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World Community Grid Forums
Category: Support
Forum: Website Support
Thread: CPU/GPU |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 28
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LoneWolf_53
Senior Cruncher Joined: Nov 11, 2005 Post Count: 238 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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Without resorting to using GPUs, the obvious answer to flagging user support is to up the BOINC credits per WU on WCG. This has always been notoriously low, and a repeatedly contentious issue in user posts for years. I believe that you are incorrect. WCG follows the original standard for Boinc credits and many of the other projects desperately inflate their points. I have seen a single E8400 system with 2 cores (running Collatz) getting more than 125 times the credits as my E5200 with 2 cores. I'll give you double for the CPU efficiency and I'll give you another double for the CPU speed AND I'll give you another double for the (possible) overclocking. That's 8 not 125 times. Which project is wrong? Hard to say. [edit to change example] If WCG is following some original standard then please explain to me why it's the only BOINC project where points are 7 times more than every other project gives. BOINC shows my WCG contributions at just over 6 million whereas here at WCG I'm showing 42.8 million. If WCG were adhering to a standard would these not be the same? I mean the project runs on the BOINC client so it seems to me it would only make good sense to use BOINC as the standard rather than something dreamed up here. ---------------------------------------- [Edit 1 times, last edit by LoneWolf_53 at Feb 6, 2010 8:16:24 PM] |
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Ingleside
Veteran Cruncher Norway Joined: Nov 19, 2005 Post Count: 974 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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I believe that you are incorrect. WCG follows the original standard for Boinc credits and many of the other projects desperately inflate their points. Well, the original standard was 1 Cobblestone/day on the reference-computer, but this was "inflated" to 100 Cobblestones/day a very long time ago.  Due to the BOINC-benchmark giving claims "all over the place", many projects has instead switched to giving fixed credit for wu's. To get in line with the benchmark-claims the projects needs to adjust the credit, and there's been examples with both too high and too low claims. Still, I'm not aware of any of the released projects that's more than 2x away from that they should be, so "desperately inflate" doesn't seem to fit... I have seen a single E8400 system with 2 cores (running Collatz) getting more than 125 times the credits as my E5200 with 2 cores. I'll give you double for the CPU efficiency and I'll give you another double for the CPU speed AND I'll give you another double for the (possible) overclocking. That's 8 not 125 times. Which project is wrong? Hard to say. Since your example is Collatz, it's a fairly good chance you're not comparing a E5200 against a E8400, but you're instead comparing a E5200 against an Ati-5xxx or nvidia-2xx... As long as BOINC-projects follows the rule of "equal pay for doing the same wu", any projects there their GPU-application is 100x faster than their cpu-application, will pay 100x more credit/day to the GPU than the cpu if both runs 24/7... So, if you don't have any example that clearly shows that a non-GPU-using computer gets 125x more credit in Collatz, the pay seems to be more or less correct. BTW, you can of course argue that Collatz has a highly optimized GPU-application, but their cpu-application is hopelessly inefficient so the GPU-application wouldn't be 100x faster if cpu-application was also optimized. But, if you don't manage to build an optimized cpu-application clearly showing how much faster this cpu-application is compared to the current Collatz-cpu-applicatiion, it's no point to argue along these lines...  "I make so many mistakes. But then just think of all the mistakes I don't make, although I might." [Edit 1 times, last edit by Ingleside at Feb 7, 2010 8:30:53 PM] |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
If WCG is following some original standard then please explain to me why it's the only BOINC project where points are 7 times more than every other project gives. BOINC shows my WCG contributions at just over 6 million whereas here at WCG I'm showing 42.8 million. If WCG were adhering to a standard would these not be the same? I mean the project runs on the BOINC client so it seems to me it would only make good sense to use BOINC as the standard rather than something dreamed up here. They are called "WCG Points" (the point system starts being used by WCG well before they change to use BOINC rather than the ancient United Devices software), NOT BOINC Credits. The conversion of these two things is (approx.) 1 BOINC Credit = 7 WCG Points (Note: WCG Points earned from crunching using the UD software are not included in the BOINC Credits at the moment). So this is not inflation at all. Edit: It seems the Techs have mentioned that the WCG Point System will be abolished and all such Points will be converted to BOINC Credits (including the Points earned from crunching using the old UD software (so not counted among the BOINC Credits before the conversion)) in a near future, but I don't think that will happen until the new projects [phases] are introduced and server software is upgraded, etc. Edit 2: Fix the above equation [Edit 3 times, last edit by Former Member at Feb 7, 2010 4:10:46 PM] |
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JmBoullier
Former Community Advisor Normandy - France Joined: Jan 26, 2007 Post Count: 3716 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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If WCG is following some original standard then please explain to me why it's the only BOINC project where points are 7 times more than every other project gives. LoneWolf 53,The discussion you quoted was comparing BOINC credits (what you see in your Results Status page or in BOINC Manager) between projects. As Moonian explained, WCG points are the conversion of these credits (x7) to fit the current WCG points system which existed before BOINC. |
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LoneWolf_53
Senior Cruncher Joined: Nov 11, 2005 Post Count: 238 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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I guess I didn't articulate as good as I might have.
----------------------------------------I know WCG points are BOINC X7 but I guess the question becomes why are they necessary when WCG operates using the BOINC software? At this stage of the game who cares about UD? I crunched it for years and have no idea what my stats were nor do I care. I'm simply saying it makes more sense to not have WCG points but to use BOINC credits as does every other project to be found. My concern is that I see more and more people losing interest in WCG and I do feel it is one of the best options for biomedical research. I also consistently see heavy weight crunchers complaining about WCG paying less than other projects running the same hardware. I don't profess to grasp the finer workings of how point/credits are awarded however there must be something to it since so many seem to be put off. If adjusting the way points/credits are awarded to bring them more in line with other competing projects then why not adjust it? It's simply an arbitrary thing anyway and not as though people are asking for a raise in cash. If it appeases heavy weights and keeps them here then I would think it's all for the good. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
I guess I didn't articulate as good as I might have. I know WCG points are BOINC X7 but I guess the question becomes why are they necessary when WCG operates using the BOINC software? At this stage of the game who cares about UD? I crunched it for years and have no idea what my stats were nor do I care. I'm simply saying it makes more sense to not have WCG points but to use BOINC credits as does every other project to be found. My concern is that I see more and more people losing interest in WCG and I do feel it is one of the best options for biomedical research. I also consistently see heavy weight crunchers complaining about WCG paying less than other projects running the same hardware. I don't profess to grasp the finer workings of how point/credits are awarded however there must be something to it since so many seem to be put off. If adjusting the way points/credits are awarded to bring them more in line with other competing projects then why not adjust it? It's simply an arbitrary thing anyway and not as though people are asking for a raise in cash. If it appeases heavy weights and keeps them here then I would think it's all for the good. Well, as the Techs have already got loads of stuff to do currently, the WCG Points-->BOINC Credits conversion won't be among the jobs with the highest priorities in their to-do list. But this will get done eventually, so just be patient  |
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Roger vanderseypen
Cruncher Joined: Jul 20, 2009 Post Count: 1 Status: Offline |
hi,
i would like to congratulate WCG for their projects, the only thing i feel sorry for is that due to the non standard towards the other projects, (or the other projects not being in the standard of WCG, :):) more computers are rather busy on other projects then WCG. i really hope there will be soon a GPU enabled app for WCG, you can count me in and some of my team members. ps:ask advice to the others, it is all about combining the knowledge in favor of humanity. regards, roger |
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Hypernova
Master Cruncher Audaces Fortuna Juvat ! Vaud - Switzerland Joined: Dec 16, 2008 Post Count: 1908 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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I am absolutely convinced that when WCG will be GPU enabled we will get much more participants as they will be able to make full use of their crunching power, and rack a maximum number of points. I now that in terms of Boinc credits WCG does not pay well compared to some other projects. I am one of the frustrated ones at the moment as I cannot use all my GPU's at WCG.
----------------------------------------I know very well that it is complicated and time consuming to develop the right software that will work across the PC world and maybe we do not have the resources for that. Developing new WCG projects is already very time consuming. This is why I do not want to blame too much the tech's. But I hope that in their spare time they work on it. Keep fingers crossed   |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
 I too would allocate more of my $$ in electrical, computer, GPU costs if WCG would adopt a GPU standard. I very much like my reduction in electrical cost and increase in output running GPU's. It is simply a cost thing just like businesses. Whoever pass attention to my costs, will get my help, reguardless of where I may want to help. Oddly alot of us look at TCO per output. Please get after it. I am only a 3.5 mil total output overall. But easily in the upper end of steady, stable, and always paying my dues to this world on these projects. Understand we watch the bottom line too. Best of luck, find many solutions!!! |
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fnordius
Cruncher Joined: Mar 25, 2010 Post Count: 1 Status: Offline |
I agree that GPU support would help immensely.
Let's say that I'm running an Athlon 64 3700+ CPU on projects here. That's 2.98 GFLOPs/89 watts = 33.5 MFLOPs/watt Running the same thing on my ATI 4350 card: 92 GFLOPs/22 watts = 4182.8 MFLOPs/watt The GPU is 124.8 times as efficient per watt. I feel very good about using it, relative to the ugly carbon footprint of my CPUs. |
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