Goofyxgrid - Extra Credits :)

[UBT - Chris]

Hi all,

First off, I'm back! After several months of downtime, I rebooted the BOINC on my laptop last month to keep bringing the credits in

This leads me to the main point - goofyxgrid. As I'm sure many of you are aware, it is possible to run more than one instance of BOINC from the same computer... That's what I've done. 200 times . I have my host as one computer (running Enigma, WUProp and Goofy) and then 199 VMs attached that are purely running Goofy. With 2 subprojects on Goofy at the mo, and with the work being NCI, I can run 200*2 = 400 tasks an hour. At 10 points per task, that's a nice 4,000 credits/hour just from Goofy! I definitely recommend doing this as it is a nice easy way to boost your credits, as well as helping Goofy out a bit more Just with 200 hosts on one device (more to be added, methinks ), I'm currently securely in the top 10 crunchers on Goofy!

For anyone interested in this, either PM me or check out this link http://www.overclock.net/t/1628924/guid ... -instances for how to set it up As I say, well worth it for 4,000+ (8,000+ when all 4 subprojects are back up) credits/hour for the team! (Also, here are my completed tasks if you need to see it to believe it - http://nci.goofyxgridathome.net/results ... e=4&appid=)

Happy crunching!

Chris

[Woodles]

Hi Chris,

Welcome back

The problem with running loads of copies of Boinc just to run Goofy is that Goofy no longer generates any Boinc credits so whilst it doesn't take much computing power, it does take some and doesn't gain anything.

The original Goofy became Grid Computing Centre which then stopped creating any work. The new GoofyGrid doesn't seem to be being counted by any of the stats sites yet.

Once they start outputting data and the stats sites start picking them up again then it might be worth running.

(WUProp has specifically been coded so as not to allow more than one copy to run on each host, you're wasting cycles running it 200 times, only the first WU to finish out of them will actually score anything)

Mark

[UBT - Chris]

Hi Woodles!

Although they may not count it now, it'll show up when GCC is on BOINCStats again (I think)... So it may be worth it now? I do think that the WUProp thing is a shame - surely if I'm doing the work, I should get the credits?

Chris

[Woodles]

Hi Chris,

You have a point, I'll set up a host tonight and build up the credits ready for when the project is recognised again.

Re. WUProp, I think the problem is that the data produced isn't very useful. Running 200 copies of Enigma for instance, on a single core machine would just report to WUProp that it takes 200 times longer than a 'normal' machine. Reporting that 200 times and then averaging it back to the 'correct' running time is still only one useful set of data, why should you get 200 times the credit than someone that ran it 'correctly'?

Mark

[UBT - Timbo]

HI all

So, it looks like GCC is now closed and a NEW GoofyxGrid NCI project has started...but it has retained crunchers original account name, password and statistics...

This is going to get very confusing for various stats websites !!

If you need to re-attach, then this is the "Project URL" to add in BOINC Manager:

Code: Select all

http://nci.goofyxgridathome.net/

(I have suspended GCC).

regards
Tim

[UBT - Chris]

Glad to hear, Woodles Maybe UBT can be top 10 on there in terms of RAC (I think I have us at 11th/12th atm )...

You do make a good point about WUProp... what gets me isn't the credits, I just want to see the huge amount of computing hours I'm putting in with 200 instances! (I know it's easy enough to work out, but seeing it would somehow be satisfying).

Hi, Tim probably should have mentioned that too... Oops! Thanks for that!

Chris

[Woodles]

Hi Chris,

Grid computing centre has just been re-named to GoofyGrid on the Formula Boinc site so it may start counting again

Mark

[UBT - Chris]

Hey Mark,

That's good news - better get adding a few more (hundred) VMs

Chris

[UBT - Chris]

UPDATE:

At 249 VMs + host (250 'machines' overall) running Enigma & Goofy gets sluggish - WUs take 20-40% longer... Without Enigma, WUs still only take an hour Might try 300 machines for a little bit and go on a 'credit rampage' to up our Goofy score for when the stats are working for it again

Chris

[Woodles]

Hi Chris,

I'd be careful what storage system you're running all these copies of Goofy on. When I had a few copies running a while back, the limiting factor was disc access. Each Goofy task writes to the disc a few times during it's process and when a lot are running, the disc busy time approaches 100% and everything starts slowing down and waiting for access.

You COULD run it on an SSD but I doubt it would last long

I had started swapping them over to a RAM disk both for the speed of access and the lack of physical wear and tear on discs but then Goofy got a little confused in what/where it was trying to be and I gave up on it.

There's a Formula Boinc sprint on at the moment so I won't be doing any major changes until next week but I might try and resurrect the project next week.

Mark

[UBT - Chris]

Hi Mark,

Thanks for the info They don't seem to be having too many problems... I've had a few error out pretty quickly, but I'd say less than 1/2% are like that, and with ~500 tasks running, I'm not going to notice a huge credit hit with a loss of 50 an hour I will keep monitoring it though and making sure that the system won't die on me! It's performing better than expected so far... Hopefully it will last!

What project's the sprint on? I might let a project use a core or two if it's one I do anyway

Chris

[Woodles]

Hi Chris,

It was more an explanation for why they might have started slowing down.

Sprint info is here viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6124&start=60

Sorry for the abruptness, I'm on my 'phone.

Mark

[UBT - Chris]

Hi Mark,

That makes more sense then! I think they've sped back up now I've temporarily stopped enigma though, so that's good

Thank you for the details and no worries!

Chris

[UBT - Mikee]

Hi

Goofy has been offline for several weeks but it looks like it's back up. Check the project hasn't 'backed off' and do a manual update to get them running again.

Mike

[UBT - Timbo]

Hi

Goofy has been offline for several weeks but it looks like it's back up. Check the project hasn't 'backed off' and do a manual update to get them running again.

Mike

Hi Mikee

Well spotted.

I'd not set Goofy to "No new tasks", so I was hopeful it would re-surface...and sure enough when I checked BM just now it already had one Goofy NCI task underway....spooky !!

regards
Tim

[UBT - Mikee]

Hi

On/off/ now back again but a bit flaky!

http://nci.goofyxgridathome.net/forum_forum.php?id=3

Mike

[Woodles]

Restored from January backups, quite a few credits lost (but not as many as others)

You may have to set your preferences up again as they're all reset to defaults.

Mark