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Thread: Run time (computing) |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 10
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Dan60
Senior Cruncher Brazil Joined: Mar 29, 2006 Post Count: 185 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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Hello everybody,
I'm wondering what run time means in terms of computational work. By wikipedia definition I didn't find what I thought it might mean here, at W.C.G. For instance, when I read I have contributed with 2 years of computational work for W.C.G., what would such time mean, regarding my computer and the work for World Community Grid? Is that much? How much? Could it be translated into Mb, Gb or something like that? Or is it just like wiki's definition "In computer science, the qualifier run time, run-time, runtime, or execution time refers to a single installation of a given software or computer program on a single computer."? If anyone knows about it, please, guide me to a better understanding. Thank you. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Hello Dan60,
Run time is traditionally kept by the Operating System. It assigns a thread (or application program) to run on a computer for x milliseconds. Then it might switch to another thread (multi-tasking). After an hour, it might have spent 90% of the time (54 minutes) running the application. This shows up on Task Manager for Windows. The amount of time spent running WCG applications is the "run time". So after half a year, a quad core computer will show 2 years of run time, minus time spent on other programs, rebooting, et cetera. However, the recent versions of BOINC show Wall Clock Time (self-explanatory) which is always greater than run time and confuses people talking about this subject - - sigh. . . . Lawrence |
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Ingleside
Veteran Cruncher Norway Joined: Nov 19, 2005 Post Count: 974 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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Hello Dan60, Run time is traditionally kept by the Operating System. It assigns a thread (or application program) to run on a computer for x milliseconds. Then it might switch to another thread (multi-tasking). After an hour, it might have spent 90% of the time (54 minutes) running the application. This shows up on Task Manager for Windows. The amount of time spent running WCG applications is the "run time". So after half a year, a quad core computer will show 2 years of run time, minus time spent on other programs, rebooting, et cetera. "Run time" is ambiguous and is therefore not a very good thing to use, since "run time" can mean either the CPU-time, or the Wall Clock Time, and it's often unclear which meaning is really being used at any given time. When it comes to WCG, the "run time", as displayed on your status-page, can be a mix of both meanings, since the BOINC-client uses cpu-time, while if you ever ran the old UD-agent, this used Wall clock time... However, the recent versions of BOINC show Wall Clock Time (self-explanatory) which is always greater than run time and confuses people talking about this subject - - sigh. . . . The Wall clock time can be both significantly larger than the cpu-time, this is especially true for some of the GPU-applications, but the Wall clock time can also be much less than the CPU-time, as seen by example the multi-threaded Aqua-application. Displaying the cpu-time for GPU-applications, when a task can use maybe 1 hour wall clock time to finish, but only 10 seconds cpu-time, would be very confusing, since for large parts of the run the time will stand still. Also, for multi-threaded applications, the time jumping with 4 or 8 seconds for each wall clock second would be really confusing, and doesn't give much useful info. Using the wall clock time on the other hand handles both these extremes, and also single-threaded applications like WCG. As long as "processor time" is at 100%, it's mostly negligible difference between these two.  "I make so many mistakes. But then just think of all the mistakes I don't make, although I might." |
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Sekerob
Ace Cruncher Joined: Jul 24, 2005 Post Count: 20043 Status: Offline |
Wow, memory lane but to give the practical WCG quantifications as I've always defined them for myself.
----------------------------------------Run-Time: Time the client is allowed to work on a science, typically used by the old UD agent... it was equivalent to wallclock. You allowed e.g. default 60% of the cycles, but WCG recorded the wallclock time [in BOINC terms elapsed]. Elapsed is confusing because in the simple view there's also Elapsed Time which is... true CPU cycle time. CPU time: That's what is recorded by BOINC as the true time used by a science app. Depending on actually using a computer and BOINCing the spare cycles, I see night time going about ~99.8% towards computing WCG, but daytime, it can go as low as 90% and lower, which is why there is a 6.10 feature now that stops computing completely when free time is less than 75% (default setting of 25% used for non BOINC activities). The BOINCTasks 3rd party app logs both and you can see for yourself how much goes elsewhere... not to science computing. The top with CPU time in brackets, had 40 minutes going to me and the system maintenance. World Community Grid 6.11 hfcc HFCC_s2_01444630_s2_0001 14:52:14 (14:12:38) 12-04-2010 09:08 Uploading World Community Grid 6.08 hcc1 X0000077450646200611201720 02:23:54 (02:23:31) 12-04-2010 08:44 Uploading World Community Grid 6.11 hfcc HFCC_s2_01445352_s2_0000 08:54:06 (08:27:57) 12-04-2010 08:25 Uploading World Community Grid 6.11 hfcc HFCC_s2_01350656_s2_0001 06:00:28 (05:59:11) 12-04-2010 07:32 Uploading World Community Grid 6.08 hcc1 X0000077300430200610200756 02:26:03 (02:24:11) 12-04-2010 06:40 Uploading World Community Grid 6.08 hcc1 X0000077300121200610200801 02:27:16 (02:26:44) 12-04-2010 06:20 Uploading World Community Grid 6.08 hcc1 X0000077300165200610200800 02:30:41 (02:30:08) 12-04-2010 04:14 Uploading World Community Grid 6.08 hcc1 X0000077531290200611202032 02:23:26 (02:23:02) 12-04-2010 03:52 Uploading World Community Grid 6.08 hcc1 X0000077531339200611202032 02:24:27 (02:23:30) 12-04-2010 01:43 12-04-2010 01:45 Reported: Ok World Community Grid 6.08 hcc1 X0000077531247200611202033 02:27:18 (02:26:22) 12-04-2010 01:31 12-04-2010 01:32 Reported: Ok World Community Grid 6.08 hcc1 X0000077531248200611202033 02:27:27 (02:26:01) 12-04-2010 01:29 12-04-2010 01:32 Reported: Ok World Community Grid 6.17 dddt2 ts01_d192_pe0000 15:14:31 (14:36:45) 11-04-2010 23:31 11-04-2010 23:55 Reported: Ok World Community Grid 6.11 hfcc HFCC_s2_01202181_s2_0001 10:09:49 (09:50:57) 11-04-2010 23:19 11-04-2010 23:19 Reported: Ok Of course there's an FAQ in the Start Here forum but we principally don't use them. http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/forums/wcg/viewthread_thread,26026 PS: GPU time... we'll deal with that when it comes to WCG and not going to debate what I think of that measure and anything else associated with it. Funny is, WCG is actually the only 'BOINC' project that records time contributed, thus there is very little incentive to write a topic on that in the various BOINC wikis... there's this http://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/Special:Search?search=elapsed&go=Go on elapsed ;P
WCG
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Dan60
Senior Cruncher Brazil Joined: Mar 29, 2006 Post Count: 185 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Hello Dan60, Run time is traditionally kept by the Operating System. It assigns a thread (or application program) to run on a computer for x milliseconds. Then it might switch to another thread (multi-tasking). After an hour, it might have spent 90% of the time (54 minutes) running the application. This shows up on Task Manager for Windows. The amount of time spent running WCG applications is the "run time". So after half a year, a quad core computer will show 2 years of run time, minus time spent on other programs, rebooting, et cetera. However, the recent versions of BOINC show Wall Clock Time (self-explanatory) which is always greater than run time and confuses people talking about this subject - - sigh. . . . Lawrence Thank you, Lawrence, thank you people who have been answering this thread. Dr. Perryman posted a thread (Results of these FightAIDS@Home experiments ) in which we can read "the amount of data is on the order of many terabytes", and in FightAIDS@Home Project Statistics we can see the project total run time 111209:098:00:51:57. So, if 111209:098:00:51:57 represents many terabytes (how many?), it would be possible to determine the amount of information within a year run time. For instance, I run a quad @ 50% for BOINC. Now I would return to my previous post with the question: With a Run Time determined as such, would it be possible to reach the amount of data my CPU has been processing in 6 months? |
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Sekerob
Ace Cruncher Joined: Jul 24, 2005 Post Count: 20043 Status: Offline |
Data in scientists store is surely net, just 1 result from:
----------------------------------------Zero Redundant results Quorum 2 Validation, after inconclusive Quorum 3 Validation, after an inconclusive pair ... But you could get there. The answer is simple to approximate: Since the result files are pretty stable in size... 0.1Mb. Annotate the device stats today, run-time, results and take the same measure in 6 months, then subtract and multiply... presuming the device is exclusive FAAH. For flops computed, take points today and deduct from points in 6 months, then divide by 700,000 to find the tfl. Voila
WCG
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pramo
Veteran Cruncher USA Joined: Dec 14, 2005 Post Count: 716 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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Sek,
----------------------------------------[ot] Just not the same when you're on Holiday(?), good to have you back  [ot] [edit:added ot]  [Edit 1 times, last edit by pramo at Apr 12, 2010 8:52:57 PM] |
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Dan60
Senior Cruncher Brazil Joined: Mar 29, 2006 Post Count: 185 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Since the result files are pretty stable in size... 0.1Mb. Annotate the device stats today, run-time, results and take the same measure in 6 months, then subtract and multiply... presuming the device is exclusive FAAH. For flops computed, take points today and deduct from points in 6 months, then divide by 700,000 to find the tfl. Thanks  |
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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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Funny is, WCG is actually the only 'BOINC' project that records time contributed It is an excellent thing and should stay. Points are something very difficult to relate to our everydays value system of reference. In fact points allow us to compare between crunchers but to the outside world it means nothing. If I say to someone I contributed 1 million points to cancer research. So what. And to explain what a point means ... forget it. But if I say that I contributed the equivalent of 20 years of computing, he does not understand exactly what it means but he understands that this is a lot. It means computers working for 20 years. The message goes through.  |
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NixChix
Veteran Cruncher United States Joined: Apr 29, 2007 Post Count: 1187 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Hello Dan60, Run time is traditionally kept by the Operating System. It assigns a thread (or application program) to run on a computer for x milliseconds. Then it might switch to another thread (multi-tasking). After an hour, it might have spent 90% of the time (54 minutes) running the application. This shows up on Task Manager for Windows. The amount of time spent running WCG applications is the "run time". So after half a year, a quad core computer will show 2 years of run time, minus time spent on other programs, rebooting, et cetera. However, the recent versions of BOINC show Wall Clock Time (self-explanatory) which is always greater than run time and confuses people talking about this subject - - sigh. . . . Lawrence Thank you, Lawrence, thank you people who have been answering this thread. Dr. Perryman posted a thread (Results of these FightAIDS@Home experiments ) in which we can read "the amount of data is on the order of many terabytes", and in FightAIDS@Home Project Statistics we can see the project total run time 111209:098:00:51:57. So, if 111209:098:00:51:57 represents many terabytes (how many?), it would be possible to determine the amount of information within a year run time. For instance, I run a quad @ 50% for BOINC. Now I would return to my previous post with the question: With a Run Time determined as such, would it be possible to reach the amount of data my CPU has been processing in 6 months? Cheers   |
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