they have a good idea how people fee

Happy new year everyone.l.
 
Ah yes, 7im's "solution" that he mentioned, then wrote up, but never showed on the FF.

That one quite frankly, cracked me up! I don't want to drag 7im or Bruce into this, however. They didn't raise the threshold for BA, and they didn't let SMP points slip into the trash can. No, this is all about PG, and this time, they need to listen, and address this problem.
 
We should stop pointing on individuals ... Finally it will not help our "case".
But collecting once all points of concerns and suggestions into one as proposed by Adak will help to refocus again.
 
Bill1024 said:
No need to do that Adak 7im wrote a letter with good solutions to all the problems.
They do not need a letter. All they have to do is read that thread, plus all the other threads in the teams forums.
You can be sure they do read them. They post on them so I am sure they have a good idea how people fee

Happy new year everyone.l.
Click to expand...

And where is the letter? Or is so self-important he doesn't feel anyone else might have a view on his opinions? Why won't he publish it?
 
Bill1024 said:
No need to do that Adak 7im wrote a letter with good solutions to all the problems.
They do not need a letter. All they have to do is read that thread, plus all the other threads in the teams forums.
You can be sure they do read them. They post on them so I am sure they have a good idea how people fee

Happy new year everyone.l.
Click to expand...


Since when Bruce became reps for PG and 7im became reps for folders? Who approved that?
 
My proposed for a solution would be roughly something like this:
It does not cost a single calorie for PG to boost bonuses for SMP to about the same level as of BA WUs, then let them be dealt out random together with BA WUs, and this war had been resolved. I get every week one or more SMP down, so this happens in practice already today, except that they do not provide points of importance now. This would have meant that all teams were satisfied and we'd released a plethora of donors leaves folding due to nonsense. My reason for suggesting this is that today there are very few donors outside of us that folds BA WU`s which folds SMP`s anyway.

Pardon my writing, but it should be understandable yet.

NB. I now only get down the 8101 WU on all my servers, what do you others who folds bigadv get down at the moment?

Happy new year everyone.l.
 
Last edited:
My 4P has been receiving 8101, 8103, 8104, and 8105 wu's recently, with 8101 most frequent.

Bruce and 7im are not PG spokesmen, but for better or for worse, they have tried to "fill in the gaps" in PG's communications, for a long time. Hopefully, the new PR person PG is going to hire, will be able to improve the PG <====> Donor communications.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top