Testing of BOINC version of theSkyNet

[tazzduke]

Greetings Kashi

Thankyou for your input, has given me a new understanding.

Regards
Tazzduke

[kashi]

Ah yes, but POEM GPU is an extreme case. It needs more CPU than any other released GPU project. So much so in fact that if you wanted to do the maximum amount of work and were not concerned with also supporting some CPU projects, then the greatest efficiency is achieved by not running any CPU projects at all! This is rather revolutionary for BOINC in a sense as previously GPU projects were considered as an addition to CPU projects on multi core computers not as a stand-alone crunching concept.

As you are aware there are some GPU applications where CPU usage is very small, mainly the ATI/AMD ones based on CAL/Stream originally optimised with IL code by Andreas Przystawik such as Collatz and MilkyWay.

Even though one of the POEM GPU developers states: "our application can not run on GPUs only, but also needs CPU calculations between GPU steps. This is a major difference to other GPU projects hosted by BOINC, and causes the non-optimal usage of GPU and CPU by bandwidth limitations", I still believe the POEM application was developed on older previous generation GPU hardware and could be improved to better utilise recent more powerful GPUs by modifying a combination of sleep time, chunk size, kernel calls, etc. so as to reduce CPU throttling thereby increasing GPU load percentage and increasing efficiency. User adjustable parameters to enable fine tuning the GPU application to suit different hardware and user needs would be great but unfortunately are very unlikely to be provided. It appears as though it took them so long to develop the application that they are now reluctant or have insufficient resources to even attempt improving or refining it.

[JugNut]

My god Kashi every time I think i've made one step forward about understanding parts of Boinc I read one of your posts & realize i've not scratched the bloody surface.

I despise butt kissers but credit where credits due my friend "you rock"

Maybe you could suggest a "Boinc for dummies book" for the thick as a brick type such as me.

[Dingo]

Kashi -  Thank you for the explanations for this topic and for the many you have given in the past.  You are a valuable member of the team and able to explain things much better than myself.  I may know what you are saying but cannot say it in such an elegant and straight forward way as you do.  +1 for your participation in the Team and the forum.

[kashi]

Aw shucks, thank you both. :blush1:

There are many who know a lot about BOINC but do not have either the time or the inclination to explain it in detail. I have taken a great interest in the development of GPU applications and have been privileged to be able to help some of the developers by testing and reporting on development versions of GPU application versions. The detailed workings of the BOINC program code itself still baffle me often however even after all this time. biggrin

I have not been able to spend much time on the forum in the last few months due to my mother's illness. She has been in various hospitals for the last ten weeks since an operation to repair a massive hiatus hernia in June. Will be off to visit her again in an hour at Berkeley Vale which is about 30-40 minutes north of here. She has improved greatly in the last 2 weeks and should be coming home in about 10 days.

Had a mini drama here yesterday, when I got up I could hear the water running strongly and thought my brother was in the shower. So I'm eating my breakfast thinking, "the bastard has been in there a long time, he'll use all the hot water again." Meanwhile he was out on the back verandah playing with next door's cat and had been thinking the same thing about me. Turns out we had a burst water pipe connection along the side of the house. The plumber was cursing when he discovered someone had used a section of inferior grade white plastic pipe, instead of some better quality black plastic or copper pipe. He is based a long way away from here and did not have the special connector needed in his truck so went off to a local supply company to get one. They did not have one as they are rare now, so he had to put in a new section of copper pipe. We were thinking it was going to cost a fortune since it all took about 3 hours but he only charged $200. So all's well that ends well.  

[Dingo]

Hope all goes well with you mother and she gets well soon.  Mothers are very special people and I miss mine very much since she passed two years ago.

I to had a broken water pipe in my backyard a couple of weeks ago.  The plumber was to come back and fill in the hole when it dried out.  Although I have called him a couple of time he has not shown up to fill it in.  I am not complaining too much as he has not sent a bill either.  If the bill arrives and the hole is not filled in I will call him again.   I do not have any shovels or I would fill it in but I think I will wait a while for the plumber.

[tazzduke]

Greetings Kashi,

This is a carry on from my previous post, as now I dont have two little ones screaming for my attention.

+1 for your responses, I am still in early days on the learning curve with BOINC and its charms. 

Am glad to see that when the questions are put out to the members, we get answers that come across from different perspectives which makes this forum rock.

Wishing your mum all the best on her road to recovery

Regards
Tazzduke

[JugNut]

As the others have mentioned, I also wish your mum a full & speedy recovery mate.

All the best ..JN..

[Mike Mitchell]

Thanks Lawry, I grabbed a few. Plus one for the heads-up.   

[JugNut]

Yea thanks Lawry, 

I wish I would have seen your post a tad earlier though.   Oh well such is life.    +1 Karma for your sharp eye.

[Dataman]

I put 76 threads there. That should help their stress test (and bump up my numbers  ) So far so good ... no errors and only 1 inconclusive.
:aus1:

[JugNut]

Way to get stuck into it DM   

Oh and try and leave one or two for the rest of us.. "Please"  biggrin

[tazzduke]

Way to go Dataman, I will have to wait till the end of AA31, as I have loaded up with YOYO tasks.

Regards
Tazzduke

[Dingo]

I am doing a few tasks before the AA starts and all is good so far. 

[Dataman]

@Dataman.  Only 76 threads?  You not trying or something? Bloody hell that is only 70 threads more than me.  Go man Go!

I have a maximum of 80 but I can on run half of them on this 8 core machine or it screws up my video security system. I had to shut down some yesterday as it is just too hot here. Was 97F yesterday and 103 in the server room. I have 40 running now but will probably have to shut down around noon. It will be 97F again.
   


EDIT:  I changed the flags for the smiley so needed to change here