| Index | Recent Threads | Unanswered Threads | Who's Active | Guidelines | Search |
 |
World Community Grid Forums
Category: Completed Research
Forum: Help Defeat Cancer
Thread: What's the real story about HDC memory needs? |
| No member browsing this thread |
|
Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 16
|
|
| Author |
|
|
Sekerob
Ace Cruncher Joined: Jul 24, 2005 Post Count: 20043 Status: Offline |
I'm starting to get a bit P'eed over this and being belittled over that Windows manages that allocation of RAM v Virtual and not HDC. The fact of the matter is HDC is aggressive in grabbing my RAM and presently, in the latest series of WU's that are again much longer than the recent past of 1 - 1.5 hours, now doing again 2.5 / 3 CPU hours.
----------------------------------------This HDC in Action B04517_ 0118_ CTMA3A1-6-16-9-c1 has per my Taskmanager taken hold of 901,836kb RAM causing swapping like crazy, cant listen to the streaming radio due stutter and browser grinding to the speed of a slug. Wazzup? thx PS, my PC has 1.5gb RAM and a fixed size swap file of 2.0gb and plenty disk space allocated in the profiles and available on disk! No material processes are visible, and no virus/smap or anything is there 100% for sure....PC ID is 34409. Edit: Corrected the RAM use number
WCG
----------------------------------------Please help to make the Forums an enjoyable experience for All! [Edit 1 times, last edit by Sekerob at Oct 6, 2006 2:23:55 PM] |
|||
|
||||
|
Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Hi Sekerob,
The RAM seems pretty standard. Some of that should be lightly used and available for swapping out. HDC writes a LOT to the disk, however. The UD version uses an encrypted stream that has been broken up into a lot of chunks (according to Rick Alther) in order to avoid monopolizing the computer. The BOINC version of HDC uses non-encrypted disk I/O which has not been broken into chunks. I can well believe that either might interfere with a streaming audio process. Which type of HDC are you running and what audio program are you also running? Lawrence |
||
|
|
Sekerob
Ace Cruncher Joined: Jul 24, 2005 Post Count: 20043 Status: Offline |
Hi Lawrence
----------------------------------------The events were under BOINC agent. The system requirements for HDC to are to bring them on hand: For the Help Defeat Cancer project, the minimum requirements are: * At least a 200MHz Intel Pentium™ processor or equivalent * At least 750 MB RAM (virtual memory should also be enabled) * 2000 MB Hard Disk Drive with at least 500 MB available for use * The ability to display 8-bit graphics at 800x600 resolution * An Internet connection with minimum 40 kbps speed * Operating System: Windows 98, ME, 2000 or XP The very bad patch happened between 5 / 15 % progress. The WU just passed the usual first segment barrier of 25% (1/4)...now on 56%....will update the end result....quorum already has 2 pending validation, and by the times already posted they seem more demanding than other recent sets: Workunit Name Status Sent Time Time Due / Return Time CPU Time (hours) Claimed/ Granted BOINC Credit B04517_ 0118_ CTMA3A1-6-16-9-c1 Pending Validation 10/04/2006 21:09:58 10/05/2006 05:40:55 3.87 22 / 0 B04517_ 0118_ CTMA3A1-6-16-9-c1 In Progress 10/04/2006 21:03:30 10/11/2006 21:03:30 0.00 0 / 0(moi) B04517_ 0118_ CTMA3A1-6-16-9-c1 Pending Validation 10/04/2006 21:01:27 10/05/2006 02:48:08 2.64 20 / 0 All my PC parms far exceed anything required here (2.53ghz) and only 1 thread at the time. Disk space i cant care less, but hands off from anything more than the agreed RAM........can dig out, but believe the operating RAM was to be 500mb and 725mb peaks was a stretch already. I previously went out to buy extra 512mb in 'donation' spirit to accommodate HDC need for peak ram points of 725mb, yet be able to work unimpaired. To me it's unacceptable that WCG starts to grab more than agreed and operates as 'see what we can push the client up to' now hitting 902mb....somewhere site is being lost. thx PS The radiostream runs inside Firefox making use of whatever.....i think the WMP extension or some macromedia/flash add-in. The station is www.pandora.com..... The CPU time it needs is about 3% if browser is left alone....a drop considering the station downloads the whole music set asap, then plays from wherever local storage occurs. Got fat 20mb pipe (tested and confirmed to be real 20mb sustained). Firefox peaked at 120mb ram in the last 4 hours with multiple tabs open, so nothing extraordinary. ADDED: 14:00 UTC The WU finished proper and was validated. The CPU efficiency for this job dropped from my normal 82.5% to 55.5%, eventually had to switch of the unbearable audio stutter..... starting WMP playing from CD no different, thus if the next one displays same behavior, BOINC will go in slumber mode when at computer or listening to radio when crunching HDC...sorry.
WCG
----------------------------------------Please help to make the Forums an enjoyable experience for All! [Edit 2 times, last edit by Sekerob at Oct 6, 2006 2:24:55 PM] |
||
|
|
Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
but hands off from anything more than the agreed RAM Note that 750MB is a minimum RAM requirement, not a recomended amout of RAM. |
||
|
|
Sekerob
Ace Cruncher Joined: Jul 24, 2005 Post Count: 20043 Status: Offline |
okay, the next one shows same behavior and at 2.3% started grabbing same 901,836kb.....swapping causing substantial user impairment. I've put all HDC now in suspend and will release again when bed time.
----------------------------------------Workunit Name Status Sent Time Time Due / Return Time CPU Time (hours) Claimed/ Granted BOINC Credit B04517_ 0245_ CTMA3A1-6-25-11-c1 Pending Validation 10/04/2006 22:03:56 10/05/2006 22:53:54 4.18 25 / 0 B04517_ 0245_ CTMA3A1-6-25-11-c1 Pending Validation 10/04/2006 22:02:24 10/05/2006 10:17:28 4.31 18 / 0 B04517_ 0245_ CTMA3A1-6-25-11-c1 In Progress 10/04/2006 22:02:19 10/11/2006 22:02:19 0.00 0 / 0 This one again shows extraordinary long times for other crunchers. BOINCview only shows efficiency in the low 60's. I'll have to close BOINC altogether now to get it to unload from memory....the price of the pre-empt option i suppose.
WCG
Please help to make the Forums an enjoyable experience for All! |
||
|
|
Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Further proof (as if it were needed) that work units vary in size (even for HDC).
I recall the HDC scientists announcing that they would shortly be trying some different procedures. That could be what you are seeing. Remember, it's not that HDC doesn't handle VM allocation, it can't. It's all done by the operating system. 750MB was judged sufficient to avoid undue paging on an average system, but WCG will review that if circumstances change. Currently, BOINC can't control memory use. However, future versions will monitor the working set, and terminate the process if it gets out of hand. This will also allow more intelligent scheduling depending on your memory capabilities and use. Early days, yet though. We'll have to wait and see how it works. |
||
|
|
Sekerob
Ace Cruncher Joined: Jul 24, 2005 Post Count: 20043 Status: Offline |
Well, maybe they should try it in the Beta framework, rather than throwing it at an unsuspecting tourist
----------------------------------------I recall the HDC scientists announcing that they would shortly be trying some different procedures. That could be what you are seeing. 1.5gb RAM and my machine is religated to W98 performance days....BOINC is off as said till bed-time or until i leave the house whatever comes first!
WCG
Please help to make the Forums an enjoyable experience for All! |
||
|
|
Sekerob
Ace Cruncher Joined: Jul 24, 2005 Post Count: 20043 Status: Offline |
Never to be caught in front of one hole (or as is said in Italian 'knowing a thousand exits", truth be told, that there are 3 d-oh
---------------------------------------- solutions (i tried). 1.Increase by one notch the priority of the inhibited user app (wimamp/real/wmp/firefox/doc app). 2. Which comes at a price to WCG, employ the global_prefs_override.xml file parameter: <cpu_usage_limit>50</cpu_usage_limit> (only works from BOINC 5.6.x) or 3. Reduce the ThreadMaster parameter to same 50. All 3 gave the same seizure and return of a positive 'user experience'. In case of 2, have to discover if there is an on the fly possibility to have BOINC read the value, if manually manipulated in the override file....need to try if project update button operation would cause that  a dopo
WCG
Please help to make the Forums an enjoyable experience for All! |
|||
|
||||
|
Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Hi again Sek.
Reading this thread has brought to mind another question.(related) I have a P4 3Ghz Prescott with 768 Mhz Ram Hyperthreaded and running WCG on one thread and BBC climate change on the other. It recently completed one of the new HDC assignments! (not validated yet, 3.57 hours) Seems like I might have been very lucky to get away with this one.... I'm unfamiliar however with just how to restrict access to critical or marginal machines within the Boinc framework using BAM as the Boinc Manager and BoincView? I feel that restricting HDC on the hyperthreaded machine and also on my main computer would be wise considering that the latter is my entertainment center including HDDTV, which is often run using 'Time Shifting' functions. No wonder I've been having trouble with it lately! Oh! I just realised these are the only two computers with more than 750MB of Ram that I have on the WCG projects so the question becomes how to not get HDC at all? Cheers. ozylynx  |
||
|
|
Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Hello ozylynx,
You have 3 Device Profiles (Home, Work, School) you can create in WCG BOINC in the My Grid - Device Manager section. Create one that only runs FAAH (and HPF2) and assign it to your smaller computers. Lawrewnce |
||
|
|
|