Points Decline ? ! ?

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WoodsBoy
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Points Decline ? ! ?

Post by WoodsBoy » Wed Sep 08, 2004 2:26 pm

I have noticed recently that my points output has been on the decline even though hardware-wise nothing has changed. Browsing other people's output it seems most everyone is on the decline or at best flat.

Anyone got any idea what's going on :?:

Michael_qrt
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Post by Michael_qrt » Wed Sep 08, 2004 3:34 pm

Seems to me to just be the normal fluctuations in the relative value of different work units. Especially if you are an Athlon user Tinkers deliver a much larger amount of points for the time taken to complete them.

It's just that lately the supply of good Tinkers has dried up somewhat.

As for the general decline in our team's production, I guess it's just that we're having old folders drop off the wheel faster than we're getting new folders in. I think that since these forums have been pretty quiet lately that some members might have either forgotten about folding or have moved on to somewhere more active.

Anyway what I'd like to see is a set of stats for the entire project, compiled just as our individual and team stats are at EOC. That way we could track the total number of points being given out and relate this to our own individual increases/decreases.

Zyzzyx
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Re: Points Decline ? ! ?

Post by Zyzzyx » Wed Sep 08, 2004 5:18 pm

WoodsBoy wrote:IBrowsing other people's output it seems most everyone is on the decline or at best flat.
Flat. yeah, that's me. Went from 5-8k per week to just about zilch. Been too hot at home to keep the computers on 24/7, not thinking about having them fold too. And the folks at work asked me to remove FAH from the ~15 systems I had it on there. so yeah... flat.

haysdb
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Post by haysdb » Wed Sep 08, 2004 10:17 pm

It's not just SPCR that is showing a downward trend, but MOST of the teams. As pointed out above, this is partly due to a rash of WU's worth less than what we have come to know as "typical," but it is also true that our active folder count is down to 172, from a high in the 180's.

I think part of this is that, as a team, we are "stuck" at #18. We need a LOT more members to rise any further, and some people have probably gotten bored and either dropped out, switched teams, or simply cut back.

How do we make folding "exciting" again?

shathal
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Post by shathal » Thu Sep 09, 2004 1:12 pm

I agree with the downward trend.

I've been around 4-5K PPW, but now am scraping just below 4K PPW ... and this, despite having "borged" another ... *does maths* ... 12 GHz worth of P4's to the cause (for a little while anyway).

Very odd.

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Post by peteamer » Thu Sep 09, 2004 1:54 pm

PPW is fairly stable for me in the last couple of weeks but I have to say I'm just about to turn in (~10hrs) a 234 point p295_ that's only given me 500PPW instead of a more usual 550PPW on my xp2400. Damn thing took 3.5 days. :cry:

And my 1600+ Lappie has just picked up the same WU. Still, should be done by Xmas. :lol:

Is the low points and posts round here because of better weather? Will things pick up again as the weather drops off and more people are indoors and computer playing again?



Pete

Zyzzyx
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Post by Zyzzyx » Thu Sep 09, 2004 8:49 pm

I'll be doing better as the weather cools off, and as I finish building my AMD dually.

Lessee... that'll put me at 5 AMDs going, 1600, 1700, 1700 @ 2ghz, and dual 1800s. Oh, and the piddly little P3-566.

But, not til it cools off. Though I bet my roommates are appreciating the lower electric bill.

Macaholic
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Post by Macaholic » Fri Sep 10, 2004 3:56 pm

haysdb wrote:How do we make folding "exciting" again?
Just say the word and I'll stir the pot! :wink: As for the point trend, I would recommend upgrading to version 5.02 of the client, selecting 'yes' for the 5MB work units, then watch the points add up. Make sure you have plenty of RAM and bandwidth to spare first. Right now p1301 and p1302 are being dished out and giving plenty of points. You may have early unit ends and LINCS warnings with them, but you will get partial credit and The Pande Group still needs the data and deems it extremely useful. Fold if ya got 'em!

DonP
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Post by DonP » Fri Sep 10, 2004 5:31 pm

Wow, thanks for the tip Macaholic! That's very nice of you to drop such a tip to the competition. Cheers. :P

@everyone: As to the general trend I know my points have dropped for a number of reasons - one flaky computer.. another three spend a lot of time being off because they belong to other people in my office and since everyone has been on holiday they were shut down... on and off I had to shut down another because of the heat during the summer in the UK and so on..

Various reasons.. but I'll try and resuscitate them and move then to 5.02.

Keep 'em folding dudes and dudettes!

hwsboss
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Post by hwsboss » Fri Sep 10, 2004 6:29 pm

...downloaded it, but, whats the best settings for a barton, and vor a via?

1911user
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Post by 1911user » Fri Sep 10, 2004 6:54 pm

Macaholic wrote:
haysdb wrote:How do we make folding "exciting" again?
Just say the word and I'll stir the pot! :wink: As for the point trend, I would recommend upgrading to version 5.02 of the client, selecting 'yes' for the 5MB work units, then watch the points add up. Make sure you have plenty of RAM and bandwidth to spare first. Right now p1301 and p1302 are being dished out and giving plenty of points. You may have early unit ends and LINCS warnings with them, but you will get partial credit and The Pande Group still needs the data and deems it extremely useful. Fold if ya got 'em!
don't forget to set the -advmethods flag in addition to checking "yes" for large proteins. If you only have 256MB (min for big packets) and do anything besides fold with the computer, I would not check "yes"; those who have done so have reported bad computer bogging because of the memory tied up by folding the big packets. My work computer has 512K and the large mem usage is noticable sometimes, but the points are nice and 1301 and 1302 are high priority for now. These are advanced beta units only given out to higher end machines with 256MB or more ram. I've got a gig of ram in my primary home rig and don't notice any slowdown or bogging. It's been folding 1301's for the last couple of weeks.

Tibors
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Post by Tibors » Sat Sep 11, 2004 10:31 am

There is another "problem" in the near future. Some teams that participate in F@H are part of larger groups that participate in more distributed computing projects. Since DF (Distibuted Folding), aka the other folding project, will stop in october, these teams will likely get an increase of members running F@H. This is positive for F@H, but it might not be possitive for our team.

NeilBlanchard
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We have three threats!!!

Post by NeilBlanchard » Sat Sep 18, 2004 5:59 am

Hello Team:

We need to pick up our pace a bit: Macromours have a higher daily average now than we do! :? :oops: We are gaining new members, but we are apparently losing enough active members to leave us with lower output than three teams who are currently behind us...

Let's go team!

petemg
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dual 940s to fill the NEED

Post by petemg » Sat Sep 18, 2004 10:54 am

Zyzzyx wrote:I'll be doing better as the weather cools off, and as I finish building my AMD dually.
What are you putting into it? I've been thinking for a while now of bumping up my main linux box to dual opterons (it's a single P3/700 right now), and yesterday found the Iwill DK8N motherboard, which seems to be too beefy to resist.. It's big, though, which would mean I'd need a new case in addition to everything else. I'm also thinking that I'll just get one CPU at first to save a little money, since that mobo costs something like $500 :(

And yes, this box doesn't do anything CPU-intensive except fold.. yes.. I've caught the bug ..

Edit: I suppose I should get one of them fancy sig-thingies!

peteamer
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Post by peteamer » Sat Sep 18, 2004 11:13 am

And yes, this box doesn't do anything CPU-intensive except fold.. yes.. I've caught the bug ..
And also,... both your posts to date, are in the folding forum...... :shock:



You Sir... are a perfect Folder 8) ... (You don't waste any CPU cycles typing :D )


........ (Rather unlike me... :oops: )



Sir, I bow to your eminence ... Image ... 8)




Regards


Pete

Zyzzyx
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Re: dual 940s to fill the NEED

Post by Zyzzyx » Sat Sep 18, 2004 1:24 pm

petemg wrote:
Zyzzyx wrote:I'll be doing better as the weather cools off, and as I finish building my AMD dually.
What are you putting into it?
Tyan mobo, don't remember the model right now. 1800MP processors, 512mb memory, 80gb Cuda IV, 128mb Nvidia ti4200

And it will expand as time/money allow. Starting out with some basic Speeze coolers, but want to do something like dual SLK-800s. The whole system is going to be another caseless wallmount setup (like this one that I'm already using as my main system, but much cleaner).

burcakb
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Post by burcakb » Sun Sep 19, 2004 2:22 am

Whooohooo!!!!

192 PPD on a stock Barton 2500+ !!!!!

Thanks Macaholic

Zyzzyx
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Post by Zyzzyx » Sun Sep 19, 2004 8:36 pm

Welp... just fired up my systems at home. See what the heat gets to be this week. Also set up v5.02 client on them as well, see if that makes any difference.

WoodsBoy
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Post by WoodsBoy » Tue Sep 21, 2004 8:40 am

Well I loaded up the 5.02 client on all the machines I still have access to and it seems to have made a difference. I also turned on -advmethods and changed the advanced setting to accept large work packets.

I'm turning in some big points now just changing a few machines. If I could only change the others... :cry:

Zyzzyx
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Post by Zyzzyx » Tue Sep 21, 2004 8:35 pm

OK, so I've been outta touch for awhile. Is -advmethods still the best for AMD systems? Seem to remember that my AMDs liked the updated Tinkers. Is -advmethods dishing out Tinkers now? Should I be looking at the large work packets for my systems?

Just trying to re-optimize here.

Tibors
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Post by Tibors » Wed Sep 22, 2004 6:45 am

Their is a low number of Tinkers assigned at the moment. The only thing that gives you more points as the big WU's are Double Gromacs on a machine with SSE2. So I would say, set your machines which have more than 256MB of memory to spare to large WU's and -advmethods.

burcakb
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Post by burcakb » Wed Sep 22, 2004 8:41 am

No comment :

Image

Athlon64 3200+ for those asking

Zyzzyx
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Post by Zyzzyx » Thu Sep 23, 2004 10:00 pm

OK, I'm back for now, but will probably power down again. My room was 95F when I got home tonight. Just a WEE bit on the warm side. Granted, I forgot to turn on the window fan when I left this morning, but still... we'll see.

Tibors
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Post by Tibors » Fri Sep 24, 2004 3:36 pm

It looks like we're on the up again. Keep going boys and girls.

Tibors
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Post by Tibors » Sun Sep 26, 2004 11:06 am

There are four extra projects in the "big WU" category released today. So everybody who has machines that can run these (>256MB internal memory) please set your clients to do so.

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