WCG Christmas Race 2011

M

metallicafan

[H]ard|DCer of the Month - May 2010
Joined
Mar 30, 2005
Messages
2,205
Every year in December the World Community Grid team from Rechenkraft.net hosts a Christmas Race for a fun holiday challenge between WCG teams. The Horde has participated for several years in a row and even though there are lots of other challenges and contests going on in the DC subforum right now I was hoping to continue a fun tradition by participating in the 2011 Christmas Challenge! I have signed us up for the race which runs from Dec 1st through Dec 24th. This year the race is based on points (as opposed to run time or other stats) so even if you cant run the entire month your contributions will help the [H]ardOCP team. Several of the top WCG teams are participating in the challenge so we could use all the help we can get!

I have tried to jam everything you will need to know in this post but if you have any questions just ask away. I'll be happy to help. Now - Who's with me? :D


WCG Homepage: http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/index.jsp
BOINC Download Page: http://boinc.berkeley.edu/download.php
Christmas Challenge 2011 page
WCG System Requirements
HardOCP Team Page


Install Instructions
1. Go to this webpage to Register for an account and Select your projects: http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/reg/viewRegister.do
Dont forget to join the HardOCP team
2. You can download the software from the WCG page but i would recommend getting it from the BOINC Download page listed above.
3. Once you have downloaded the software, go ahead and install the software. I would select all the defaults in the installer except I would select Advanced options and unselect the "BOINC Screensaver" option. You guys know the drill here regarding screensavers and performance. This is the [H]ardforum after all.
4. Then it will probably ask you to reboot and then the software will launch upon the reboot. Go to the Advanced View of the software, click on Tools and Attach to project. Select the WCG project and then enter your username and password when asked.
5. Thats it. The client should then go ahead and runs checks and performance benchmarks, download the client apps and WUs and start crunching.

There are a number of great projects currently running on the WCG. More info can be found about the goals of each project on the WCG Homepage.
Projects:
Go Fight Against Malaria
Drug Search for Leishmaniasis
Computing for Clean Water Project
The Clean Energy Project - Phase 2
Human Proteome Folding - Phase 2
Help Cure Muscular Dystrophy - Phase 2
Help Conquer Cancer
Help Fight Childhood Cancer
Fight AIDS@Home
 
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Definitely in.

Just wanted to add that BOINC runs beautifully in Linux (especially this project), so those who have those massive 4p G34 rigs should hop on over for a little bit.

For the Ubuntu users it is right in the software center for quick and easy installation without having to go to the BOINC webpage.

Metallicafan - I got my sights to catch you during the challenge.
 
rmdashrrootsplat said:
So which project should we be focusing on?
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I would urge you to crunch whichever project seems most worthy to you. Perhaps you have a personal stake in one of the projects or one of the projects is related to a cause that you believe in. I would suggest crunching two or more projects in case one has a shortage or work (or there is an option in your profile to get work from other projects if you selected projects are out of work).

If you are crunching on points alone I haven't done any research as to which projects might be producing the most points (usually they are all pretty close). Please give the system requirements a look as a couple of the projects have very high RAM requirements. All of the projects count toward the official Christmas Race Challenge.
 
ill put my 1090T onto it, for HCMD .... and i guess that means a Athlon X2 5000+ will be on as well :D....
 
I'm not part of the team, but I am pro-WCG and pretty active there. From what I hear, a mix of HCC and CFCW seems to work really well. HCC has actually one of the fastest turn around times of all of their projects too. I will warn those not familiar with the projects, to keep an eye on running CEP2 work units because there are a lot of I/O on the hard drive. Some systems don't like this too well and you can choose to run multiple WU's on multi-threaded systems.

Another suggestion not mentioned by metallicafan is that while looking in the advanced options, I would also select to Leave Applications In Memory. Otherwise, if you pause the sciences, reboot, etc... the work you have completed so far may be lost. Windows updates can cause the reboot. If using the latest version of BOINC, pay attention to an option in Advanced Settings there is an option titled While Processor use is less then X. Typically this is set at 25% which means if your cpu usage goes over 25%, it will pause BOINC. To disable that feature, just change it to 0. It doesn't take a lot to trigger it at 25%, so if you want that feature on, I recommend raising it to much higher levels.
 
rmdashrrootsplat said:
So which project should we be focusing on?
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If you don't have a preference, I would suggest supporting some of the projects that have lower participation due to various reasons. FAAH is the longest running project and has users drop off after they get their badge goals. CEP2 has lower participation due to system requirements, internet requirements, and system stress. (AKA the hard drive I/O concern) HPF2 is also a long running project in similar situation as FAAH except that points take longer for validation reasons. It actually requires several versions of the same WU to finish before validation where FAAH typically requires one and sometimes two. For this challenge, HPF2 is probably the worst choice because of the goal of points. CFCW is also the only app with 64bit version, so all the others are only 32bit and wont see any bonus speed from 64bit systems over 32bit.
 
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FAAH and HFCC are zero redundancy projects. You are awarded points when you complete each work unit. The other projects are multiple redundancy projects. Multiple units are sent out and points do not get awarded until they are all returned and validated. Waiting for your "wingman" can last for 7-10 days or more. This is considered being in the PV jail. Not a good thing when you want points to be credited as quickly as possible.

HFCC and HCC are ending relatively soon. These are the only Cancer related projects running on WCG if that's your preference. Be careful with CEP2 since it does tend to abuse your hard drive and network bandwidth. Especially on a triple or quad box. Make sure you set the number of concurrent CEP2 units in your profile. The default setting is one unit per machine.

I guess it goes without saying that I'm up for the challenge also. I've been fully dedicated to WCG for quite some time now. Getting ready to attack GFAM for my next badge until DDDT-2 wakes back up.

Thanks metallicafan for organizing this year's race!
 
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Thanks to everyone who has signed on thus far! Also thanks to the veterans for giving some project specific information.

As Kendrak linked a couple days ago it would seem that EVGA has started a WCG team (which I think is great). :) Perhaps some stats will stir up some competitive spirit!

Today's points(todays rank):
HardOCP: 51,510 (93)
WCG@EVGA: 224,721 (31)

We have some ground to make up. :D
 
ill swap my 1090T @ 3.9 + Athlon X2 5000+ over on 12/1, and maybe for a few days (depending on when Wu's finish on the 2600k @ 4.5) ill swap the i7 over as well for some fun....
 
The Clean Energy Project (CEP2) has recently been made a single redundancy project along with FAAH and HFCC mentioned by AgrFan. I run up to three of these at a time on a non-HT quad with 8GB of memory. Linux is more efficient than Windows for these. The upload per completed unit is about 20MB, but I've not run into any backlog or 150GB data cap issues. You do have to opt in to this sort of work, but it's the kind of work tailored for hardware found here.

But for the record, I find pretty much all the types of work interesting and worth running.
 
You should see about a 25% increase in work and points with HT enabled. Just keep an eye on your temps. But if this has folded with HT on, then you've probably already sorted out your cooling.
 
Yep HT works beautifully with BOINC and WCG. While I havent done extensive testing of all of the different works loads I usually see a nice boost while using HT in BOINC, therefore I always use it.

I think that maybe I will try a few of these CEP2 workloads during the challenge. I havent run any thus far and so I'll give it a try. Dr. P (or others) how long might one of these units take on a HT i7? Ballpark how much RAM usage are you seeing (as I only have 4GB :(). Thanks.
 
System Specs for each project as far as memory concerns....

https://secure.worldcommunitygrid.org/help/viewTopic.do?shortName=minimumreq

However, they wont always take the maximum memory listed. Usually lower then stated, but they list the maximums just to be safe. WCG approaches everything with caution in order to not hinder the cruncher as much as possible.

CEP2 also works really well for those crunching on solid state drives or using Linux thumb drive OS's.
HT not only gives around 25% point boost, but also doubles your badge chances/CPU run time stats.
 
CEP2 has a 12hr maximum runtime. My e2180 box hits the 12hr cap at 80% complete. They run to completion at about 7-8 hours on my quads. Each unit is made up of 16 jobs. I have been seeing lots of units ending with errors in job #12. This is normal. Jobs #1 thru #3 are the important ones to the researchers. All of the results are used. Nothing is wasted hitting the cap or getting errors after job #3. You should be fine on a HT i7. Disk access will be crazy downloading 8 units at one time. There is a unzip process that runs for 1-2 minutes before units start crunching. I'd suggest starting with 1-2 units and ramping up from there. Your disk won't get hammered much once the downloads spread out. Make sure your disk is not fragmented. I've seen issues with CEP2 work where elapsed time is much greater than cpu time (eg. 20 elapsed, 12 cpu). Running a disk defrag fixed the problem.

HCC seems to produce higher points than the other projects. Something to look out for during the challenge.
 
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When I searched for [H] I found 2 teams, what one should I join.. One team has 4 members and the other has 6? Or am I looking at the completely wrong thing?
 
i'll see if my motherboard can handle running WCG and try to help out. but i don't know since it freaks out with F@H and the voltage go ape shit til my system shuts off.
 
Thanks sirmonkey!

Well everyone the contest starts on Dec 1st but I would recommend starting up all your clients (if possible) on Monday or Tuesday so that if you are crunching workunits that require redundancy, your points will have time to build up. I'll be moving over my other 2 quads on Monday. Thanks to all that have already joined and if anyone else wants to jump in we could always use more D!
 
i started a couple days ago, filling up 3 pages of pending verification so far but i will be at top speed by the time the contest starts.
 
I wish they would hurry and get the GPU work for HCC that they have talked about for like 3 years. The project is close to ending and it is supposed to be the first GPU capable project.
 
What are we looking at windows performance wise with an SR2, 16 cores, 3.8 - 4 Ghz?
I'll be getting back stateside from this tour right before christmas, might be good to fire up the SR2 before I sell it

What kinda points would that add? (How about a 24 core at 3.6? Just for shits and giggles lol)
 
it would be wicked fast, but keep in mind , WGC is all single threaded projects so you would be running 16 tasks on your SR , lots of points
 
Somehow only running 16 tasks on my SR with dual hex in it. How do I get to use those last cores?
 
Vaulter98c said:
What are we looking at windows performance wise with an SR2, 16 cores, 3.8 - 4 Ghz?
I'll be getting back stateside from this tour right before christmas, might be good to fire up the SR2 before I sell it

What kinda points would that add? (How about a 24 core at 3.6? Just for shits and giggles lol)
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depends on the projects you are running, some are really fast and some are really slow. faster ones you could probably do in 30 minutes and the longer ones 4-6 hours. but hell there could be even larger ones, i haven't run WCG in over a year and a half.
 
mashtub651 said:
Somehow only running 16 tasks on my SR with dual hex in it. How do I get to use those last cores?
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The number of processors defaults to 16 in the processor usage section under the advanced options in your device profile. You may need to bump it up to 24. Changes take effect with the next project update. You can force a update from the projects tab in the BOINC Manager.

If you're running CEP2 exclusively, make sure the number of CEP2 WUs is set to 'Unlimited'.
 
starting up WCG to prep for the first, here goes nothing... god i hope my motherboard doesn't freak out again..

so far so good.. woops i guess i haven't checked my heatsink lately since i don't run F@H anymore.. i think its time to clean it. :D there we go much better, load temps went from 68C to 56C, lol.
 
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mashtub651 said:
:) 24 tasks running now to see what this thing can do
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I get 5k BOINC points (35K WCG credits) with 12 cores spread across the 4 boxes in my sig.

I would think you'd get close to 10K BOINC points (70K WCG credits) with 24 cores.
 
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