Formula BOINC 2023

Post by **UBT - Timbo** » Sun Nov 13, 2022 4:59 pm

Hi all

In case anyone is interested, I've registered UBT as a team, in next years Formula BOINC challenges.

This year we have not done much in terms of points-earning and as such, in 2023, I expect we will just have a minor role, (whereas in previous years, we sometimes did quite well). But this will depend on individual members enthusiasm to take part (and bearing in mind the increased costs of energy and the likelihood of a UK recession).

It is easy to get involved - just crunch the chosen project on the specific Sprint weekends (of which there will be 24 in 2023) and for the Marathon, just crunch on any one (or more) of the projects listed on the FB website.

Just make sure that you have allowed each project to export/share each of your project credit totals, (via the "Preferences" on each project website) with 3rd party stats websites.

You do not have to register for FB 2023, but if you want to compete (and see your BOINC credit totals, when compared against other individuals), then please visit the following link to register as a "user" !

https://formula-boinc.org/howtoregister.py

regards
Tim

Post by **wbiz** » Thu Nov 17, 2022 4:03 pm

UBT - Timbo wrote: ↑Sun Nov 13, 2022 4:59 pm Just make sure that you have allowed each project to share your credits totals, with 3rd party stats websites.

Looks like your message got across, there were a number of UBT members arrived in the tables the last 24 hrs (at least 20), some of them carrying a decent score already, its knocked me backwards by about 4 weeks.

Post by **stephenhunter** » Thu Nov 17, 2022 10:55 pm

Looks like we may finish this year with a bang. We are top of the leader board on Rosetta and there are no more tasks!

Post by **wbiz** » Fri Nov 18, 2022 6:36 pm

stephenhunter wrote: ↑Thu Nov 17, 2022 10:55 pm Looks like we may finish this year with a bang. We are top of the leader board on Rosetta and there are no more tasks!

We are only 8th in the Rosetta marathon and by coincidence we were 8th in the Rosetta sprint as well.

I see MLC and some others are blanked out on the marathon?

Post by **stephenhunter** » Sat Nov 19, 2022 8:02 am

I meant on the latest sprint which, unfortunately, has now turned into Einstein. Not so good. My machine struggles with Einstein, no GPU

Post by **UBT - Timbo** » Tue Nov 22, 2022 1:28 am

stephenhunter wrote: ↑Thu Nov 17, 2022 10:55 pm Looks like we may finish this year with a bang. We are top of the leader board on Rosetta and there are no more tasks!

Hi Stephen

Yup, unfortunately, due to my business trip, I was unable to check prior to the final Sprint starting, if Rosetta had any tasks and was awarding credits - and it wasn't so, when I checked the FB website and saw that UBT was in 1st place and only 2 other teams had any credits at all, I knew something was wrong and I found the problem and switched the Sprint project to the "back-up".

So, sadly, UBT ended up without any Sprint points for this last challenge.

C'est la vie !!

regards
Tim

Post by **UBT - Timbo** » Thu Mar 02, 2023 6:10 pm

Hi all

We're now counting down the last few hours until the 1st FB Sprint of 2023 starts (at 9pm UTC tonight).

https://formula-boinc.org/sprint_v3.py? ... &year=2023

Hopefully anyone interested in taking part, is winding down their existing tasks, (or maybe suspending them if there are a few days before the deadline?).

And fingers crossed there are no issues

(PS: I will monitor the FB website to ensure the selected project is correctly "announced"" at the right time).

regards
Tim

Post by **wbiz** » Fri Mar 03, 2023 9:44 am

Picked this up a bit late, been trying out my new machine not helped by WCG going off-line in the middle of my setting up. Hopefully I'll pick up some credits.

einstein@home 2nd March 21:00 - 5th March 20:59 2023

Post by **UBT - Timbo** » Sat Mar 04, 2023 6:56 pm

wbiz wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 9:44 am Picked this up a bit late, been trying out my new machine not helped by WCG going off-line in the middle of my setting up. Hopefully I'll pick up some credits.

einstein@home 2nd March 21:00 - 5th March 20:59 2023

Hiya

Excellent - thanks for joining in on the Sprint and also for joining UBT on the Formula BOINC Members League - I'd been getting a bit lonely over there so it's nice to have some "in-team" competition to keep me on my toes !!

https://formula-boinc.org/equipes_v3.py ... =1&team=37

regards
Tim

Post by **wbiz** » Sat Mar 04, 2023 8:43 pm

Thanks.

I've gone into this thinking I knew roughly what I was doing ...... and since made every mistake possible

I'll raise threads elsewhere with questions once I get organised.

ChelseaOilman · Post by **ChelseaOilman** » Sun Mar 05, 2023 2:56 am

I'm late to the party I guess. I'm not signed up to FB and don't plan to. Are my points to the team for this sprint on Einstein going to count?

I got it running on my three Nvidia Titan V GPUs. Tried on my three Radeon VIIs, nothing but computation errors. Not sure whats up with that. I gave up on them.

Post by **UBT - Timbo** » Wed Mar 08, 2023 5:31 pm

ChelseaOilman wrote: ↑Sun Mar 05, 2023 2:56 am I'm late to the party I guess. I'm not signed up to FB and don't plan to. Are my points to the team for this sprint on Einstein going to count?

Hi Carl

The team is signed up for FB and so all team member credits on the selected Sprint or Marathon projects count towards the FB team credits.

You only need to sign up personally, if you want to have your credits counted and tablulated with other team members, in the Members League.

ChelseaOilman wrote: ↑Sun Mar 05, 2023 2:56 amI got it running on my three Nvidia Titan V GPUs. Tried on my three Radeon VIIs, nothing but computation errors. Not sure whats up with that. I gave up on them.

As far as I know, there are separate GPU applications for both NVidia and AMD/ATI

https://einsteinathome.org/apps.php

I only run NVidia GPUs so maybe someone else can offer guidance on the AMD issue you have mentioned (although it is too late to do anything now for this Sprint event - but this project might be selected again, some other time this year?).

regards
Tim

ChelseaOilman · Post by **ChelseaOilman** » Wed Mar 08, 2023 7:56 pm

UBT - Timbo wrote: ↑Wed Mar 08, 2023 5:31 pmI only run NVidia GPUs so maybe someone else can offer guidance on the AMD issue you have mentioned (although it is too late to do anything now for this Sprint event - but this project might be selected again, some other time this year?).

I think the issue is I have the voltage going to the Radeon VIIs lowered to save on electricity. They run Milkyway just fine but I suspect I would need to raise the voltage a bit for Einstein tasks. With so little time left in the sprint I didn't bother testing.

Post by **UBT - Timbo** » Wed Mar 15, 2023 10:49 pm

Hi all

The 2nd Formula BOINC Sprint of 2023 starts at 9pm UTC 16th March - less than 24 hours from now

If anyone feels like joining in, please follow this link to see which project has been chosen.

https://formula-boinc.org/sprint_v3.py? ... &year=2023

(updated @ 9:26pm)

The randomly chosen project is: MilkyWay@home

regards
Tim

Post by **stephenhunter** » Thu Mar 16, 2023 9:31 pm

I'm on, still waiting for tasks though

Post by **wbiz** » Thu Mar 16, 2023 9:56 pm

I did have a milkyway account but it appears to have died.

And now like other sites it won't accept third level domain email addresses like .co.uk ones

Post by **stephenhunter** » Fri Mar 17, 2023 6:34 am

Yeh, I had to re-boot my account and change the password

I didn't know that about email address', seems odd, especially when they are dealing with an international community. You could grab a free .com address just for boinc.

I finally pulled some tasks this morning

Post by **wbiz** » Fri Mar 17, 2023 6:52 am

stephenhunter wrote: ↑Fri Mar 17, 2023 6:34 am Yeh, I had to re-boot my account and change the password

I didn't know that about email address', seems odd, especially when they are dealing with an international community. You could grab a free .com address just for boinc.

I finally pulled some tasks this morning

Looks like they fixed the email address thing.

No applications for ARM

Post by **UBT - Timbo** » Fri Mar 17, 2023 10:13 am

wbiz wrote: ↑Thu Mar 16, 2023 9:56 pm I did have a milkyway account but it appears to have died.

And now like other sites it won't accept third level domain email addresses like .co.uk ones

Hi

You can hopefully log into your MilkyWay account with your original sign up email address...and if you cannot log in (ie lost your password) you can be sent a way to log in, by supplying your original email address here:

https://milkyway.cs.rpi.edu/milkyway/get_passwd.php

Of course, if you cannot access your original sign up email address, you might still have MilkyWay data on one of your hosts.

Look for a file called "account_milkyway.cs.rpi.edu_milkyway.xml"

This will contain your "authenticator" ID, which might help you regain access to your account.

The ".co.uk" domain is an official CCTLD, so, it should be accepted unless there is a config issue on the MW server, which is what it sounds like has happened (based on your later posting).

regards
Tim

Post by **stephenhunter** » Fri Mar 17, 2023 1:22 pm

Got a few 'Separation' tasks on the board. But now there all 'N-Body Simulation' and they are all going Validation inconclusive

Hopefully they will come good before the end

ChelseaOilman · Post by **ChelseaOilman** » Fri Mar 17, 2023 2:16 pm

stephenhunter wrote: ↑Fri Mar 17, 2023 1:22 pm But now there all 'N-Body Simulation' and they are all going Validation inconclusive

That's normal. It's how all the tasks show before showing verified.

Mine: State: All (120313) · In progress (1904) · Validation pending (0) · Validation inconclusive (9315) · Valid (109049) · Invalid (0) · Error (45)

This is really a GPU project. CPU tasks run slow. For best results you need a GPU good at FP64 and run multiple tasks at a time. I run 8 tasks at a time on my Nvidia Titan V GPUs and 4 tasks at a time on my Redeon VII GPUs.

ChelseaOilman · Post by **ChelseaOilman** » Fri Mar 17, 2023 4:14 pm

Nvidia Titan V (8 tasks at a time) FP64 (double) 7.450 TFLOPS (1:2):

ChelseaOilman · Post by **ChelseaOilman** » Fri Mar 17, 2023 4:15 pm

Radeon VII (4 tasks at a time) FP64 (double) 3.360 TFLOPS (1:4):

ChelseaOilman · Post by **ChelseaOilman** » Fri Mar 17, 2023 4:20 pm

I'm not running any MW CPU tasks. All my computers are running Gerasim CPU tasks right now which happen to be giving out pretty good points right now. I earned over 10 million points in less that 3 days.

Post by **stephenhunter** » Fri Mar 17, 2023 4:26 pm

OK, that makes me feel better

Not quite up to your standard of work though

State: All (207) · In progress (165) · Validation pending (0) · Validation inconclusive (12) · Valid (30) · Invalid (0) · Error (0)

Still waiting on that GPU, one day

Ah, just seen your run times. Pretty impressive. Mine are averaging 50 mins on the CPU

ChelseaOilman · Post by **ChelseaOilman** » Fri Mar 17, 2023 4:36 pm

stephenhunter wrote: ↑Fri Mar 17, 2023 4:26 pm Still waiting on that GPU, one day

Ah, just seen your run times. Pretty impressive. Mine are averaging 50 mins on the CPU

The Titan V is doing 8 GPU tasks in less than a minute and the Radeon VII is doing 4 tasks in less than a minute.

If you want a cheap GPU that is good at MW tasks I'm running Tesla K80 GPUs (FP64 (double) 1,371 GFLOPS (1:3) x2 in 4 of my old computers. Bought them for $65 on eBay. It's a dual GPU card so not super efficient if your concerned about electricity usage. I'm running them in Linux Mint and have the power limited to 100w. So 200w per card.

ChelseaOilman · Post by **ChelseaOilman** » Fri Mar 17, 2023 4:58 pm

Nvidia Tesla K80 (4 tasks at a time):

Post by **wbiz** » Fri Mar 17, 2023 5:34 pm

The email address problem appears to have been fixed overnight so re-registered ok this morning. Same email and password as I had used in the past as they were in my password manager..

Every task I'm completing is marked as "validation inconclusive" and the buddy computer marked as "unsent", If nothing is sent to a buddy by the morning I'll be pulling the plug.

Post by **wbiz** » Sat Mar 18, 2023 5:06 pm

Pulled the plug on Milkyway this morning, still none of my tasks getting sent to other users for validation even now 24 hours after I sent them.

ChelseaOilman · Post by **ChelseaOilman** » Mon Mar 20, 2023 9:12 pm

wbiz wrote: ↑Sat Mar 18, 2023 5:06 pm Pulled the plug on Milkyway this morning, still none of my tasks getting sent to other users for validation even now 24 hours after I sent them.

@wbiz, your completed tasks are starting to get validated.
https://milkyway.cs.rpi.edu/milkyway/sh ... id=3820300

There's a thread over in the MW message boards about validation inconclusive tasks.
https://milkyway.cs.rpi.edu/milkyway/fo ... hp?id=4866

Seems a new host has to have the 1st 10 tasks validated before your host is trusted. Then tasks are checked periodically after that. If you get an invalid task you have to go through the 10 validated task routine again.

Post by **wbiz** » Tue Mar 21, 2023 8:37 am

ChelseaOilman wrote: ↑Mon Mar 20, 2023 9:12 pm
wbiz wrote: ↑Sat Mar 18, 2023 5:06 pm Pulled the plug on Milkyway this morning, still none of my tasks getting sent to other users for validation even now 24 hours after I sent them.
@wbiz, your completed tasks are starting to get validated.
https://milkyway.cs.rpi.edu/milkyway/sh ... id=3820300

There's a thread over in the MW message boards about validation inconclusive tasks.
https://milkyway.cs.rpi.edu/milkyway/fo ... hp?id=4866

Seems a new host has to have the 1st 10 tasks validated before your host is trusted. Then tasks are checked periodically after that. If you get an invalid task you have to go through the 10 validated task routine again.

Thanks, I hadn't noticed, none were validated in time for the end of the sprint which is what I guessed would happen. I have more than ten tasks queued up so I will be post-validation next time I need milkyway. So far 4 validated out of 17 tasks completed.

First time I noticed that I had a multi-core boinc tasks, I didn't realise such things existed, looked weird having one task run at a time instead of four.

Post by **UBT - Timbo** » Thu Mar 30, 2023 11:49 am

Hi all

The 3rd Formula BOINC Sprint of 2023 starts at 1pm UTC 30th March

If anyone feels like joining in, please follow this link to see which project has been chosen.

https://formula-boinc.org/sprint_v3.py? ... &year=2023

[update: @ 14:30 BST]

The randomly chosen project is: Amicable Numbers

regards
Tim

Post by **stephenhunter** » Thu Mar 30, 2023 9:22 pm

I'm in

Post by **UBT - Timbo** » Thu Mar 30, 2023 9:52 pm

stephenhunter wrote: ↑Thu Mar 30, 2023 9:22 pm I'm in

Hi Stephen

Please be aware that this is yet another project that favours GPUs...so, you may find your credits per hour of CPU crunching are less than what a GPU might produce.

Sadly, the random project selection is just that...so I just call it as it is and report the result here and on the FB website !!.

regards
Tim

Post by **stephenhunter** » Fri Mar 31, 2023 9:22 am

Yeh, it's a pain, but I can do around 20k an hour on Amicable, so it's too bad

ChelseaOilman · Post by **ChelseaOilman** » Fri Mar 31, 2023 6:46 pm

Just switched my 3 x Titan V over to Amicable. Looks like flat credit on GPU. Is that the same for CPU tasks?

Post by **stephenhunter** » Fri Mar 31, 2023 10:09 pm

Yes, 6836 per task

Post by **wbiz** » Sun Apr 02, 2023 12:54 am

I'm in. Bit heavy on memory for my small computers but hopefully I'll get a PC or two online tomorrow.

Post by **wbiz** » Thu Apr 13, 2023 4:20 am

The 4th Formula BOINC Sprint of 2023 started at 4pm UTC 13th April

Project is NFS@home

Ends 16th April at 1559 UTC

Post by **stephenhunter** » Thu Apr 13, 2023 9:06 pm

I'm in, again. Better for CPUs this time

I notice that ncoded is 13th in the participant stats for NFS, but has not joined a team...

(admin edit: I think you meant NFS (and not NSF) so I've corrected this)

ChelseaOilman · Post by **ChelseaOilman** » Thu Apr 13, 2023 9:55 pm

stephenhunter wrote: ↑Thu Apr 13, 2023 9:06 pm I notice that ncoded is 13th in the participant stats for NFS, but has not joined a team...

Timbo needs to talk to him about that and ask him to also sign up for BOINC Games if possible.

Post by **UBT - Timbo** » Fri Apr 14, 2023 12:51 am

stephenhunter wrote: ↑Thu Apr 13, 2023 9:06 pm I'm in, again. Better for CPUs this time

I notice that ncoded is 13th in the participant stats for NFS, but has not joined a team...

(admin edit: I think you meant NFS (and not NSF) so I've corrected this)

Hiya

I'll ping him a message and ask him to join UBT on NFS@home !! (I didn't realise he hadn't joined the team on this project).

BTW: Any and every member of UBT who earns credits on NFS@home (or any other Marathon or Sprint project) will have their credits included in the FB stats automatically...even if they do not register as an individual member.

I am not sure if this is true with BOINC Games...

regards
Tim

ChelseaOilman · Post by **ChelseaOilman** » Fri Apr 14, 2023 4:10 am

UBT - Timbo wrote: ↑Fri Apr 14, 2023 12:51 am I am not sure if this is true with BOINC Games...

regards
Tim

BOINC Games needs your CPID for you to earn points there. So you need to register there.

Post by **UBT - Timbo** » Fri Apr 14, 2023 11:37 am

ChelseaOilman wrote: ↑Fri Apr 14, 2023 4:10 am
BOINC Games needs your CPID for you to earn points there. So you need to register there.

Hi Carl

Ah, ok, thanks for the info !

So, BOINC Games only includes registered members credits to make the BG team total...whereas, FB includes every team members credits, whether they are registered with FB as an individal or not.

Each way has advantages and disadvantages I guess.

regards
Tim

ChelseaOilman · Post by **ChelseaOilman** » Fri Apr 14, 2023 8:40 pm

UBT - Timbo wrote: ↑Fri Apr 14, 2023 11:37 am Hi Carl

Ah, ok, thanks for the info !

So, BOINC Games only includes registered members credits to make the BG team total...whereas, FB includes every team members credits, whether they are registered with FB as an individal or not.

Each way has advantages and disadvantages I guess.

regards
Tim

You see any team members on this page that haven't signed up to BOINC Games?
https://www.boincgames.com/team_members.php?id=24

BG definitely favors teams with active members. Sadly, this team clearly doesn't fit into that category.

Post by **UBT - Timbo** » Fri Apr 14, 2023 8:54 pm

ChelseaOilman wrote: ↑Fri Apr 14, 2023 8:40 pm You see any team members on this page that haven't signed up to BOINC Games?
https://www.boincgames.com/team_members.php?id=24

BG definitely favors teams with active members. Sadly, this team clearly doesn't fit into that category.

Hi Carl

Yes, I have seen the page you referred to and it is disappointing that more members have not joined up...as it would clearly help the team and at no cost to the members involved.

We've had quite a few active members over the years, and there are multiple and obvious reasons why people stop crunching - and this affects EVERY team and not just UBT.

What is worrying though, is that the projects have been using the improvements in CPU tech (such as number of cores and/or processing speed) to their advantage (which means they can maybe get better results and faster).

BUT, for many people they have got rid of desktop host machines and replaced them with laptops or tablets, both of which are unsuitable for use crunching intensive BOINC tasks...

The net result is a reduction in the number of hosts that are capable of running BOINC and there are many people who now rely on laptops, tablets and mobile phones and the younger generation are not being encouraged to join BOINC...and older BOINC members are not going to be around forever (and many have passed already

).

And there is no easy answer to all of this.

regards
Tim

ChelseaOilman · Post by **ChelseaOilman** » Fri Apr 14, 2023 9:22 pm

UBT - Timbo wrote: ↑Fri Apr 14, 2023 8:54 pm BUT, for many people they have got rid of desktop host machines and replaced them with laptops or tablets, both of which are unsuitable for use crunching intensive BOINC tasks...

I haven't given up on desktops for sure and don't ever plan to. They heat my house over the winter and keep me busy in retirement. I do run BOINC on an old Dell XPS 15 notebook. Currently run Rakesearch and it does enough tasks to earn a badge each month. I also have my Gridcoin wallet running on it. It costs nothing to set up the Gridcoin wallet and earn GRC doing BOINC projects. Not sure why more people don't.

Post by **wbiz** » Fri Apr 14, 2023 10:33 pm

Anything on the internet not directly related to social-media or content-creation is dying a death.

Skilled person doing and explaining some seriously difficult stuff = 15k views

Idiot licking bark on a tree = 15M views

Everybody is getting dumbed down by advertising money, the bubble has to burst at some point, nobody takes any notice of the adverts that funds the rubbish, the advertisers will wake up one day and realise they are being robbed blind.

Post by **UBT - Timbo** » Sat Apr 15, 2023 11:36 am

wbiz wrote: ↑Fri Apr 14, 2023 10:33 pm Anything on the internet not directly related to social-media or content-creation is dying a death.

Hi

And yes, I quite agree...however, people also want to be anonymous on social media (and I understand why) so they do not share anything personal to themselves, BUT they do want to make comments about other peoples "content"...and obviously this can increase the popularity of certain types of "content creators" (ie they then have thousands or millions of followers) and they become "influencers" who can then earn lots of money from advertisers or brands who want increased exposure to more people.

wbiz wrote: ↑Fri Apr 14, 2023 10:33 pm Skilled person doing and explaining some seriously difficult stuff = 15k views

Idiot licking bark on a tree = 15M views

Everybody is getting dumbed down by advertising money, the bubble has to burst at some point, nobody takes any notice of the adverts that funds the rubbish, the advertisers will wake up one day and realise they are being robbed blind.

But don't forget that in marketing terms, advertising is paid for from the profits made on the goods that are sold, as the advertising budget is usually based on a percentage of net or gross sales value.

So a tin of branded baked beans sells for say 60p, but an own brand (where no money is spent on advertising) is maybe 20p. (And of course there might be a slight change in the value of ingredients or the cost of the packaging, but they are still baked beans in a sauce !!).

Advertising only works when you have enough people seeing it and being influenced to keep buying the product.

And advertising can be "in your face" (such as TV commercials or interruptins to YouTube feeds) or it can be more subtle, such as the type of car that James Bond drives, or the watch he wears. (And I always wondered why a brand like Durex never used product placment in a James Bond film - strange that

).

regards
Tim

Post by **wbiz** » Sat Apr 15, 2023 1:59 pm

nfs@home server have gone down

Post by **wbiz** » Sat Apr 15, 2023 3:38 pm

wbiz wrote: ↑Sat Apr 15, 2023 1:59 pm nfs@home server have gone down

And are back up again, even faster.

Post by **UBT - Timbo** » Sun Apr 16, 2023 1:38 pm

wbiz wrote: ↑Sat Apr 15, 2023 3:38 pm
wbiz wrote: ↑Sat Apr 15, 2023 1:59 pm nfs@home server have gone down
And are back up again, even faster.

I just noticed that the NFS website is offline again.

I hope it is just a bandwidth issue and nothing more serious.

regards
Tim

Post by **UBT - Timbo** » Fri Apr 21, 2023 7:02 pm

ChelseaOilman wrote: ↑Thu Apr 13, 2023 9:55 pm Timbo needs to talk to him about that and ask him to also sign up for BOINC Games if possible.

Hi Carl

Chris has joined UBT for the Formula BOINC challenges, as I approved his registration today !

https://formula-boinc.org/equipes_v3.py ... =1&team=37

I'm not sure if he has registered for BOINC Games yet (and is awaiting approval) but currently, he is not listed here.

https://www.boincgames.com/team_members.php?id=24

regards
Tim

ChelseaOilman · Post by **ChelseaOilman** » Fri Apr 21, 2023 7:55 pm

UBT - Timbo wrote: ↑Fri Apr 21, 2023 7:02 pm Chris has joined UBT for the Formula BOINC challenges, as I approved his registration today !

He still needs to join the team in NFS. We could have used his points in the last FB Challenge.

https://escatter11.fullerton.edu/nfs/sh ... rid=456394

Post by **UBT - Timbo** » Fri Apr 21, 2023 9:22 pm

ChelseaOilman wrote: ↑Fri Apr 21, 2023 7:55 pm He still needs to join the team in NFS. We could have used his points in the last FB Challenge.

https://escatter11.fullerton.edu/nfs/sh ... rid=456394

Hi Carl

I have messaged him about this, but I have not had a reply yet.

And yes, his credits on NFS would have been useful, but I do not think it would have helped that much, maybe we might have gained one place in the team stats:

https://classic.boincstats.com/en/stats ... 4/lastDays

Code: Select all

2023-04-16	2023-04-15	2023-04-14	2023-04-13	
245,272		501,898		522,986		524,886

Compared to here:

https://formula-boinc.org/sprint_v3.py? ... &year=2023

So, Chris earned 1,795,042 credits and we trailed behind Rechenkraft.net by 1,748,544 credits....so, a couple of FB points might have been earned, but not enough to have leapfrogged most of the higher up teams.

regards
Tim

ChelseaOilman · Post by **ChelseaOilman** » Sat Apr 22, 2023 1:05 pm

UBT - Timbo wrote: ↑Fri Apr 21, 2023 9:22 pm So, Chris earned 1,795,042 credits and we trailed behind Rechenkraft.net by 1,748,544 credits....so, a couple of FB points might have been earned, but not enough to have leapfrogged most of the higher up teams.

What about FB marathon points? If he does finally join the team in NFS, do any of his past points count? I'm guessing no.

Post by **UBT - Timbo** » Sat Apr 22, 2023 2:17 pm

ChelseaOilman wrote: ↑Sat Apr 22, 2023 1:05 pm What about FB marathon points? If he does finally join the team in NFS, do any of his past points count? I'm guessing no.

Hi Carl

Individual BOINC credits are only counted (on the FB Member league table) as from the date the member registration was accepted.

And BOINC credits for Teams are only incremented on the project website, (and hence will only then increase the stats totals exported from the project) from the date a member joins the team on the project. So, the UBT Credits Total on the FB Marathon will only show Chris' contribution as from whenever (if ever) he joins the Team on the project. So, previous BOINC credits will not be counted

I did PM him on the project website but I do not know if he has seen my message and he hasn't logged in here for about 2 weeks.

regards
Tim

Post by **UBT - Timbo** » Wed Apr 26, 2023 5:31 pm

Hi all

The 5th Formula BOINC Sprint starts tomorrow at 8pm (UTC)

You can check which project has been selected here:

https://formula-boinc.org/sprint_v3.py? ... &year=2023

and you can check how we're doing as a team (compared to other teams) here:

https://formula-boinc.org/sprint_v3.py? ... &year=2023

regards
Tim

Post by **wbiz** » Thu Apr 27, 2023 9:31 pm

SRBase

I can't get boinc to talk to that project using http nor https. I can access the pages on browser.

Post by **UBT - Timbo** » Thu Apr 27, 2023 10:24 pm

wbiz wrote: ↑Thu Apr 27, 2023 9:31 pm SRBase

I can't get boinc to talk to that project using http nor https. I can access the pages on browser.

Hiya

If you have issues, you need to create an account at the website first, noting this:

The invitation code for creating new accounts is pillepalle
You can only create new accounts over the website.

https://srbase.my-firewall.org/sr5/crea ... l=home.php

regards
Tim

ChelseaOilman · Post by **ChelseaOilman** » Thu Apr 27, 2023 11:00 pm

Yay! A whitelisted Gridcoin project!

Post by **wbiz** » Fri Apr 28, 2023 4:48 am

UBT - Timbo wrote: ↑Thu Apr 27, 2023 10:24 pm
wbiz wrote: ↑Thu Apr 27, 2023 9:31 pm SRBase

I can't get boinc to talk to that project using http nor https. I can access the pages on browser.
Hiya

If you have issues, you need to create an account at the website first, noting this:

The invitation code for creating new accounts is pillepalle
You can only create new accounts over the website.
https://srbase.my-firewall.org/sr5/crea ... l=home.php

regards
Tim

I always create an account from website first otherwise I forget to set the team. I can log in fine to the website but I still can't get boinc-client to talk to it, albeit on two different computers.
http times out, https gives me a "Project communication failed". All other boinc projects are working fine.

Just did a curl from that machine, http gets nothing, https has a problem with its certificate because it thinks there is a self-signed.certificate in the chain which is unlikely because its a lets-encrypt certificate.

Looks like a known problem with the certificate chain and expired root certificates but its vague how to rectify it on a linux system and I'm not going to compromise my ca list by updating it manually, its a fully up to date debian system.

Post by **stephenhunter** » Fri Apr 28, 2023 10:57 am

I'm in. Unfortunately, I am away at the weekend, so my wife will probably pull the plug

ChelseaOilman · Post by **ChelseaOilman** » Fri Apr 28, 2023 2:36 pm

wbiz wrote: ↑Fri Apr 28, 2023 4:48 am Looks like a known problem with the certificate chain and expired root certificates but its vague how to rectify it on a linux system and I'm not going to compromise my ca list by updating it manually, its a fully up to date debian system.

It's really easy to update the ca certificate.
Info here: https://boinc.berkeley.edu/ca_bundle.php

There's a link in that page to download the latest certificate. Just download the file, ca-bundle.crt, and copy/paste it into the var/lib/boinc folder overwriting the old file. Then restart the client.

Post by **wbiz** » Sat Apr 29, 2023 4:20 pm

ChelseaOilman wrote: ↑Fri Apr 28, 2023 2:36 pm
wbiz wrote: ↑Fri Apr 28, 2023 4:48 am Looks like a known problem with the certificate chain and expired root certificates but its vague how to rectify it on a linux system and I'm not going to compromise my ca list by updating it manually, its a fully up to date debian system.
It's really easy to update the ca certificate.
Info here: https://boinc.berkeley.edu/ca_bundle.php

There's a link in that page to download the latest certificate. Just download the file, ca-bundle.crt, and copy/paste it into the var/lib/boinc folder overwriting the old file. Then restart the client.

I'm on linux/debian, the certificate bundle used by boinc is the system certificate bundle which I don't want to play around with. Admittedly its only a link to the system bundle from the boinc directory so I could point it elsewhere just for boinc without upsetting the rest of the system.

EDIT: Still doesn't work with that certificate bundle, http times out, https errors straight away. Maybe his firewall doesn't like my IP.

Post by **wbiz** » Fri May 05, 2023 8:19 am

Einstein@home 05/05/2023 05:00 (UTC) - 05/08/2023 04:59 (UTC)

Post by **UBT - Timbo** » Mon May 15, 2023 5:32 pm

Hi all

The next FB Sprint (#7 of the year) starts on Thursday 18th May at 23:00 UTC

Check below for details of which project will be chosen.

https://formula-boinc.org/sprint_v3.py? ... &year=2023

regards
Tim

Post by **stephenhunter** » Thu May 18, 2023 11:47 am

Midnight! Oh well, another late night

Post by **UBT - Timbo** » Thu May 18, 2023 6:45 pm

stephenhunter wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2023 11:47 am Midnight! Oh well, another late night

Hiya

Yup - sorry about that.

Believe it or not, I've yet to figure out how the actual hour of the start time is actually calculated

It's clearly related to the timezone of the country in which the corresponding F1 race is being held.

So, for this weekends now cancelled GP, it is currently 19:45pm CEST in Italy, which is 18:45pm BST and 17:45pm UTC

Hence: 01:00am CEST, is 00:00 BST and 23:00pm UTC.

Sebastien set all the start times, but as I said, I do not know the formula !

regards
Tim

Post by **wbiz** » Thu May 18, 2023 9:18 pm

At a quick glance it looks like they are midnight without DST in whatever country they are in?

Post by **UBT - Timbo** » Fri May 19, 2023 12:28 am

Hi all

The 7th Formula BOINC Sprint of 2023 started at 11pm UTC today

The randomly chosen project is: PrimeGrid

regards
Tim

Post by **wbiz** » Fri May 19, 2023 9:27 am

4th hour - 15th
9th hour - 17th
10th hour - 18th

Are we still waking up or just battle weary?

Hard task on CPU's, PrimeGrid drives my computers significantly hotter than any other.

TSBT bunkered 7 million credits so are way ahead of other teams at the moment.

Post by **UBT - Timbo** » Fri May 19, 2023 1:41 pm

wbiz wrote: ↑Fri May 19, 2023 9:27 am 4th hour - 15th
9th hour - 17th
10th hour - 18th

Are we still waking up or just battle weary?

Hard task on CPU's, PrimeGrid drives my computers significantly hotter than any other.

Hiya

Yup, some of the PG sub-projects can be a bit intensive for CPUs, but GPUs are more suited to the task, if one has them available of course.

We have 7 team members currently active and earning credits on PG, so if a few other members joined in, it would help:

https://stats.free-dc.org/stats.php?pag ... id&team=53

wbiz wrote: ↑Fri May 19, 2023 9:27 am TSBT bunkered 7 million credits so are way ahead of other teams at the moment.

Yup - that was mainly due to a single member called Myklos M. who has been crunching PrimeGrid for a few days and was earning (regularly) around 4 to 5 million credits per day - and maybe he just bunkered some tasks on the off chance?

https://stats.free-dc.org/team/pgrid/408

regards
Tim

ChelseaOilman · Post by **ChelseaOilman** » Fri May 19, 2023 4:32 pm

Pretty sure the best points for this sprint is running multiple PPS Sieve tasks on GPU. Sorry but I won't be joining this sprint or probably any others until I get back to Texas in the fall. I'm trying to reach a few goals before shutting the TX farm down for the summer. I'll be heading to the Rocky Mountains in less than a month.

Post by **wbiz** » Sat May 20, 2023 10:35 am

Ended up 20th for Day 1 on sprint

Currently 17th at 10th hour of Day 2

Credit rate dropped to 8,000/hour overnight from about 36,000/hour but we have been building up this morning, currently around 50,000 credits/hour which should gain us another place before the end of the day.

Post by **UBT - Timbo** » Sat May 20, 2023 7:47 pm

Hiya

We now have 9 members who've earned PG credits in the last day or so:

https://stats.free-dc.org/team/pgrid/53

Copied here (and sorted by credits from yesterday)

Code: Select all

Posn	Member			Today	Last update	Yesterday
1	Stephen Hunter		175,292	47,194		639,471
2	meddy2065		211,627	97,340		228,696
3	UBT - wbiz		33,009	9,141		59,048
4	Ken Smith		44,506	616		30,702
5	UBT - Timbo		4,043	4,043		20,215
6	Paul Griffin		7,651	7,651		15,301
7	CaffeinatedSloth	2,354	794		5,907
8	Jason			747,237	743,194		4,366
9	Gordon Lack		1,059	0		570

So, some great efforts happening, but only 9 out of 389 UBT Members (registered on PG) is disappointing.

Another day and a few hours to go, and we might overhaul Canada and grab 16th place !

regards
Tim

Post by **wbiz** » Sun May 21, 2023 6:35 am

16th for day two of the sprint

Off to a flying start for day three with position 13th at the 6th hour thanks to Jason adding some serious clock cycles.

Post by **wbiz** » Sun May 21, 2023 3:35 pm

We've currently slipped down to 15th for Day 3, highly unlikely to go higher but our position is getting safer with 300,000 credits an hour currently recorded.

ChelseaOilman · Post by **ChelseaOilman** » Thu May 25, 2023 6:03 pm

Next FB Sprint coming up today. I vote for PRIVATE GFN SERVER. The only way I'll be participating.

Post by **UBT - Timbo** » Thu May 25, 2023 7:00 pm

ChelseaOilman wrote: ↑Thu May 25, 2023 6:03 pm Next FB Sprint coming up today. I vote for PRIVATE GFN SERVER. The only way I'll be participating.

Hi Carl

My lips are sealed

regards
Tim

Post by **wbiz** » Thu May 25, 2023 9:41 pm

I have my bets on PGFN as well so I started winding up a bit yesterday but not bunkering.

No ARM applications so I would be running Intel only.

Cosmology was in second place but I'm having trouble with their website.

Post by **UBT - Timbo** » Fri May 26, 2023 12:19 am

Hi all

The 8th Formula BOINC Sprint of 2023 started at 11pm UTC today

The randomly chosen project is: Universe@home

regards
Tim

Post by **wbiz** » Fri May 26, 2023 5:54 am

TSBT in a massive lead straight away by bunkering somewhere around 10 million credits.

We are in at around 12th

Universe's database is struggling to cope but issues tasks eventually after a few retries.

Post by **UBT - Timbo** » Fri May 26, 2023 10:59 am

wbiz wrote: ↑Fri May 26, 2023 5:54 am TSBT in a massive lead straight away by bunkering somewhere around 10 million credits.

Hiya

Yup, I think that TSBT are bunkering a number of projects before the announcement is made - as some projects do set long deadlines on some tasks. So, one could bunker multiple tasks from many projects if the deadline time is maybe 2 weeks - Universe@home has a 14 day deadline, for instance.

So, once you have maybe 2 weeks worth of tasks from lots of projects, you can then just switch off network access and then let them crunch. And over the bunkering timeframe, you could have many, many tasks ready to be reported.

And just in case anyone was thinking: I do NOT tell anyone (including TSBT) that a specific project has been chosen. The only way they could know for sure is if a project admin spills the beans.

wbiz wrote: ↑Fri May 26, 2023 5:54 am We are in at around 12th

Universe's database is struggling to cope but issues tasks eventually after a few retries.

I think access to the project website did seem to falter shortly after the announcement was made. But that will settle down, and tasks should be available when requested by BOINC Manager, eventually.

regards
Tim

Post by **wbiz** » Fri May 26, 2023 11:17 am

Sorry, I certainly didn't mean any slight against you at all Tim and perhaps I should have made that explicitly clear.

Its just a concern that basically sprint winners are being held outside of the sprint time period, TSBT aren't even generating any points during the sprint unless they feel somebody is catching up.

With that going on, the winner is decided before even you know which project is being selected for the sprint.

Post by **wbiz** » Fri May 26, 2023 5:45 pm

Universe servers have been bombing for a few hours now, as soon as I saw the database struggling this morning I upped my cache size so I'm good for a couple of more hours yet.

Looks like the servers went iffy at about 1530(UTC) and limped along for about an hour before bombing out altogether (all correct technical terminology).

EDIT: back to normal now.

Post by **UBT - Timbo** » Fri May 26, 2023 10:50 pm

wbiz wrote: ↑Fri May 26, 2023 11:17 am Sorry, I certainly didn't mean any slight against you at all Tim and perhaps I should have made that explicitly clear.

Hiya

Don't worry about it - I'm quite thick skinned and I am a natural optimist, so it takes a lot to really "get me" !!

And I hope you find my answers and/or comments also equally useful as I am not trying to upset anyone...I prefer a happy ship rather than one that is listing from side to side due to nefarious/devious posts !

wbiz wrote: ↑Fri May 26, 2023 11:17 am Its just a concern that basically sprint winners are being held outside of the sprint time period, TSBT aren't even generating any points during the sprint unless they feel somebody is catching up.

With that going on, the winner is decided before even you know which project is being selected for the sprint.

You have put it very well and it is obvious to me that given the limited number of projects that are suitable for Sprints as well as the number of active projects that do not have many tasks available, it therefore means that a team of members could quite easily crunch lots of different projects (in advance of the Sprint project being announced) and hence they can "game the system".

And in simple terms, EVERY team *could* do this, if they had enough hosts and enough crunching/processing power. The fact that perhaps only TSBT have got the acumen to actually do this should at least be acknowledged.

Of course, there is no way to actually only reward teams with BOINC credits (and hence FB points) if the download date is after the Sprint starts, as only the projects themselves have this data and it is not exported in the stats XML files (as far as I know).

So, a 3rd party who organises any Challenge event cannot limit any rewards based on any specific time data (other than by collecting the stats from the projects as to which member/team earned credits on specific days).

There is one way around this and that is to announce a project that is NOT listed on the FB website here:

https://formula-boinc.org/sprint_v3.py? ... &year=2023

But as mentioned, there are not enough resilient projects available who will have enough tasks available over a weekend and whose infrastructure can cope with the significant task downloads and uploads.

So, we just have to go with what we have and keep our fingers crossed that the project stays online during the Sprint period.

And, of course, if UBT can generate enough member enthusiasm for these Sprint events then, (and as we've done successfully in the past), we can make a really good team effort to grab lots of FB points.

regards
Tim

ChelseaOilman · Post by **ChelseaOilman** » Fri Jun 02, 2023 12:34 am

FB Sprint just started, NumberFields@home. Just happens I started running this project a few days ago.

Post by **UBT - Timbo** » Fri Jun 02, 2023 1:05 am

ChelseaOilman wrote: ↑Fri Jun 02, 2023 12:34 am FB Sprint just started, NumberFields@home. Just happens I started running this project a few days ago.

Hi Carl

That is a happy coincidence

In fact the chosen project was actually another project but the admin there never came back to me to confirm that their server had enough tasks available AND that they had no plans for any maintenance or downtime this weekend.

So, earlier today I contacted the admin at NumberFields (as this was the randomly chosen backup project) and they gave me their go-ahead.

Hopefully with your involvement, UBT might do a bit better than we've done in other Sprints

Sprint stats will appear here:

https://formula-boinc.org/sprint_v3.py? ... &year=2023

regards
Tim

Post by **wbiz** » Fri Jun 02, 2023 5:43 am

And indeed, we are 4th at the moment with indications that we will be 3rd in 20 minutes time as L'Alliance appear to be fading away, has someone got a PC giving out binary smoke signals?

Post by **wbiz** » Fri Jun 02, 2023 7:26 am

Australia has woken up so we are currently joint 4th, L'Alliance in 3rd are now gradually pulling away

Post by **stephenhunter** » Sat Jun 03, 2023 8:49 am

Hi all, been away for a while. But now crunching Numbers

Post by **wbiz** » Sat Jun 03, 2023 12:26 pm

stephenhunter wrote: ↑Sat Jun 03, 2023 8:49 am Hi all, been away for a while. But now crunching Numbers

Good man, just in time, we are clinging on to 7th by our fingernails.

Post by **UBT - Timbo** » Sat Jun 03, 2023 7:03 pm

Hi all

Looks like UBT earned some points on Day 1 of the Sprint, and maybe some more for Day 2.

But it looks like a few other teams are also earning similar number of BOINC credits each day, so overall, it might be a tough ask to climb into the Top 5...though we might be able to hold off some of the other teams?

https://formula-boinc.org/sprint_v3.py? ... &year=2023

But still plenty of time to go until the end of this Sprint.

regards
Tim

ChelseaOilman · Post by **ChelseaOilman** » Sun Jun 04, 2023 7:29 pm

Too bad there's people on the team running NumberFields that haven't allowed stats export at the project.

Post by **UBT - Timbo** » Tue Jun 06, 2023 3:50 am

ChelseaOilman wrote: ↑Sun Jun 04, 2023 7:29 pm Too bad there's people on the team running NumberFields that haven't allowed stats export at the project.

Hi Carl

Thanks for the heads-up on this.

I had always thought that members would actually tick the relevant box, once certain projects adopted the GDPR regulations...but it seems some people have not.

So, it's prompted me to create a team-wide PM.

And it might be too late for the previous Sprint, but I've PM'd all the NumberField members, asking them to ENABLE this function, on both the NF project and to check their other active projects too.

I'll log in to a couple of other popular projects and send the same PM to the membership on each project, as not every UBT member has joined the NumberFields project.

Hopefully, it will help for future Challenges ?

regards
Tim

Post by **UBT - Timbo** » Tue Jun 06, 2023 4:34 am

ChelseaOilman wrote: ↑Sun Jun 04, 2023 7:29 pm Too bad there's people on the team running NumberFields that haven't allowed stats export at the project.

Hi Carl

I've pinged out some PMs on various projects, as follows:

Seti@home
Your message was sent to 2962 team members.

Rosetta
Your message was sent to 1475 team members.

Einstein
Sent your email message to 1151 team members.

Moo! Wrapper
Your message was sent to 106 team members.

SiDock
Your message was sent to 82 team members.

NumberFields@home
Your message was sent to 74 team members.

Amicable
Your message was sent to 67 team members.

Sadly, some projects do not allow such messages to be sent...and of course, some members might have forgotten their project log in details, or may not get an email that a PM has been sent to them or they may have ceased all BOINC crunching so they will not act on the request.

But an effort has been made to get some people to change their project preference !

regards
Tim

Post by **wbiz** » Thu Jun 08, 2023 12:45 pm

I got emails off SidOck and Einstein only.

Some of the websites don't have the email notification setting defaulted on in Community Prefernces eg I had three messages in Amicable from this morning but had to visit the forum to find that they existed. This setting is separate to the settings in Project Preferences which allows teams to notify you.

Is there a second way for team admin to send messages and hence the two separate settings, one Forum (message boards - private messages) based and one Project based?

Post by **UBT - Timbo** » Thu Jun 08, 2023 8:31 pm

wbiz wrote: ↑Thu Jun 08, 2023 12:45 pm I got emails off SidOck and Einstein only.

Some of the websites don't have the email notification setting defaulted on in Community Preferences eg I had three messages in Amicable from this morning but had to visit the forum to find that they existed. This setting is separate to the settings in Project Preferences which allows teams to notify you.

Hiya

Glad you got notifications of some of the messages - and sorry if anyone got multiple copies on the same project, as when I was sending them, some websites took some time to actually confirm the message had been sent, so I pressed the "send" icon more than once until the website confirmed it had been sent...

Half the problem is that some projects are using older versions of the BOINC server software (and where some functions are either missing or have been added later on in later software versions), and of course the project admins might modify the look and/or the functionality, depending on their needs or project ethos.

wbiz wrote: ↑Thu Jun 08, 2023 12:45 pmIs there a second way for team admin to send messages and hence the two separate settings, one Forum (message boards - private messages) based and one Project based?

In the past I have sent emails via my own service provider, but to email every member, I have to cut and paste EVERY email address from EVERY project, then cut out all the duplicates and then hope my service provider didn't mind me "bcc" emailing 5,000+ email addresses (and of course they DID get cheesed off with this, so that idea got binned).

I then tried to use MailChimp, but that only allows 2,000 email addresses (on a personal account, or I have to pay a monthly fee to send more) - and I still have the same issue of cut and pasting email addresses and de-duplicating them.

I then installed an extension on this forum, to email members directly, but that only works for the few people who have signed up as forum members (UBT membership across all projects, at one point, was over 5,500 members).

Also, on some projects, there is an option to set up a "Team group" on a project Message board such as this one on PrimeGrid:

https://www.primegrid.com/forum_forum.php?id=62

But I've had no recent experience of whether this sends notifications out to members, or whether it just relies on members logging in and actually looking what's there...I've now created a post there just now, which is a copy of the PM I sent...so, I wonder if anyone gets a notification about a new post on the Team group there??

Finally, there was a BOINC-wide project website, where team founders could set project defaults for their team information (to allow new projects to set up teams in advance, as the project started). But I don't think it is possible for regular members to join this, and it might now be deprecated, as I've not had any updates about it for some time.

But this would of course have been an ideal place to set up an "all in one" page where team members could chat about anything - and of course it would mean there was no point having THIS forum...

Of course, in an ideal world, members who sign up for BOINC, could receive team messages easily from some central database ...but the BOINC software doesn't make it easy, and of course now the GDPR rules make it harder...and some projects allow members to decline to receive ANY messages from team founders...and other projects actually prevent team founders from even viewing members email addresses (so the cut and paste method cannot be used).

The end result of all this is entirely unsatisfactory...but no-one expected BOINC to be used by some many projects since it was launched and no-one thought much about how team founders could keep in touch with members.

regards
Tim

Post by **wbiz** » Thu Jun 08, 2023 9:21 pm

UBT - Timbo wrote: ↑Thu Jun 08, 2023 8:31 pm
Also, on some projects, there is an option to set up a "Team group" on a project Message board such as this one on PrimeGrid:

https://www.primegrid.com/forum_forum.php?id=62

But I've had no recent experience of whether this sends notifications out to members, or whether it just relies on members logging in and actually looking what's there...I've now created a post there just now, which is a copy of the PM I sent...so, I wonder if anyone gets a notification about a new post on the Team group there??

I didn't get an email, nor was there anything flagging up that the team forum had a new message, the forum is right at the bottom of the page and took me a while to find where your message was.

I have Project emails on and I doubt I changed the default permissions for the Forum Emails/alerts.

I'm sure there are a lot of things that would be done differently in boinc if they'd had a crystal ball, I have no idea why they spent so much effort into writing a dedicated forum, it doesn't appear to have significant special facilities tied to boinc and there is hardly a shortage of forum software out there, some of the lesser lightweight ones are pretty neat.

On the other hand, I curse the boinc sites that have decided to do their own thing, finding common settings on some is a challenge, a common interface is good thing.