Posts by ITgreybeard

Info	Message
1) Message boards : Projects : Any projects needing huge memory? Message 90821 Posted 27 Mar 2019 by ITgreybeard	I happen to have an older workstation/server, but it does sport 128GB of DDR2 quad-channel main memory together with dual quad-core xeons and RAID-0 SSD system "disks". Is there any existing or proposed BOINC project whose data-stores are so large and whose read or write access requirements are sufficiently random that the project would benefit from the capacious DRAM of such a platform?
2) Message boards : Projects : Are there projects that require vast memory? Message 88082 Posted 15 Sep 2018 by ITgreybeard	Running an older machine, as I do for a home server, has its advantages. One is that large amounts of memory cost relatively little. In this case, populating the server with 128GB ddr2 costs less than $2 per GB. Are there BOINC projects that either require or would benefit from a considerable swath of that memory dedicated to them? If so, which projects are they, and what setup is recommended for best allocation, e.g. VMs vs. .ini tweaking? Thx. ITG
3) Message boards : Questions and problems : Where to post UI suggestions? Message 86999 Posted 10 Jul 2018 by ITgreybeard	It is unclear to me where BOINC might be accepting suggestions from the non-developer community. Perhaps someone can guide me to the appropriate forum. My post would be as follows below: ***** In the "advanced" user interface, we are shown three time fields: elapsed, remaining and deadline. When consulting the UI, I often sort by deadline, particularly if my workstation has been in the 'off' position for several hours or days. BOINC seems often to be smart enough to realize whether 'now + remaining <= deadline', but does not always immediately abort tasks that don't meet that criteria/ion/ium. Could I suggest that an additional display field be available, especially for those of us who are not running all machines 24x365? That field would be 'slack time', computed as 'deadline - remaining - now.' The resultant value lets a person such as myself know easily whether there is likely to be sufficient time to bring a machine down for maintenance or such, without discarding the already-accomplished BOINC computations as a part of a still-running work task, but while still meeting the deadline. i.e. It answers the question of whether (positive) slack time value is sufficient to resume a BOINC task once maintenance or away-time is complete. If the user foresees it to not be adequate, the user can abort the task(s) early, and BOINC can perhaps know early enough to assign it/them to another user. I realize that, with the current (now) time available elsewhere in the computer interface, the underlying values are already shown to us in the BOINC advanced interface, but time values as shown are hardly in convenient for decimal form arithmetic. And I could see that it could be valuable to a running project, to be notified in advance of an impending deadline miss, via a user aborting the tasks beforehand; the user's brain - however large or small - might be the only receptacle for the knowledge of vacations and maintenance and such, and the only one to make/take that decision. This is hardly a high-priority development issue, but neither does it appear to be a difficult one. Has anyone else had this notion? In any case, thanks for the consideration. *****
4) Message boards : Questions and problems : Feature Suggestion re # of cores Message 75605 Posted 1 Feb 2017 by ITgreybeard	Grazi for the kind reply. To the best of my knowledge, the several keywords I had searched on did not return that or similar posts. Your answer prompts me to perhaps peruse the source code, to get an inkling of the ease or complexity of such a modification. Again, thanks.
5) Message boards : Questions and problems : Feature Suggestion re # of cores Message 75581 Posted 31 Jan 2017 by ITgreybeard	I run several computers that are multi-core: 1 quad-core, 1 quad-core w HT, 1 dual quad-core. It would be productive toward BOINC's goals, if instead of BOINC pausing in its entirety while I use one of these platforms, I could instead specify a ramp-down to a fewer number of cores. For instance, during my computer use instead of a complete discontinuance of BOINC processing, the quad-core could drop from a specified 3 cores to 1, the quad-core w HT could drop from a specified 7 to 4; and the dual quad-core could drop from a specified 7 to 5. Has this been mulled over already? Is it feasible even? Thx. ITG
6) Message boards : GPUs : Suspend CPU but not GPU? Message 61401 Posted 4 Apr 2015 by ITgreybeard	I often run Handbrake to convert batches of video files on my tower, sometimes for 12 or more hours at a time. The work is CPU-intensive but does not make use of the GPU. BOINC (actually WCG) is set to suspend ops when the CPU load exceeds 40%, which Handbrake certainly causes. Out of its bevy of CPU-heavy and GPU-heavy tasks, I would like to make it permissible for BOINC to run a GPU-capable task, together with its .5 CPU core (out of a virtual 8 cores), during this time that the CPU load is maxed by/with Handbrake, as the overall resources pulled away from Handbrake would be minimal. Is there such a setting, or is one even feasible?
7) Message boards : Android : Log file is being truncated Message 53029 Posted 7 Mar 2014 by ITgreybeard	In my trying to determine why WCD is granting my ASUS Transformer zero credit for completing tasks, I have consulted the Event Log. But the log doesn't help because it shows only the log entries for the past hour or so, while the tasks run over multiple days, and any task completions are presumably prior to that. Is that truncation an intentional design feature or a bug to be corrected?
8) Message boards : Questions and problems : BOINC 'suspened' but progress bar keeps moving Message 46778 Posted 13 Dec 2012 by ITgreybeard	Thank you for the suggestion. As a longtime designer and coder, I would not have thought that the BOINC executive application was not engineered to be in a "command and control" position in relation to the running project code. I would have thought there to be a BOINC library module built into every project, that would allocate and grant continued access to resources, and that would report project task requests back to the executive application. If the exec app does not receive X such requests from a task per unit time, then the exec app would report the problem to a log file, to the GUI and perhaps even back to BOINC web central. I recall that method as being a simple way to complete the feedback loop on the goodness of task execution. It's possible that my machine's running - and not suspending - an IBM World Community Grid 'Help Conquer Cancer' task should have been information included in my posting, in that it is other than the Einstein or SETI project tasks that were reported earlier in the thread. Once a symptom appears across a variety of tasks, it is usually but not always the case that the problem is systemic. And the variety of GPU models would lead one to reduce in rank GPU driver or architecture as a possible causative source. Would you still recommend that this be reported to the project owners?
9) Message boards : Questions and problems : BOINC 'suspened' but progress bar keeps moving Message 46754 Posted 13 Dec 2012 by ITgreybeard	Me2 on a Win 7/64 Pro w/ATI Firepro 4800 board. BOINC 7.0.28 (x64) This condition of the GPU continuing to work though suspense is indicated does not seem to occur immediately after rebooting but rather after some indeterminate length of time. It's caused me to shut down the connected client for the remainder of my uptime session. Have seen this only the in past 2 weeks, but had been away for the 2 weeks prior.
10) Message boards : BOINC Manager : A Wish to See Task Download DateTime Message 44094 Posted 11 May 2012 by ITgreybeard	'Twould be a delight to see the date and time when a task downloaded, as one of the columns on the task tab (in advanced view). Why? It appears to me that some newly downloaded tasks are sometimes bumping out tasks that are already running, when suspension for user activity ceases and work resumes. It makes me wonder if some projects are gaming the system. Also, is it true that when BOINC is suspended for user activity, task downloads are suspended also? I have to admit to wishing that could be a separate preferences checkbox. And finally, thanks so much to the developers and admins who make this all possible! Many bows and kudos!
11) Message boards : Questions and problems : task management is useless Message 42627 Posted 19 Feb 2012 by ITgreybeard	Given the variety of client, network and server outages that can occur on both scheduled and unplanned bases, the artificial intelligence built into scheduling tasks can make boinc operate way below optimum. And on modern multi-processor systems on which multiple projects can be run simultaneously, settings such as "switch between applications" can more often be deleterious than helpful. It would be valuable to have a global switch to turn off the AI in favor of simpler prioritization by deadline and receipt within fractional project allocation. Is there a document or posting that summarizes what goals and features the upcoming boinc release strives for?
12) Message boards : Questions and problems : Unusual request for project mixing Message 36199 Posted 24 Dec 2010 by ITgreybeard	Worked a charm. Thank you!
13) Message boards : Questions and problems : Unusual request for project mixing Message 36198 Posted 24 Dec 2010 by ITgreybeard	Thank you for your suggestions. I understand the restriction of Collatz to the GPU only, and I will add the Rosetta application. The reason for the question is that the BOINC 'preferences' offers 'minutes between switching applications', from which I inferred (probably erroneously) that applications would not run simultaneously, but only back-to-back so to speak.
14) Message boards : Questions and problems : Unusual request for project mixing Message 36182 Posted 22 Dec 2010 by ITgreybeard	My ATI FirePro V4800-based QuadCore desktop is running the Collatz Conjecture very quickly on the GPU but relatively slowly on the CPU. Because I value more highly some of the biological research platformed on BOINC, I would prefer to run Collatz on the GPU only, while simultaneously (not switched) running a project like Rosetta@home on the CPU cores, as Rosetta does not run on this GPU. This appears to be an odd-enough formulation that BOINC is not geared to it. Is my understanding of the situation correct?

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