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World Community Grid Forums
Category: Active Research
Forum: Africa Rainfall Project
Thread: Should I keep running ARP work units? |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 8
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MarkH
Advanced Cruncher United States of America Joined: May 16, 2020 Post Count: 66 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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With a machine which can take anywhere from about 10-13 hours to run 1 ARP work unit, I sometimes wonder if I should keep running them.
----------------------------------------Am I actually slowing down progress by running ARPs, when others are running these on faster hardware? For comparison, current MCM's run about 1 hour to 1 hour and 8 minutes each on my machine, and that is running 5 or 6 at one time. Opinions are welcome.
That science of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.
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adriverhoef
Master Cruncher The Netherlands Joined: Apr 3, 2009 Post Count: 2346 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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Mark, by all means: yes.
It doesn't matter much how long it takes, as long as you return them in time. That said, the sooner the better. Since you return them within a day or - in your case - most of the time in half a day, stop worrying and keep 'em coming!  This workunit is still waiting for a wingman's completion, while everyone else is running tasks in generation 145: <1> ARP1_0033793_144_0 ManjaroLinux In Progress 2025-05-23T14:46:28 2025-05-29T14:46:28 Adri |
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alanb1951
Veteran Cruncher Joined: Jan 20, 2006 Post Count: 1317 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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Mark,
I agree with Adri; what's important is how soon you return tasks (i.e. smaller buffers!) rather than how long they take to run! Unfortunately, there are quite a few users who seem to take 4 or 5 days (or longer) to return ARP1 tasks (at which point it doesn't really matter how much CPU time they may have used per task); it's most readily seen in the completed.txt file WCG generates, where the average time to completion often sits above 3 days despite the many users who turn tasks over in under 24 hours! I'm not sure we can do much about that though... Cheers - Al. |
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Boca Raton Community HS
Senior Cruncher Joined: Aug 27, 2021 Post Count: 209 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Keep running them, even if you feel they take a while once they start. Everyone else that has replied is completely right- as long as they are returned on time, it really doesn't matter the duration of time it took to run. I would suggest that MANY of the users will take about 10 hours to run these tasks. We have systems that take 24 hours to run these once they start.
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Unixchick
Veteran Cruncher Joined: Apr 16, 2020 Post Count: 1293 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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If it makes you happy, keep running ARP. It is about being a part of something bigger. Every little bit helps.
Right now WCG is releasing a limited amount of ARP, so even if another machine could do the WU faster, it would still be waiting and not release the next gen of that particular WU. Just to be clear though, even if all ARP WUs were generated and released quickly, you have a part in this project. It is up to the designer of the project to decide who gets WUs. They make sure reliable machines get older generations to speed things up. As many have already said RELIABILITY is so much more important than speed of computation. Reliability means being able to return the completed WU within the window specified. Thank you, if you have ever been my wingman, because I'm surprised that people ask/get sent ARP and can't return them at all. So I'll gladly take an average return time, or even a really slow time as long as it is returned. Your ARP times are probably average. ARP sends out a bigger/meatier/data intense WU than MCM does. You can't compare across projects. |
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MarkH
Advanced Cruncher United States of America Joined: May 16, 2020 Post Count: 66 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Hello everyone
----------------------------------------Thank you for your comments to my post. As I am able to return the ARP work units well within the time limits, and I'm not holding up progress of the project, I'll continue to run ARPs.
That science of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.
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Sgt.Joe
Ace Cruncher USA Joined: Jul 4, 2006 Post Count: 7844 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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Hello everyone Thank you for your comments to my post. As I am able to return the ARP work units well within the time limits, and I'm not holding up progress of the project, I'll continue to run ARPs. Thank you
Sgt. Joe
*Minnesota Crunchers* |
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Mike.Gibson
Ace Cruncher England Joined: Aug 23, 2007 Post Count: 12594 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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There are 35609 units in each generation and they all have to be crunched twice. Some will be finished quickly and others more slowly. They will balance out.
There are 1,335,981 units to be crunched so 2,671,962 to go. Every amount helps. The main thing is to return them before the deadline otherwise they get crunched a third or fourth time. The slower machines are best restricted to crunching half their threads on ARP and the rest on MCM because ARP is so intense. Mike |
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