Batched WUs in Folding@Home

whiic · Post by **whiic** » Wed Sep 20, 2006 1:36 am

EDIT: changed topic from "I'm considering joining (currently using BOINC)" to something a bit more informative.
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I'm currently using BOINC but I've become a "bit" dissatisfied with BOINC client crashing (usually after finishing a WU) and thus BOINC Manager not being able to communicate with the "crunch application".

I run BOINC on both DSL and "dial-up" connections. (It's not actually a dial-up modem but a LAN connection which requires a login & passwd. The effect for distributed computing is the same: the crunch application can't get access to the Net without me typing the password every 4 hours (=the time period each network session expires).)

I usually leave my computers crunching for 2...5 days straight unattended (two of three computers I use are "without" connection to the Net), sometimes for over a week, and it'd be great if:
- the WU(s) didn't run out
- the deadline didn't run out
- the program wouldn't crash.

With BOINC, this was not a (big) problem until recently when updating to newest version it started crashing (meaning it only computed the first WU of N total WUs, then crashed and idled for the days to come). Also, I don't get but 2 days worth of work while I've configured the buffer to 10 days ...but that doesn't bother me much if it's going to crash after the first WU anyway.

So.... as a result, I'm considering Folding@Home. First I thought a separate client for a single project is a bad thing (when comparing to Berkeley Open Interface of Network Computing), but as BOINC is an interface for several projects, the bugs and other unfavourable "features" are most likely present in each project under BOINC, so just changing the project doesn't solve anything.

On a sticky, the flowchart is mentioned as follows:
Download a work unit from Stanford
Crunch crunch crunch crunch
Upload the completed work to Stanford
Rinse lather and repeat.

To me, that'd suggest that WUs are processed only one WU at a time, requiring communication with the project every time a WU is finished. (BOINC download severals WUs beforehand, depending on user-defined buffer.)

There is an option to crunch big WUs. How big are they actually? Days? Weeks?

Also there's deadlineless WUs (something BOINC doesn't have), but this rules out big WUs, according to FAQ. And if there's only one WU downloaded at a time, using deadlineless WUs doesn't suit my need as the computer would become idle way too soon (for example: compute only one day and left idling for two weeks to follow). On the other hand using big WU doesn't allow using deadlineless, so downloading big WU (or several big WUs, if possible) before a several week vacation would possibly make the results obsolete.

Is there a way to configure F@H to suit my needs?

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Wed Sep 20, 2006 4:26 am

Hello,

I thought that I saw a way to have the F@H client cache 3 or 4 work units, but I'll be dipped if I can find it again...can someone enlighten us both?

DanW · Post by **DanW** » Wed Sep 20, 2006 6:53 am

can boinc account manger (BAM, boincstats.com) sort out some one this problem? I'll have a dig and see what I can see...

Nope, I can't see anything there that would allow you to configure your work units.

whiic · Post by **whiic** » Thu Sep 28, 2006 5:40 am

BOINC did it again. Left the computers running on Thursday. When I came back on Tuesday, both applications had crashed.

Computer 1's BOINC manager said that (local) manager cannot connect to (local) BOINC client. Even rebooted the manager, no change. Rebooted WinXP. Manager appeared still empty. All Einstein@Home project data was gone from the manager. (Einstein directory was still on the hard drive but maybe some file got corrupted.)

Computer 2's BOINC manager said it can't connect to internet (Noe Schitt-Sherlock!). But apparently it could connect to local client either (just didn't bother to give any error message on that error). Rebooted BOINC - no change. Rebooted Win98SE - no change. So I lost all computated WUs from both computers and those 6 days. I also lost all logs, etc.

WTF? This new version of BOINC has got to be bad. These two computers don't have much in common... the only thing being that they are not connected to Internet for extended periods of time. That shouldn't cause crashing for God's sake!

So I uninstalled BOINC and I am now running Folding@Home. Didn't take long to learn how to use it. Work units are quite long when compared to BOINC WUs. The older computer can crunch a single WU for over a week, so it doesn't need to batch the WUs. A single big WU is enough. Deadline is on early Nov so there's over a month of time to report it.

Newer computer is running deadlineless WUs, because batch WUs are only available without deadline. Configuring batch WUs for Version 5 (which I use on WinXP) appeared very logical. Instructions: right mouse-click on the flower, Configure..., Advanced tab, Deadlines subsection, select "Deadlineless" from drop-down menu. After that the gray box below it saying "Get and return deadlineless work in batches" becomes activated. Click it, and voilÃ¡, there's batched WUs.

When using Win98 and thus version 4 of F@H client, the batch WUs can be selected only if prefered project is marked Genome@Home (after which the box becomes active and can be selected). Genome@Home has ended, so obviously there'd be no batched G@H WUs. Probably they'd give some F@H WUs then... but batched? Anyway, I haven't tried it yet, as a single big WU takes long enough. I only need to batch WUs for my faster computer.

So, batchin WUs definitely is possible at least in v5 / WinXP. Most likely it works with v5 / Win98. Much easier to configure than what BOINC is. F@H doesn't cause headache.

...
Also, I joined the SPCR team.

EDIT: highlighted the instructions so that other newbies find them more easily and don't need to real all of my rant against new version of BOINC.

EDIT: actually it might be a red coloured spur gear and not a flower. Doesn't matter though what it is supposed to be.

peteamer · Post by **peteamer** » Thu Sep 28, 2006 6:02 am

whiic...

Welcome to Team

And thanks for coming back with the info for others.

(Maybe Neil or haysdb could add it to the Folding@Home Beginners Guide ? )