Flyertalk Cares! - The FlyerTalk BOINC Team!

[Team FlyerTalk Combined BOINC Stats on BOINCstats.com] (http://boincstats.com/stats/boinc_team_graph.php?pr=bo&id=12643)
[Team FlyerTalk Combined BOINC Stats on AllProjectStats.com] (http://www.allprojectstats.com/showteam.php?projekt=0&id=651152)

http://www.boincstats.com/signature/team_12643.gifhttp://allprojectstats.com/st651152x40--1-0.png

http://allprojectstats.com/tm0-651152-0-1-50x.png

:-: Donate your unused processor cycles for research! :-:

BOINC (http://boinc.berkeley.edu/) (Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Open_Infrastructure_for_Network_Computing )) is a program released by the University of California, Berkeley that serves as a central point for joining and managing various projects that use distributed computing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_computing).

You may have heard of the original worldwide phenomenon known as SETI@home (http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/) (Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SETI@home)), which uses the power of millions of personal computers which each analyze tiny chunks of signal data from radio telescopes for potential signs of intelligent extraterrestrial life. Whose computers? Yours! Put simply, it's a lot cheaper for a research organization to split the work up between millions of small computers (especially ones they don't have to pay for!) than it is to pony up the millions of dollars for your own supercomputer (or computing cluster)!

The typical home PC spends the vast majority of its time doing nothing. Today's powerful processors are barely taxed by surfing the web, working in a word processor, or even watching an HD video. SETI@home set out to out those unused clock cycles for something worthwhile and started a computing revolution.

Of course, searching for aliens is the most interesting (from a PR standpoint) and marketable use for this kind of distributed computing technology, but although SETI@home was the first to prove that massively distributed grid computing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_computing) was feasible, many other projects (with arguably more importance and benefits for humanity) have sprung up since, including ones that predict protein folding (which has implications for treating and curing diseases), increase the accuracy of climate change models, detect gravitational waves, and many other valuable and worthwhile scientific pursuits. (You can see a list and descriptions here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_distributed_computing_projects#Berkeley_Op en_Infrastructure_for_Network_Computing_.28BOINC.2 9).)

In order to help advance the frontiers of scientific research, all you need to do is download the BOINC software (http://boinc.berkeley.edu/download.php), enter the URL of the project(s) you want to join (you can get the URL from the above-linked list of projects), and register your account (enter an email and password).

However, a little friendly competition never hurts—and it might even motivate some people to contribute a little more. So, BOINC projects usually publish statistics for both individual users and user-created teams. Teams can be made for anything: companies, organizations, fans of a particular TV show, or (what some of the most popular ones are) members of online communities!

I did some searching, and BOINC has only been mentioned a few times on FlyerTalk (here (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/omni/704986-folding-home-use-idle-processor-time-good-cause-post8044089.html), here (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travel-technology/350291-idle-laptop-processer-time-good-cause-post8491014.html) [and a few posts below that], and here (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/omni/991728-join-flyertalk-team-world-community-grid.html)), and there appears to be no BOINC-wide FlyerTalk team (there is a FlyerTalk team affiliated with World Community Grid and Climateprediction.net, but not with any other BOINC projects, to the best of my knowledge; there is also a FlyerTalk team on the Folding@home project, which is similar but unrelated to BOINC). So, in order to make it easy to join the project of your choice and still be with your fellow frequent flyers, I've created a BOINC-wide FlyerTalk team (http://boinc.berkeley.edu/teams/team_display.php?teamid=1409), which will exist for any BOINC project (current or future).

To join the team, once you've set up your account with the project(s) of your choice, go to that project's website, log in to the "Your Account" section, look for the "Find a team" link, type in "FlyerTalk," click the result, and then click "Join this team." It's that simple! (I may get a script going in the future that allows you to join the FlyerTalk team with one click; if anyone has access to their own web server with PHP enabled and wants to help out, check out this site (http://www.boincteams.com/team-join-script) for an idea.)

If you participate in a large number of projects, it can be easier to set up an account manager, such as the one at http://bam.boincstats.com, and then join all of your projects to the FlyerTalk team at once. An account manager also allows you to remotely control your projects on many machines at once, which is useful if you have BOINC running on a desktop or two at home, at work, on your laptop, and perhaps surreptitiously installed on a friend's or relative's machine. ;)

Also, if you have a compatible graphics card, joining a GPU-enabled project (http://boinc.berkeley.edu/gpu.php) is a great way to help boost our Team FlyerTalk position! I've been letting my GPU crunch on Collatz Conjecture (the only project that works with my particular ATI GPU), and it's been helping us out substantially.

Instructions for how to do this are in the link above, but the first key is to open your BOINC client, look at the Messages tab or window, scroll to the top, and look about 10-15 lines down for a mention of a compatible GPU. You should see either "ATI GPU," "NVIDIA GPU," or "No usable GPUs found." If you have a GPU, then attach to one of the projects listed in the above link and watch your recent average credit soar!

I'm making the link to this thread as the "URL of team web page," so if you have any questions, this is the place to ask it!

Happy processing!

I'm doing the malariacontrol.net project and it's not picking up FlyerTalk yet so I'll give it a second.

Can we start a program that will actually find Delta Biz class awards at low levels? I figure it will take a few thousand computers to actually find anything. ;)

I've been involved with one or more BOINC projects since 2003.

Currently doing:

rosetta@home

Einstein@home

SETI@home

World Community Grid

Milkyway@home

The Lattice Project

I just checked on two or three of these projects and FlyerTalk is not yet recognized as a team. I'll check back in a few days.

On a side note, though, I see that I already belong to a FlyerTalk team on World Community Grid.

It's taking a bit longer than I hoped for the various BOINC projects to import the new team from BOINC. :(

A few Google searches had indicated that most BOINC projects import the list from boinc.berkeley.edu about once a day. It seems that may not be the case.

I'll post a note here when I notice it's gone through.

It's taking a bit longer than I hoped for the various BOINC projects to import the new team from BOINC. :(

A few Google searches had indicated that most BOINC projects import the list from boinc.berkeley.edu about once a day. It seems that may not be the case.

I'll post a note here when I notice it's gone through.
A few days ago, I started getting a barrage of emails from various BOINC projects telling me that my team had been created. Looks like Team FlyerTalk is up and running on a good number of BOINC projects, including SETI@Home, Einstein@Home, and Rosetta@Home.

So, feel free to join and make the world a better place!

Joined. Thanks for the bump to remind us

I logged into my SETI@Home (http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/home.php) preferences and changed my team to FlyerTalk (http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/team_members.php?teamid=140630&offset=0&sort_by=expavg_credit), leaving L'Alliance Francophone (http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/team_members.php?teamid=112230&sort_by=expavg_credit&offset=280). Our team (BOINC-wide (http://boinc.berkeley.edu/teams/team_display.php?teamid=1409), SETI@Home (http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/team_display.php?teamid=140630)) could use more of y'alls.

I search (http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_search_action.php)ed for "flyertalk" on the SETI@Home Forums (http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_index.php) and got 0 hits. I'd start a thread there, but I leave the honor to the OP.

Can we start a program that will actually find Delta Biz class awards at low levels? I figure it will take a few thousand computers to actually find anything. ;)

This is a fair amount of work but actually a pretty darn good idea!

I logged into my SETI@Home (http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/home.php) preferences and changed my team to FlyerTalk (http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/team_members.php?teamid=140630&offset=0&sort_by=expavg_credit), leaving L'Alliance Francophone (http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/team_members.php?teamid=112230&sort_by=expavg_credit&offset=280). Our team (BOINC-wide (http://boinc.berkeley.edu/teams/team_display.php?teamid=1409), SETI@Home (http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/team_display.php?teamid=140630)) could use more of y'alls.

I search (http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_search_action.php)ed for "flyertalk" on the SETI@Home Forums (http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_index.php) and got 0 hits. I'd start a thread there, but I leave the honor to the OP.

Home computer runs slow as is without BOINC, so while I used to run BOINC on it, I really don't think I can afford to do it without going mad. (Hey, it's a 5-year-old PowerBook!)

I set BOINC up at work last week, but I need to reinstall it as a service so it runs when I'm not there. (And no, I won't get in trouble--I'm the IT guy!) I'll likely play with AQUAH@Home a bit more, though, since I'm curious what some of my dual-processor machines at work can do with that (that's the only project I'm aware of so far that uses more than one core on a single work unit).

As for a FT thread on the S@H forums, what are you looking for there?

Team FlyerTalk is up and running! We now have teams on most of the popular projects, and I'm adding us as a team on some of the other projects that are not (for whatever reason) importing BOINC team data. [Cholula, I've made sure all of the projects you participate in have a FlyerTalk team, so feel free to search again.]

As of now, we are #2,633 out of 87,001 teams in recent credit and in 7,421th place overall. That puts us in the top 10% of teams! (I've included a graphic of our team stats in the first post of this thread.)

We're on our way up. Come join us!

... (And no, I won't get in trouble--I'm the IT guy!)If I were you, I'd install it on every machine in the office! Ah, dreams.As for a FT thread on the S@H forums, what are you looking for there?I only wanted to start a thread to promote our group :).

If I were you, I'd install it on every machine in the office! Ah, dreams.

Well, most of the machines are old 2005-era Dells (Dimension 3000s and 1100s) and so would be barely worth the trouble. I did install it on the few halfway modern (less-than-3-years-old) machines we have. ;) One of them even has a new video card that a couple projects (AQUA@Home and Collatz Conjecture) recognize and use.

I only wanted to start a thread to promote our group :).

Ah. Well, I'll see what I can conjure up! Time has been limited, though--I've barely been on FT in the last several weeks! Feel free to take up the reins on that project. :)

Also, I added some new graphs in the first post--check them out!

Where is
http://www.malariacontrol.net/team_display.php?teamid=2338
on the team stats?

I know Malaria Control is over capacity (they are always running out of work so I had to add some other projects)

I'd install it on every machine in the office!
I did that a few years ago for SETI@Home with our 2000-processor render farm (with permission). We were far in the lead for a long time until Intel decided to dedicate their test farm and passed us.

Where is
http://www.malariacontrol.net/team_display.php?teamid=2338
on the team stats?

I know Malaria Control is over capacity (they are always running out of work so I had to add some other projects)

I think the stats sites only pick up teams that have measurable RAC. If you look at the link you posted, it shows the team as having:

Total credit 0
Recent average credit 0

I'm not entirely sure why, since you do have credit (albeit a RAC of only 1.65). Give it a few more days (and accumulate a bit more credit) and we'll see if it shows up. If MalariaControl.net's team stats start showing more than 0 credit but the stats sites have not picked it up, then I'll look into it more.

The person who's leading in "total credits" is me (guess you all know my real name now, not that it was that hard to find :D ) -- I leave my Mac Pro at home on 24/7, and it's been doing BOINC projects when idle for quite a while now.

Welcome to new team member kendrasa!

And :cool:--we were featured in TalkMail! :D If you came here because of that mention, join the team and say hello! :)

I am on a slow interweb connection with a small finite cap on bandwith... how much bandwith does BOINC eat up?

I am on a slow interweb connection with a small finite cap on bandwith... how much bandwith does BOINC eat up?
Very little. Depending on the project you join, a typical workunit will run from less than a megabyte to just a couple of megabytes. Some of the more in-depth projects (CPDN, IIRC) may have larger workunits, but those will take many months of processing, and so you won't be downloading them as often.

I'd estimate you'd be looking at under 10MB per day, but don't hold me specifically to that number.

Just downloaded BOINC and joined team for:
malariacontrol.net
Lattice Project
Einstein@home

Not sure why I can't see "Join this team" for SETI@home so can't join for this one.

And a big welcome to matt and debonairy!

Not sure why I can't see "Join this team" for SETI@home so can't join for this one.

I went to the SETI@home website to see if I could find a page I could link to for you, but it appears you got it working, since you're listed as a new member. :)

Very little. Depending on the project you join, a typical workunit will run from less than a megabyte to just a couple of megabytes. Some of the more in-depth projects (CPDN, IIRC) may have larger workunits, but those will take many months of processing, and so you won't be downloading them as often.

I'd estimate you'd be looking at under 10MB per day, but don't hold me specifically to that number.

Well the first day it ate 140mb!!! :mad:

Oh well :p

Guess I've joined as well... just waiting for 'validation' of some data :rolleyes:

I managed to find the link eventually. Must find a team through "your account" for the link to appear.

Well the first day it ate 140mb!!! :mad:

Oh well :p

Guess I've joined as well... just waiting for 'validation' of some data :rolleyes:

And I'm on the board... at the bottom :p

Just a note: If you have a compatible graphics card, joining a GPU-enabled project (http://boinc.berkeley.edu/gpu.php) is a great way to help boost our Team FlyerTalk position! I've been letting my GPU at work crunch on Collatz Conjecture (the only project that works with my particular ATI GPU), and it's been helping us out substantially.

Instructions for how to do this are in the link above, but the first key is to open your BOINC client, look at the Messages tab or window, scroll to the top, and look about 10-15 lines down for a mention of a compatible GPU. You should see either "ATI GPU," "NVIDIA GPU," or "No usable GPUs found." If you have a GPU, then attach to one of the projects listed in the above link and watch your recent average credit soar!

I'm also going to add this note to the first post. :)

Joined team for climateprediction.net and Collatz Conjecture.
Great tip about the gpu projects. I was disappointed because I thought only nvidia was supported and I couldn't put my ati to work.

Joined team for climateprediction.net and Collatz Conjecture.
Great tip about the gpu projects. I was disappointed because I thought only nvidia was supported and I couldn't put my ati to work.
Sweet! Hope to see some extra oomph in our credit standings soon!

The other project that works with ATI cards is MilkyWay@home, but it requires a double-precision ATI card, which mine isn't. Might be worth testing on yours if you want. :)

Sweet! Hope to see some extra oomph in our credit standings soon!

The other project that works with ATI cards is MilkyWay@home, but it requires a double-precision ATI card, which mine isn't. Might be worth testing on yours if you want. :)

That was a fast reply lol. Joined team for MilkyWay@home and AQUA@home.

Turns out my ATI Mobility does not support double precision. I think the desktop version does. Pity:(

That was a fast reply lol. Joined team for MilkyWay@home and AQUA@home.

Turns out my ATI Mobility does not support double precision. I think the desktop version does. Pity:(
Ah, well. At least Collatz Conjecture works for us. Indulging the curiosity of early-20th-century mathematicians isn't quite as beneficial to humanity as analyzing stellar phenomena, but something's better than nothing! :D

Welcome to new team member kendrasa!

And :cool:--we were featured in TalkMail! :D If you came here because of that mention, join the team and say hello! :)

Hello! I just joined the project ClimatePrediction.

Hello! I just joined the project ClimatePrediction.

Hello backatcha!!

Welcome to the team.

Just a note: If you have a compatible graphics card, joining a GPU-enabled project (http://boinc.berkeley.edu/gpu.php) is a great way to help boost our Team FlyerTalk position! I've been letting my GPU at work crunch on Collatz Conjecture (the only project that works with my particular ATI GPU), and it's been helping us out substantially.

Instructions for how to do this are in the link above, but the first key is to open your BOINC client, look at the Messages tab or window, scroll to the top, and look about 10-15 lines down for a mention of a compatible GPU. You should see either "ATI GPU," "NVIDIA GPU," or "No usable GPUs found." If you have a GPU, then attach to one of the projects listed in the above link and watch your recent average credit soar!

I'm also going to add this note to the first post. :)

debonairy's recent average credit has jumped up to 1,000 literally overnight. Anyone else have a compatible graphics card?

You can join a project with a GPU-enabled application and crunch that on your GPU while continuing to crunch your other preferred projects (Climate Prediction, WCG, etc.) on your CPU for the best of both worlds!

I found out about this some time ago from Facebook and have been running some projects since. IIRC, BOINC came with some default programs (climateprediction, rosetta, and malariacontrol). Is it possible to use the credits I've gotten as "facebook user" and join a team without losing those credits? I've got about 25k credits and would love to join the FT team!

I found out about this some time ago from Facebook and have been running some projects since. IIRC, BOINC came with some default programs (climateprediction, rosetta, and malariacontrol). Is it possible to use the credits I've gotten as "facebook user" and join a team without losing those credits? I've got about 25k credits and would love to join the FT team!
Joining a team does not affect your personal credits at all, so feel free to join! Just go to the website of each project you currently participate in, log into your account, and look for the "Search for teams" link and type in FlyerTalk. Your credits will stay your own.

The thing is, I don't have an account with each of the projects. The only account I have is my facebook. Is there some way for me to create accounts with each of the projects and transfer the credits to those accounts? I believe I am technically running Progress thru Processors (this is where I got it from: http://www.facebook.com/progressthruprocessors).

The thing is, I don't have an account with each of the projects. The only account I have is my facebook. Is there some way for me to create accounts with each of the projects and transfer the credits to those accounts? I believe I am technically running Progress thru Processors (this is where I got it from: http://www.facebook.com/progressthruprocessors).

I don't use facebook so I can't help with your question but your reluctance to part with your credits make me wonder if there is a use for them other than as a way to keep score?

The thing is, I don't have an account with each of the projects. The only account I have is my facebook. Is there some way for me to create accounts with each of the projects and transfer the credits to those accounts? I believe I am technically running Progress thru Processors (this is where I got it from: http://www.facebook.com/progressthruprocessors).
Ah. I'm not entirely sure, since while that project appears to have been done in collaboration with BOINC, it seems to be separate from BOINC.

I did some searching, though, and I've seen some hints that it may be able to interface wtih BOINC. It also seems to be based on GridRepublic (http://www.gridrepublic.org/index.php?page=home). If you can log in at the GridRepublic website, which does seem to interface with BOINC, maybe we can then get your data imported into BOINC proper.

I'll do some more research into this and see what we can come up with.

It also seems to be based on GridRepublic (http://www.gridrepublic.org/index.php?page=home). If you can log in at the GridRepublic website, which does seem to interface with BOINC, maybe we can the get your data imported into BOINC proper.

Thanks for the help. I was able to poke around some under the hood and I'm now registered with GridRepublic. It doesn't seem to recognize my work yet, but I'll let it run overnight and see if it picks up then (I typically only run it when the computer idle). Hope to be contributing to the FT team soon!

but your reluctance to part with your credits make me wonder if there is a use for them other than as a way to keep score?

If only! It's mostly personal preference, I like to keep records :) Now, if these could be used for say, FF miles, then I might have a different stance.

If the credits can be converted into FF miles then team Flyertalk will shoot to the top in no time at all;)

Congratulations to Team FlyerTalk--we've passed the 1 million credit mark! ^

Congratulations to Team FlyerTalk--we've passed the 1 million credit mark! ^

I saw that ^^

Amazing...

I think SETI on one machine overheated it, and it subsequently shut itself down. It's apparently happened three times... :(

I saw that ^^

Amazing...

I think SETI on one machine overheated it, and it subsequently shut itself down. It's apparently happened three times... :(

It might be time to clean your computer because the dust built up inside may be having an adverse effect on the cooling system. I've had a laptop die on me because I put off cleaning it till the next week and the GPU got fried before I got around to it. The laptop was shutting down on its own due to overheating issues like your computer.

The best way to clean is to open up the computer and use a mixture of 50% water and 50% isopropyl alchohol. Use a clean lint-free cloth like those used for cleaning spectacles and try to use light dabs of the cleaning mixture and not make the cloth too wet. Usually the fans will be the dirtiest followed by the heatsink. Give some time for things to dry before replacing the computer case and switching it on.

Alternatively, you can use a can of compressed air to blow the dust away but this doesn't work so well for me. Hold the fan blades still by using a pencil or toothpick and try to blow such that the dust flies out instead of into the computer.

If you are using a laptop then placing a book under the side with the screen so that the bottom is angled off your desk will also help a little with cooling.

Hope this helps:)

debonairy has almost caught me in RAC--he's at just under 7k and I'm just under 8k. I fear he may soon pass me! :D

It's a testament, though, to how powerful GPU processing is. If anyone else has a compatible GPU (see my post upthread), PLEASE consider joining a project that will crunch work on your GPU. It will really help our numbers!

And a belated welcome to new team member MattKyte. :)

debonairyAnd a belated welcome to new team member MattKyte. :)

Thanks! I'm going to play around with the projects I have running, my SETI project is connected to the team but my ABC@home isn't. Any ideas as half of my processing is not being credited...

On the subject of enabled GPUs and MacPros what cards are compatible? My 2009 quad has a NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 but this isn't enabled. Also noticed with the new Flash 10.1 beta/alpha for Mac that it uses compatible GPUs as well and mine isn't on there. Maybe time for an upgrade...

After a bit of research I've answered my own question about MacPros and GPU processing. So if anyone else is scratching their head then check out this link:

http://boincfaq.mundayweb.com/index.php?language=1&view=471

Now a result!

NVIDIA GPU 0: GeForce GT 120 (driver version unknown, CUDA version 3000, compute capability 1.1, 512MB, 90 GFLOPS peak)

After a bit of research I've answered my own question about MacPros and GPU processing. So if anyone else is scratching their head then check out this link:

http://boincfaq.mundayweb.com/index.php?language=1&view=471

Now a result!

NVIDIA GPU 0: GeForce GT 120 (driver version unknown, CUDA version 3000, compute capability 1.1, 512MB, 90 GFLOPS peak)

Sweet! And thanks for the link.

After runnung with the GPU enabled yesterday I couldn't see a noticable difference on SETI. does anyone have any benchmarks of their own? My quad core, 2.66Ghz is pushing out a SETI run in about 5.5hrs (albeit 8 at a time). Jackel, what about yours?

After runnung with the GPU enabled yesterday I couldn't see a noticable difference on SETI. does anyone have any benchmarks of their own? My quad core, 2.66Ghz is pushing out a SETI run in about 5.5hrs (albeit 8 at a time). Jackel, what about yours?
Is SETI a GPU-enabled program? It isn't with my ATI, but if you have an NVIDIA, it may be. Also, completed work units are not always immediately reported. Give it a few days, or open BOINC manager, select the SETI project, and click "update." Give it a bit for your work unit results to be processed and credit granted, and then you'll see a difference.

Is SETI a GPU-enabled program? It isn't with my ATI, but if you have an NVIDIA, it may be. Also, completed work units are not always immediately reported. Give it a few days, or open BOINC manager, select the SETI project, and click "update." Give it a bit for your work unit results to be processed and credit granted, and then you'll see a difference.

You know I don't think it is a GPU enabled task, either that or it can't pick up a suitable job:

Sat May 8 18:39:46 2010 SETI@home Reporting 1 completed tasks, requesting new tasks for GPU
Sat May 8 18:39:51 2010 SETI@home Scheduler request completed: got 0 new tasks
Sat May 8 18:39:51 2010 SETI@home Message from server: (Project has no jobs available)

It seems to pick up jobs for the CPU easily.

Question for you jackal, what projects are we linked to with the team?

You know I don't think it is a GPU enabled task, either that or it can't pick up a suitable job:

Sat May 8 18:39:46 2010 SETI@home Reporting 1 completed tasks, requesting new tasks for GPU
Sat May 8 18:39:51 2010 SETI@home Scheduler request completed: got 0 new tasks
Sat May 8 18:39:51 2010 SETI@home Message from server: (Project has no jobs available)

It seems to pick up jobs for the CPU easily.

Question for you jackal, what projects are we linked to with the team?

This is a BOINC-wide team, so there should be a FlyerTalk team on any BOINC project you want to join. Some BOINC projects may not be importing the BOINC-wide team list from Berkeley's servers, but the vast majority are. If you try to locate a FlyerTalk team on a project and can't find one, post the name of the project here and I'll look into it. :)

Once again I've answered my own question about GPU enabled projects:

From the website: http://boincfaq.mundayweb.com/index.php?language=1&view=471

Projects with CUDA
GPUGrid
Seti Beta *
Seti@Home *
Aqua@Home *
Einstein@Home
Milkyway@Home
Collatz Conjecture

Projects with ATI Stream (CAL)
Collatz Conjecture
Milkyway@Home

* Windows only, Linux and Macintosh require 3rd party applications or are not available.

I'll rejoin one of the other GPU enabled Mac projects and see what the performance is like. Will report back.

This is a BOINC-wide team, so there should be a FlyerTalk team on any BOINC project you want to join. Some BOINC projects may not be importing the BOINC-wide team list from Berkeley's servers, but the vast majority are. If you try to locate a FlyerTalk team on a project and can't find one, post the name of the project here and I'll look into it. :)

I was having trouble before with Einstein but that seems to be fixed now I've detached for a week or so and rejoined. It's now reporting I can join the FT group.

So an update for anyone running a Mac and Cuda. Based on what I found yesterday it's very difficult to actually find a Mac enabled Cuda project and work unit. I've had to update my Mac Boinc client to 6.10.51 (which is a beta) to get Einstein to stop barking about my client being out of date and for it to finally throw down a work unit (which is going well). When you're attaching to a new project be careful as you'll see which projects are enabled for GPU support however I've found a few of them do not support a Mac yet. Check out their websites before starting. The list I posted earlier from another site highlighted this but when I connected to Collatz I found there were multiple Mac problems and had a number of computation failures.

So an update for anyone running a Mac and Cuda. Based on what I found yesterday it's very difficult to actually find a Mac enabled Cuda project and work unit. I've had to update my Mac Boinc client to 6.10.51 (which is a beta) to get Einstein to stop barking about my client being out of date and for it to finally throw down a work unit (which is going well). When you're attaching to a new project be careful as you'll see which projects are enabled for GPU support however I've found a few of them do not support a Mac yet. Check out their websites before starting. The list I posted earlier from another site highlighted this but when I connected to Collatz I found there were multiple Mac problems and had a number of computation failures.
My Mac is an ancient PowerBook G4 that most definitely doesn't have a compatible graphics card, so that one is stuck chugging along with normal workunits.

I had to throttle back the GPU processing on my work machine, as others use it when I'm not there and were complaining about its sluggish feel.

I'm sure others here have compatible graphics cards--if they were to take the 5 minutes to research and join a project that works with their machines, Team FlyerTalk could easily end up in the top 100 teams! :D

I'm sure others here have compatible graphics cards--if they were to take the 5 minutes to research and join a project that works with their machines, Team FlyerTalk could easily end up in the top 100 teams! :D

Good point which raises another question (I'm good at asking questions and with my recent track record I'll probably answer my own question in about 5-10mins). Q. How does BOINC calculate RAC/rankings? Do some projects give a higher credit than others? For instance are some projects worth more than others relative to the time spent? Looking at the stats some of RAC coming through Collatz seem to get really high scores (debonairy!).

Good point which raises another question (I'm good at asking questions and with my recent track record I'll probably answer my own question in about 5-10mins). Q. How does BOINC calculate RAC/rankings? Do some projects give a higher credit than others? For instance are some projects worth more than others relative to the time spent? Looking at the stats some of RAC coming through Collatz seem to get really high scores (debonairy!).
The doling out of credits should be relatively consistent per processing unit between all projects.

Theoretically, 10 hours of processing on S@H should give you the same credit as 10 hours of processing on E@H or MW@H or any other project.

However, some projects' applications are written to take advantage of extra things on processors or are optimized for more efficient calculation. Some applications use extended featuresets (SSE2, SSE3, etc.) to process more data per processing cycle. Any of these will give you a bit more credit per unit of time.

And then, of course, there are GPUs, which are phenomenally efficient at certain types of processing (GPUs are massively parallel processors). 10 hours of GPU processing can process a LOT more data than 10 hours on a CPU--if it's the right kind of data. That's why Collatz gives such a huge amount of credit.

As for how BOINC calculates RAC, I'm not sure, but I'm sure it's explained on the BOINC website or in some forums somewhere. I do recall reading that if your computers are completely inactive, your RAC drops by 50% each week, so it may be some sort of logarithmic scale...

Thanks for the description ^ I've managed to leave the Mac on for a couple of days now so things are moving up here but I'll be out soon and the wife will kill me for leaving it on so things will dip off for a short while...

Thanks for the description ^ I've managed to leave the Mac on for a couple of days now so things are moving up here but I'll be out soon and the wife will kill me for leaving it on so things will dip off for a short while...
Turn the screen off. ;)

Or attempt to convince her that leaving it running all the time actually reduces wear and tear on the machine, since the parts are not repeatedly expanding and contracting from constant heating up and cooling down. (Hey, there is some truth to that! :D)

Jumping in on this. Starting w/ SETI, s/b adding a few others later on this week.

Jumping in on this. Starting w/ SETI, s/b adding a few others later on this week.

Great! Welcome to the team! ^

Turn the screen off. ;)

Or attempt to convince her that leaving it running all the time actually reduces wear and tear on the machine, since the parts are not repeatedly expanding and contracting from constant heating up and cooling down. (Hey, there is some truth to that! :D)

Truth, yes but I'll think I'd rather outsource that message giving to you jackal!

Uh oh, boss discovered BOINC running on his computer. :eek: Fortunately, I was able to convince him that donating computer cycles to cure cancer was a worthy cause... ;)

Uh oh, boss discovered BOINC running on his computer. :eek: Fortunately, I was able to convince him that donating computer cycles to cure cancer was a worthy cause... ;)

:eek:

Similar thing was discovered @ home... and a reinstall of boinc on my laptop did not fare well (and have not had time to troubleshoot it yet)...

Finally have it figured out how to attach projects to the project manager. Now I can get my work & other misc home computers running this BOINC. Any programs you recommend? The website & project descriptions aren't very user friendly outside of the SETI one.

Finally have it figured out how to attach projects to the project manager. Now I can get my work & other misc home computers running this BOINC. Any programs you recommend? The website & project descriptions aren't very user friendly outside of the SETI one.
Here are some decent lists of various projects:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_distributed_computing_projects#Berkeley_Op en_Infrastructure_for_Network_Computing_.28BOINC.2 9
http://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/Project_list

At the top of the first post (in the stats graphics), you can see what many of the rest of us are running, but I'm sure you'll find something you enjoy contributing to in one of those links. :)

Congratulations, Team FlyerTalk--we've passed the two million credit mark! This puts us in 3,836th place out of 87,498 other teams. And believe it or not (largely thanks to debonairy's willingness to use a GPU-enabled project--hint, hint!), we are #549 out of 87,555 teams in recent credit. If even one more person adds a GPU-enabled project, we have a shot at getting into the top 100!

Wow congratulations to everyone. We're really moving forward now.

debonairy what are you packing there? 22k RAC is impressive!

Congratulations everyone!

My CPU is i7-720qm and GPU is ATI mobility radeon hd5870.

My CPU is i7-720qm and GPU is ATI mobility radeon hd5870.

In a laptop right? That is really packing out the units! Makes my MacPro look like toast...

Just stumbled on this today and loaded up the program. My laptop is a few years old but every little bit helps!
^ to the everyone for getting this team going!

Just stumbled on this today and loaded up the program. My laptop is a few years old but every little bit helps!
^ to the everyone for getting this team going!

Agreed.

Thanks.

Just stumbled on this today and loaded up the program. My laptop is a few years old but every little bit helps!
^ to the everyone for getting this team going!

Welcome!

In a laptop right? That is really packing out the units! Makes my MacPro look like toast...

Yes its a laptop. Bought it about 3 months ago. I suspect most people don't need one as fast or as big(17.3").

Welcome wonderbret!

Yes its a laptop. Bought it about 3 months ago. I suspect most people don't need one as fast or as big(17.3").

It must be on fire too based on your stats! Must get myself a new graphics card...

I just got an email: we are now listed as a team (http://project.czechnationalteam.cz/cplan/team_display.php?teamid=712) on the BOINC project known as CzechNationalTeam project.

http://project.czechnationalteam.cz/cplan/

Looks...exciting! ;)

Keep those points comin'!

It must be on fire too based on your stats! Must get myself a new graphics card...

If you can add or upgrade your RAM that will also help computations.

Coworkers discovered BOINC on two of my computers and uninstalled it to my protests (the computers still run just as slowly without BOINC :rolleyes:). I now only have two machines crunching numbers, but I'm still chugging along. Looks like a couple of you are set to overtake me soon! :D

If you can add or upgrade your RAM that will also help computations.

Got enough of that ;) The pain is now my HD4870 card only does GPU with Windows and not OSX so it's not going to be fully utilised until any apps are optimised for OSX :td:

Coworkers discovered BOINC on two of my computers and uninstalled it to my protests (the computers still run just as slowly without BOINC :rolleyes:). I now only have two machines crunching numbers, but I'm still chugging along. Looks like a couple of you are set to overtake me soon! :D

Busted :td:

Haven't seen this thread in a while..

Kremmen and I were having a discussion re BOINC via PM. We have decided to continue it here. I am posting our PMs here as well.

Hi.

I've had computers working on scientific/medical projects on WCG for years and noticed that you joined the Flyertalk Boinc team a while back. I'm curious as to why someone with well over 100 times the computing power available that I do is spending almost all of it on a mathematical puzzle. It's interesting, but it isn't going to help find cures to cancer or do anything else that's of practical use.

- Craig



Hi!

I use my (more powerful than average) computer to do work involving architecture modelling, renders etc and play games, and let it run BOINC when I don't need the processing power.

If you are asking why most of the work is done for Collatz Conjecture, its because it is the only project that utilizes my ATI GPU, while the other projects only use my CPU. Since no other projects can use my GPU, might as well let it be used on the mathematical puzzle that can use it. At least someone is getting some work from my computer when I don't need it.



Interesting. I didn't realise the Collatz research used GPUs. It hadn't crossed my mind. Most of those with huge computing power at their disposal seem to have multiple multi-core servers (often with little or no GPU power), but there are discussions every so often on WCG about GPU support.

- Craig



I am only running BOINC on a single computer, with a core i7 and and an ATI GPU. The GPU is currently doing about 9-10 times more work than the CPU. If I let BOINC run for about 18h a day the GPU can rack up approx 24000credits.

As I understand(rudimentary at best) it, GPUs can perform certain calculations much more efficiently than CPUs. I do wish that there were more projects geared towards GPU computing but while there are a few for NVIDIA GPUs, I only know of Collatz for ATI.

I did speak to the tech support team at my university department about installing BOINC on the (once again more powerful than usual) computers but they declined since the school would have to foot the electric bill and the heat produced by all the computers would increase the air conditioning load and also raise temperatures to unbearable when the a/c gets turned off at night and during the weekend.

P.S. We should continue this discussion in the BOINC thread as none of this needs to be kept confidential and might even be interesting or useful to others.

Yes, some (mainly parallel) tasks can work well on GPUs.

Disadvantages mentioned on WCG include the lack of standardisation of GPUs (last I read there were 2 standards, I think?) and their access and security/stability issues.

I can totally understand the heat/power issue. I run some computers in winter (i.e. now for me) on boinc and turn them off over summer.

P.S. We should continue this discussion in the BOINC thread as none of this needs to be kept confidential and might even be interesting or useful to others.

Sure. I didn't look to see if there still is a boinc thread anywhere. :)


And here is my reply to Kremmen's latest PM:
I think the 2 standards you refer to are ATI Stream and NVIDIA CUDA. AFAIK they are not interoperable so the projects will need to choose which they want to use. I think NVIDIA had a larger market share till a couple of months ago, thus also accounting for a larger share of BOINC projects.

The heat is a big issue for many people IMO. I can use my laptop exhaust as a makeshift cup warmer:D

The heat is a big issue for many people IMO. I can use my laptop exhaust as a makeshift cup warmer:D

It's not just a heat issue for a laptop. Replacing a desktop fan is nothing. Running a laptop fan a lot means it'll probably fail, and replacing a laptop fan can be tedious job, as well as way more expensive. I run my laptop at its lowest possible speed which means it almost never runs the fan at all, even at 100% CPU usage. (... which in turn means that it won't get worn out and wouldn't matter much if it did.) If you replace your laptop every 6 months, or whenever you burn the CPU out, that may not matter to you. :D


BTW, it was suggested on a recent WCG thread that Collatz is (possibly dramatically) exaggerating the amount of BOINC credit it hands out.

Good point about fan and other parts failure. My laptop has a 2 year warranty and I plan to replace it before that runs out, mostly because a faster computer means I can do work faster.

Are you capping your fanspeed? Wouldn't that increase the likelihood of heat failure? I had 1 laptop GPU fried due to dirty fan. Are you monitoring the processor temps?

Can you please post the link to the WCG thread re Collatz cooking the BOINC books? I'm really curious about why.

Are you capping your fanspeed? Wouldn't that increase the likelihood of heat failure? I had 1 laptop GPU fried due to dirty fan. Are you monitoring the processor temps?

Can you please post the link to the WCG thread re Collatz cooking the BOINC books? I'm really curious about why.

Surely everyone monitors laptop temp, or just lets the BIOS do it? My laptop usually runs at ~30-50oC (idle-100% CPU) without the fan running. If the ambient temp is high, it can get to 60, at which point the fan will come on.

WCG link: here (http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/forums/wcg/viewthread_thread,29702_offset,0)

I only monitor temp/processor load when I'm doing something new like running a new program/game. I'm sure there are people who don't monitor at all.

Regarding the Collatz link, one poster 'TylerChris' mentioned his test showing 26min per work unit for GPU vs 15h for CPU so that's about 30x difference. IIRC somebody mentioned somewhere in this thread about the RAC being on a logarithmic scale, which might account for the high credits?

Congratulations, Team FlyerTalk--we've passed the two million credit mark! This puts us in 3,836th place out of 87,498 other teams. And believe it or not (largely thanks to debonairy's willingness to use a GPU-enabled project--hint, hint!), we are #549 out of 87,555 teams in recent credit. If even one more person adds a GPU-enabled project, we have a shot at getting into the top 100!

I will be replacing my nearly 10 year-old Gateway desktop in a couple of moths. I do believe that I will see a noticeable difference processing results with a better processor, video card and more ram. :)

Thanks to Kremmen and debonairy for sharing their very enlightening conversation.

I will be replacing my nearly 10 year-old Gateway desktop in a couple of moths. I do believe that I will see a noticeable difference processing results with a better processor, video card and more ram. :)

If you're going the Windows route then as long as you get a machine with an Nvidea or ATI card you should be fine to do GPU as long as it's spec'd up and compatible with some of the projects. I think the Wikipedia article on BOINC and also Nvidea & ATI has some pointers as to what cards are GPU enabled and what there performance stats are.

If you're going Mac then be aware that there is limited support for GPUs and only the NVidea cards are supported under CUDA, AFAIK there are no ATI (CAL) enabled projects for Mac.

*Team FlyerTalk has been chosen as the BOINCstats/BAM! team of the day!*

:cool: - thanks jackal

I think I'll need a new computer before continuing on this project, as my laptop is either loosing its HD or a fan (more have been ordered)

*Team FlyerTalk has been chosen as the BOINCstats/BAM! team of the day!*

:cool: - thanks jackal

I think I'll need a new computer before continuing on this project, as my laptop is either loosing its HD or a fan (more have been ordered)
I got the alert while driving over mountain passes in Colorado, so I didn't really have a chance to post about it. But congratulations, Team FlyerTalk!

*Team FlyerTalk has been chosen as the BOINCstats/BAM! team of the day!*

:cool: - thanks jackal

I think I'll need a new computer before continuing on this project, as my laptop is either loosing its HD or a fan (more have been ordered)

EXCELLENT NEWS! Keep up the good work! Did we win a prize? :D

I had taken a hiatus but i'm back. I forgot which e-mail I used to sign up so I have 2 accounts but both use the same username.

EXCELLENT NEWS! Keep up the good work! Did we win a prize? :D

Just another post ;)

Fan is repaired- upgraded to 1 TB harddrive (3 platters so used duct tape to hold the cover on one side :o and upgraded to 4 gigs of ram. My processor is still a bit :rolleyes: (ie- basic models now are the same as my uuber fast one 3 yrs ago) so may not commit - but could show up again in the future once I complete my Windows 7 install (yeah- ditched Vista finally :p)

Just saw this thread and re-started grid computing. Just added the wife's desktop, my work laptop and all three kids laptops. All of them added to a BAM account, which is working:

Collatz
Einstein
Rosetta
SETI

Just saw this thread and re-started grid computing. Just added the wife's desktop, my work laptop and all three kids laptops. All of them added to a BAM account, which is working:

Collatz
Einstein
Rosetta
SETI


Awesome! Welcome to the team! ^

Sorry for the late notice, but we were the BOINCStats/BAM Team of the Day yesterday! Way to go, Team FlyerTalk! ^

Just another post ;)

Fan is repaired- upgraded to 1 TB harddrive (3 platters so used duct tape to hold the cover on one side :o and upgraded to 4 gigs of ram. My processor is still a bit :rolleyes: (ie- basic models now are the same as my uuber fast one 3 yrs ago) so may not commit - but could show up again in the future once I complete my Windows 7 install (yeah- ditched Vista finally :p)

It's all about the processor. The more cores you have the more tasks you can do simultaneously.
My work laptop has a dual core and my home computer has quad core + ATI GPU so I'm running 6 tasks at a time, 1 of which can be a GPU one. I bought a compact desktop so I couldn't buy a nice GPU, but it gets the job done.

[FONT="Courier New"]*Team FlyerTalk has been chosen as the BOINCstats/BAM! team of the day!* ...Awesome news.

Just saw this thread and re-started grid computing...I had taken a hiatus but i'm back. I forgot which e-mail I used to sign up so I have 2 accounts but both use the same username.Welcome back!

I've got 3 desktops to which I've access setup with it, running for 12hrs/day with no noticable effects other than computing awesomeness. Keep it up, team.

Awesome news.

Welcome back!

I've got 3 desktops to which I've access setup with it, running for 12hrs/day with no noticable effects other than computing awesomeness. Keep it up, team.

Thanks for the link to beckoa's post upthread. I was pretty sure we'd been selected before but couldn't remember. Should have looked here first! :D

So, we've rocked TWICE now!

Thanks for the link to beckoa's post upthread. I was pretty sure we'd been selected before but couldn't remember. Should have looked here first! :D

So, we've rocked TWICE now!

:p

yup- was surprised to see we were the 'team of the day' twice... wonder why.

Just another post ;)

Fan is repaired- upgraded to 1 TB harddrive (3 platters so used duct tape to hold the cover on one side :o and upgraded to 4 gigs of ram. My processor is still a bit :rolleyes: (ie- basic models now are the same as my uuber fast one 3 yrs ago) so may not commit - but could show up again in the future once I complete my Windows 7 install (yeah- ditched Vista finally :p)

Well givin' her a spin again... but don't want to cook my machine... kinda noisy runnin full power...

Congratulations to Team FlyerTalk--we've passed the 1 million credit mark! ^

Closing in on ten million credits! Wahoo! We're in the top 2% of teams!

Also, sorry to have forgotten to announce it, but last month was our one-year anniversary as a BOINC team. ^ Congrats to all of those who have stuck it out for the whole last year as well as those who have joined more recently!

Closing in on ten million credits! Wahoo! We're in the top 2% of teams!

Also, sorry to have forgotten to announce it, but last month was our one-year anniversary as a BOINC team. ^ Congrats to all of those who have stuck it out for the whole last year as well as those who have joined more recently!

Excellent news! It also reminds me that I must restart Boinc... ^