Hi Team Members

An area for greetings to (or from) NEW members of the Team and/or the Forum. Say "HELLO" here - no one will bite !!
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Torn Jacketson
Posts: 28
Joined: Sun Jan 31, 2016 7:05 pm

Hi Team Members

Post by Torn Jacketson »

Hi one and all,

I have recently joined the team and have now joined the forum!! I have been crunching for a while and have finally joined a team. My new machine is crunching away quite nicely and I am now closing in rapidly on 700k ... Soon be a millionaire!! I am running BOINC on my smartphone also, but it seems very unhappy with it and overheats regularly - not good. Running on there may not be going on much longer - though to be honest it is not contributing much to my efforts anyway!!

I do have one question immediately - I have seen people talking about "optimised" processing software that allows you to crunch more efficiently. I am running the bog-standard BOINC software from the site so any indicators on what I need to do or even if it is necessary/beneficial would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Steve (aka Torn Jacketson!!)
Joshrandom
Posts: 5602
Joined: Sat Jun 23, 2007 1:00 am

Re: Hi Team Members

Post by Joshrandom »

Hi Steve, welcome to the team and to the forum. :wave:

As for optimised software, well it certainly used to be true that you could download optimised versions of the software for some BOINC projects (Milkyway for example) but I'm sure that there are those on the forum who know a lot more about the current state of such things than I, and so I'll wait to see what others have to say before going further.

James.
Woodles
UBT Contributor
Posts: 11757
Joined: Thu Dec 20, 2007 12:00 am
Location: Cambridgeshire

Re: Hi Team Members

Post by Woodles »

Hi Steve,

Firstly, welcome to the forum :)

Secondly, stop using your smartphone to run Boinc! As you discovered, it gets very hot and doesn't contribute much. Also, there's a limit to how many times batteries can be recharged before being unable to hold any charge at all. You could find yourself spending more on batteries (or a new 'phone) than than a cheap laptop off Ebay.

Thirdly, optimising Boinc itself isn't normally worth the effort, it's just a scheduling and control programme. The real work is done by the project software which is downloaded when you join the project. This used to be written by scientists and hobbyists that set up the project and the source code released to anyone that wanted it so it was fairly easy to tweak it to make it perform better if you knew what you were doing. These days, most of the projects have their code written by proper software engineers and keep it in house so there's little chance to optimise it and only small gains could be made.

Regards,

Mark
UBT - Mikee
Marvin the Dalek
Posts: 4395
Joined: Wed Mar 15, 2006 12:00 am
Location: North Wales

Re: Hi Team Members

Post by UBT - Mikee »

Hi

Welcome to the team.

Just thought I'd echo everything Josh and Woodles say. I haven't used optimised programs for years! They used to make a huge difference then - I wouldn't bother now - just use the standard supplied version, it'll be tested and stable.

Again forget about the smartphone. I tried for a few days and it just wasn't worth the effort.

Mike
Follow us on Twitter... http://twitter.com/UKBOINCTeam

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Torn Jacketson
Posts: 28
Joined: Sun Jan 31, 2016 7:05 pm

Re: Hi Team Members

Post by Torn Jacketson »

Thanks guys. I think I had already come to the conclusion that the smartphone was not worth the effort so it is now gone. I was not sure about the optimised software - I had seen it mentioned, but not in any recent posts so just wondered if it was even worth a look - you have answered that. I will just keep going the way I am .... though work do have a couple of old Dell Servers that are going cheap, so maybe that is an option :-) Only issue there is that they sound like jets taking off with all the fans!!

Steve
Woodles
UBT Contributor
Posts: 11757
Joined: Thu Dec 20, 2007 12:00 am
Location: Cambridgeshire

Re: Hi Team Members

Post by Woodles »

Torn Jacketson wrote:Thanks guys. I think I had already come to the conclusion that the smartphone was not worth the effort so it is now gone. I was not sure about the optimised software - I had seen it mentioned, but not in any recent posts so just wondered if it was even worth a look - you have answered that. I will just keep going the way I am .... though work do have a couple of old Dell Servers that are going cheap, so maybe that is an option :-) Only issue there is that they sound like jets taking off with all the fans!!

Steve
Quiet fans are fairly cheap ... :D
UBT - Timbo
UBT Forum Admin
Posts: 9673
Joined: Mon Mar 13, 2006 12:00 am
Location: NW Midlands
Contact:

Re: Hi Team Members

Post by UBT - Timbo »

Torn Jacketson wrote:Hi one and all,

I have recently joined the team and have now joined the forum!! I have been crunching for a while and have finally joined a team. My new machine is crunching away quite nicely and I am now closing in rapidly on 700k ... Soon be a millionaire!! I am running BOINC on my smartphone also, but it seems very unhappy with it and overheats regularly - not good. Running on there may not be going on much longer - though to be honest it is not contributing much to my efforts anyway!!

I do have one question immediately - I have seen people talking about "optimised" processing software that allows you to crunch more efficiently. I am running the bog-standard BOINC software from the site so any indicators on what I need to do or even if it is necessary/beneficial would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Steve (aka Torn Jacketson!!)
Hi Steve

Welcome to the forum. Glad you could register OK and without any issues (there was a bug in our previous forum, hence the change of website and new version software now in operation - which doesn't have this issue, obviously ;) )

As others have commented, there was a time (a few years ago), when some non-project people got hold of the source code for a number of projects and set about optimising the software so that it would run faster (on specific CPU's or GPU's) and hence generate more credits in any given timeframe. I think "Crunch3r" wrote some optimised software for SETI@home and some others did similar for some other projects (Rosetta was one as I recall). In some cases their work was subsequently rolled into the official project software, so we are all benefitting from their good efforts.

re: BOINC on mobile
I have to agree with everyone else on this - the gain is not worth the hassle esp in terms of heating up the phone and recharging the battery. Having said that the type of CPU used in a phone, is also available on a small computer like the Raspberry Pi...so *IF* you wanted to, get a Pi and it can run a few of the low intensity projects....you won't get many credits, but if a few member did something like this, they would certainly build up. ;)

Enjoy the forum and if you have any questions, feel free to ask away.

regards
Tim
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