Project News - Poem@Home

[kashi]

Yes I've been following its development. Looks like it may be CPU bound again, but I kind of expected that.

For AMD/ATI after a quick look, one of the fastest is Dimitry's 7850/7870 Pitcairn and CPU time is almost equal to GPU processing time. Those who have probably starved their AMD/ATI GPU of CPU resources possibly by running CPU tasks at the same time or perhaps even using all CPU cores have a lower CPU time but a higher task time. This is assuming the test tasks were all the same length and not batches with different lengths.

Similar to the previous POEM GPU application this may mean recent model AMD/ATI lower end cards will be relatively more efficient and higher end cards will be hamstrung and need high CPU speed, high memory bandwidth and high PCIE bandwidth to try and minimise the throttling effect. Good for my 7790 Bonaire but a bit frustrating for those with higher end Tahiti and Hawaii class cards. However I'm not going to be GPU crunching in Linux so it remains to be seen if this will be similar when a Windows GPU application is developed.

I'm interested to see what the GPU load percentage is for a single task but nobody has mentioned it. Also not mentioned is if anyone has run multiple concurrent GPU tasks yet. If multiple concurrent tasks give more efficient performance then any throttling caused by CPU resource and bandwidth issues will be increased.

NVIDIA cards appear to have busy wait bug/feature as usual so you can't tell anything much about CPU usage from their figures.

The potential good news is that the GPU tasks are up to 100 or more times faster than the CPU tasks and as the tasks are the same it means GPU credit should again be generous assuming fixed credit is used. Although I'm not at all keen on the idea of CPU resource hog GPU applications, this is some recompense if you once again need to dedicate most or all of your CPU cores to the POEM GPU application to extract more efficient performance.

Regardless of any of the above the best news for me is that the work done is now for biology type research rather than for the development of OLED screens. The lack of biology/medical applications for AMD GPUs has had me doing Folding@Home for a while except for a recent little run on Einstein, so it will be good to have the option to also contribute to a favoured science type BOINC project on my 7790.;D

[JugNut]

Yep sounds good kashi.   If all things are equal I'll be getting stuck into POEM in a big way.   

    I wish I could try the linux GPU tasks, but that's not going to happen until a) I better learn Linux or b) if GPU crunching through a VM becomes a reality, until then I guess i'm out of luck. 

Maybe in an ideal future you could say, crunch GPU grid in Linux,  POGS on OSX,  Collatz on Windows ect,  all crunching on one PC in just one boinc window instance.  A boinc hypervisor type deal maybe?

Possible?  To much overhead perhaps?

In a way boinc is slowly moving that direction already.

Any thoughts?

[kashi]

Yes it would be good to split into different VMs according to which OS was most efficient on the projects you were currently crunching. I did it for a fair while crunching GPU projects on Windows BOINC and Linux efficient CPU projects on Linux BOINC in a VM.

You lose some efficiency using a VM but if the Linux application is much faster it more than compensates. However it slowed down some GPU projects unacceptably when I was crunching with 3 GPU cores. A single GPU core was fine though, although I never tried it on the previous POEM GPU application and it's likely that a very CPU demanding GPU app like that would possibly cause trouble. Of course if a GPU application is particularly CPU hungry you may be running few/no cores of CPU projects anyway even within the same OS.

As far as I know you can't use GPU project applications within a VM as the video drivers can't be emulated sufficiently, so that puts some restrictions on your flexibility as to which is your primary OS and which is your VM guest OS.

You would be able to swap things around I suppose with a dual boot setup and a VM within each OS, but I'm wary of stuff such as altering partitions and mucking around with boot managers and kyboshing the bootsector so that Windows no longer boots. Plus it's all time consuming and with only 1 computer any downtime means no work done.

I was keen to try running Hackintosh for POGS because the test OSX application Daniel was running appeared mighty fast. However he pointed out to me that it was a fast recent CPU without hyperthreading that was responsible for the majority of the speed up. I'd still like to give it a go one day if it's possible on my CPU, I just now looked at team member Paul's task times with Darwin 13.0.0 on his i5-3470S and it's smokin' fast for a 65W CPU. Yeh, yeh I know it's only 4 cores but even so it's very speedy per task. Sure to be messy, time consuming,  possibly frustrating and perhaps even a bit dodgy, for any other project I wouldn't bother but POGS is Aussie and I've crunched millions of credit more of it than any other CPU only project.  Therefore better to crunch it as fast as possible. Hmm, Snow Leopard, Lion, Mountain Lion, what sorcery is this? Anyway, looks like it's cool for cats.;D Oh no, iAtkos, MultiBeast, here comes trouble and I haven't even started yet.

But you were mainly talking about the VM facility now integrated into BOINC for some projects and I haven't used that so can't comment much with any experience. It's certainly a great idea for long tasks without checkpoints like RNA World ones. I can't remember losing a long RNA World task but it was a horror not being able to reboot or shutdown for so long. Pretty quickly stopped me doing any more work for that project once the short tasks weren't available.

I did lose quite a few yoyo evolution tasks though, often near the end. Who says computers are not sentient and malevolent, the little electrons were often plotting my demise. I imagined them speaking in underpants gnomes' voices "Quick boys, that one's almost finished and there's no checkpoints, let's cause an exception error right now, that'll annoy him, haha.">:D

I updated VirtualBox to the latest version recently and installed PCLinuxOS LXDE as my trusty Dotsch UX had got too old and was missing too many recent libraries. Was disappointed in how it performed compared to Dotsch UX and haven't used it since, next time I'll try one of the Ubuntu variants. Dotsch UX on my CPU was always nicely speedy for BOINC compared to other Linux distros, wish Dotsch would release a new version but it's been a few years now, so seems unlikely.

I must say even after all these years of part time Linux usage, it remains a total pain when you lose familiarity with its foibles. Typing sudo every time to do just about anything more than basic configuration is just flaming idiotic. Even just manually updating to a recent version of BOINC that is not in the repositories yet is so much more complicated than it should be. Got something a bit different that's not easily fixed?, why "just compile your own kernel"; come on, get real Linux fu meisters, surely it would be more pleasant peregrinating in Tartarus.;D

[Sean]

Regardless of any of the above the best news for me is that the work done is now for biology type research rather than for the development of OLED screens. The lack of biology/medical applications for AMD GPUs has had me doing Folding@Home for a while except for a recent little run on Einstein, so it will be good to have the option to also contribute to a favoured science type BOINC project on my 7790.;D

I was hoping this was the case, but I couldn't find anything regarding the new apps, where did you read it? 

[Sean]

I wish I could try the linux GPU tasks, but that's not going to happen until a) I better learn Linux or b) if GPU crunching through a VM becomes a reality, until then I guess i'm out of luck. 

You could always try running it straight from a usb drive, I'm not sure which distro would be best, which ever one supports your card well I guess...   ;D

[JugNut]

@ kashi: Thanks for your input mate as always very much appreciated.   I must admit to having to google iAtkos & MultiBeast,  but glad I did.  Interesting stuff indeed. 
*LOL* I kinda skip read your post at first & for second I thought you said "electrons in underpants talking in hushed tones"..  ???   That's one heck of a odd visual..    
I think I may have wayy to much time on my hands?   Although "speaking in underpants gnomes' voices" isn't a bad visual either.

Meanwhile back in what some call reality,  if you ever find a suitable distro or a speedy way to change between OS's let me know.


@ Sean: Yea i've been meaning to try booting from a  USB flash drive but that has most of the same problems as regular multi-booting that is the time you loose in crunching having to shut down & re-boot sort of negates much of the gains your trying to achieve in the first place.
If i'm to be totally honest the main reason I havn't tried many of these things is that i'd have to shut down crunching to try em' out,  meaning lost crunching time. 
Yea I know i'm a lost cause .

[kashi]

Regardless of any of the above the best news for me is that the work done is now for biology type research rather than for the development of OLED screens. The lack of biology/medical applications for AMD GPUs has had me doing Folding@Home for a while except for a recent little run on Einstein, so it will be good to have the option to also contribute to a favoured science type BOINC project on my 7790.;D

I was hoping this was the case, but I couldn't find anything regarding the new apps, where did you read it?  

It doesn't say it directly so you could be right, but I thought it could be reasonably deduced from what has been said in the News thread.

Firstly it says there has been a delay in the MOF simulation GPU app which is about finding carriers for a selective drug delivery in the human body.

Then it mentions the backup GPU project which is the one we're now discussing, currently being tested on the test server. This incorporates the SIMONA (SImulation of MOlecular and NAnoscale systems) code, their simulation framework as used in the existing POEM++ CPU app.

Further it is stated "I've just set up some of the known fastfolding jobs to test the compatibility." Fastfolding would relate to protein folding so the application is designed for this kind of work.

It's true the actual work units sent out are not necessarily going to be researching biological compounds or proteins, but there's no mention of any non biological related targets so far and the application includes SIMONA code as used for the existing poempp CPU application which is used for biological research. The term "gpucrystal" is not mentioned anywhere and as that research is finished now it is most probably not anything to do with OLED screens.

Finally, as a backup application for the delayed MOF simulation GPU app, it is likely to be related to their existing research which except for the previous gpucrystal GPU app has all been various types of biology research such as T3SS, peptides, hydrophobin, CASP, energystats, decoyrefold, decoyrelax, firstdrug, fold1em7, etc.

Perhaps my optimism about this is partly a projection from wishful thinking but generally the signs look good so far that it will be biology related. I probably should have been more cautious in that statement but the MOF app is coming and I know for sure about that one which made me think that this backup app is similarly biology related.

[JugNut]

Wasn't the last round of POEM GPU work to do with biological nanotube research ???

[kashi]

Could be mistaken but I thought it was for OLED screen research, I remember there was some controversy when that was revealed, some were aghast and upset that it wasn't biology related like all other POEM applications.

@JugNut earlier post: Haha, yeh I also knew nothing about iAtkos & MultiBeast until earlier today, just thought I would mention them to show where the quest for POGS on OSX had led me so far. Plus thought the name MultiBeast sounded excellent so thought I'd share it.

Have downloaded qbitorrent to get iAtkos but haven't installed it yet. Just checking it out a bit more first, never used a torrent program before, if I use one I always imagine heavily armed agents of the Murdoch/Brandis/MPAA alliance will be breaking down the door and bursting into my room the next day with "Stand up, hands on the desk, feet back and spread 'em. We've got you now, you despicable felon, we know you're about to upload copies of "SomeRubbishMovie" to the world." Plus Tooheys hackers will start using my computer as a StuxNet bot to disable Coopers brewing operations.;D
"Electrons in underpants", wow what a wild concept.

As to underpants gnomes, these hot nights with no sleep do sometimes get me raving on a bit more than usual.

Meanwhile, back in the "real" world, well at least relatively real as Buddhists sometimes say, I'll let you know if I ever manage to crunch some POGS on an OSX VM.

[Sean]

Thanks Kashi, I must have missed that, it does indeed look promising.

Also, this comment by Thomas is interesting:

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.

[kashi]

Good to point that out to everyone Sean.

Yes it's a bit different to some other BOINC test servers. Currently they only want testers to crunch a few tasks on GPU and CPU and if they complete and validate OK, then suspend the project.  So far they are only testing if it works without error on different GPU models and CPU types. It is not a more exhaustive test with testers running lots of tasks like other projects' testing.

"...The only goal is to determine if the application fails on certain CPUs/GPUs.
So when you have successfully crunched two or three work units, please suspend the project. If any work units fail, please report it..."

The results so far for the available Linux applications look very positive: "Looking at the database it looks astonishing great at the moment :)"

[kashi]

GPU and CPU test applications are now available for Windows if anyone wishes to try a few before the official start of the AA.
from this post

POEM test server to attach to is at: http://int-boinctest.int.kit.edu/poem

Most testers are reporting no problems and reasonable GPU load, although multiple GPUs setups may only work on one GPU.
I am full on POGS now so haven't tried it myself.

[LawryB]

Had a mongrel time getting into the damn test evironment under my current login at POEM, so I recreated myself (I wish) and eventually crunched 7 WUs without problem.  They validated but only took 48-50 seconds per work unit.  These are obviously tests wus given the short duration but for 48 seconds 100 credits was awarded.  Not valid credit because it is a test but may be an indication of what is to come.  I didn't try multiple GPUs or multiple tasks per GPU because I have been running the mad cow project (MOO) and that does screw with GPU processing.

PS.  Couldn't attach to BOINC@Australia on the TEST server

[kashi]

Perhaps the test server was having trouble when you were trying to log in. It is down currently as is POEM itself.

As far as I know the stats from the test are not going to be exported so if you have duplicated yourself and couldn't join the test team it doesn't matter.

I forgot the test GPU tasks run for under a minute on a recent GPU, I'll give a few a burl later tonight if the server comes back.

Edit: Aha, because it is a separate server, BOINC considers it a separate project so you need attach as a new user. I couldn't join the test team either because it doesn't exist.;D No need to create it I think as there is no stats export and the test only involves a few tasks each.

I did 5 tasks, they took about 35 seconds each. GPU load was erratic and varied for task duration, mainly low but did spike to 100% for a few seconds. Need longer running tasks to get a better idea but on my HD 7790 running at least 2 tasks concurrently looks likely to be necessary. Running only 1 did not cause the GPU core or GPU memory to rise to full speed from idle speed. In other words, average load for 1 task is low. CPU time of 11 seconds per task for 35 second tasks is moderately high, so throttling issues may occur unless sufficient CPU resources are allocated.

[LawryB]

GPU WUs are available