BOINC Studio

UBT - Halifax-lad · Post by **UBT - Halifax-lad** » Sat Jun 24, 2006 8:04 pm

Been playing with this today, its a newish alternative to using BOINC View and many users seem to prefer this one as it doesn't eat as much resources as what BOINC View does. Even if you only have one computer I would recommended it due to the features it has built into it. I now no longer need to use BOINC Manager as this replaces it.

So now time for me to do a service install of BOINC I think

This program is also really easy to install so don't be put off by the long steps mentioned below

Alpha Version

The site is here its still in French but other languages to follow at some point.

BOINC Studio will auto-update to any new versions of the software that are released

The download link seems to include versions for Windows & Linux

Right time for instructions (thanks to all posts from various websites I have seen, this is my version of everyone else's)

1. Download the .rar file from the link

2. Open file and unpack to /Program Files/BOINC Studio (can use http://www.winace.com/)

3. Enter the BOINC Studio file and find Boincstudio.exe right click and send a shortcut to your desktop

4. Next open notepad and add IP addresses or names of computers that will be talking/contacting BOINC

Eg

124.321.25.231
156.247.25.246
etc etc

or you can list a range of IP's if you are on a router

124.321.25.231
124.321.25.232
124.321.25.233
124.321.25.234

(note IP's above made up out of my head)

save the file as remote_hosts.cfg not as remote_hosts.cfg.txt, place the file into \BOINC Studio\clients\bs_current_win32

5. Shut down BOINC

6. Go to the BOINC directory and find gui_rpc_auth.cfg open it with notepad, delete the long line of text and type in a new easier to remember password - Save the file and exit

7. Copy the contents of \BOINC Studio\clients\bs_current_win32 to your BOINC folder, overwrite all files when prompted

8. Start up BOINC again and wait for the benchmarks to runs after they have finished check for this message

24/06/2006 18:16:35||Remote control allowed
24/06/2006 18:16:35||Listening on port 31416

(Don't worry if it doesn't say that yet)

9. Start up BOINC Studio from the link you placed on your desktop

10. Click on Computers, then New Host

11. Change the Display Name (to something meaningful to you)

12. Change Host Name to either the IP's or Host Names that you typed into the remote_hosts.cfg file

13. Port - Do not touch

14. Put in the password that you changed in the gui_rpc_auth.cfg

15. Install path - Apparently is not needed but just in-case it is needed C:\Program Files\BOINC (or wherever your BOINC install is located)

16. Right click on the host that has just been created and click connect, if it won't connect restart your computer and see if that helps

17. Optional step - BOINC Studio has a Credits Correction facility you can enable this by going to the relevant host on BOINC Studio and clicking the projects tab (note currently it may produce higher claimed credits than normal, but this is getting fixed)

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I am assuming the following steps can also be followed for Linux using the Linux files included but I'm not 100% sure so if anyone wants to test it on Linux let us know how it goes

Note: If you are going to use it for multiple systems then you will have to follow steps 7 - 8 I think, also I think at any new install of BOINC you would have to follow those steps too, dunno on that one yet until I upgrade to a new version. Also can still use BAM.

Right well that's all the steps time to mention a few extras BOINC Studio has a really neat feature built into it, the ability to have a backup project, the ability to trick a project into thinking you have more than 1 CPU & also you can set up hosts to work off various projects.

To set a project as a back-up mode go to the same page mentioned on step 17 the back-up modes option should be there. Not too sure how it works I assume you would suspend all projects except your main project and then choose a back-up project that will then kick in if you run out of work on your main project

The CPU trick is also on the same page as above just click on box and a drop down section comes down, this can be a useful thing to do on projects where you are limited to so many WU's per CPU (eg Einstein)

Setting up projects on multiple hosts means you can for example have 1 host running Einstein and another running SETI and still micro-manage the projects from one location independently from each other.

See this thread for bits of info - I find it hard to read as is a massive post.

If anyone has anything they want to add, hints, tips & support requests just put them all here.

Thread going to be stickied for now

Screenshots

UBT - Simon · Post by **UBT - Simon** » Sat Jun 24, 2006 9:21 pm

looks ok.

one problem i have is that when i put in the local ip address (192.168.1.2) it claims it can't connect to the host.

Any ideas?

UBT - Halifax-lad · Post by **UBT - Halifax-lad** » Sat Jun 24, 2006 9:22 pm

UBT - Simon wrote:looks ok.

one problem i have is that when i put in the local ip address (192.168.1.2) it claims it can't connect to the host.

Any ideas?

If you are talking about the machine you have installed BOINC Studio to which also has BOINC on it

Then use localhost as the hostname

UBT - Simon · Post by **UBT - Simon** » Sat Jun 24, 2006 9:23 pm

Woo! thanks

UBT - Halifax-lad · Post by **UBT - Halifax-lad** » Sat Jun 24, 2006 9:25 pm

UBT - Simon wrote:Woo! thanks

Your Welcome

Now have fun playing with it, I find it really good, have used BOINC View before but this one is loads better

UBT - Halifax-lad · Post by **UBT - Halifax-lad** » Sat Jun 24, 2006 9:29 pm

Warning don't use credit correction its been rounding my Xtremlab WU's down to ZERO credit from the looks of it, so if you have set that option to run I would switch it back off

UBT - Simon · Post by **UBT - Simon** » Sat Jun 24, 2006 9:32 pm

ok next question

how do i install boinc as a service without having to go through all the 'boinc setting itself up <insert suitable bad word here>'?

UBT - Halifax-lad · Post by **UBT - Halifax-lad** » Sat Jun 24, 2006 9:38 pm

I don't know on that one there is some info in the BOINC Wiki (some where)

To be honest is probably just easier to uninstall then reinstall as a service and then follow steps 7 to 8 again, if you did step 4 correctly you will have saved it into the files for BOINC Studio so when you copy the files over on steps 7 & 8 that file will be there too

Just a note on Credit Correction it wasn't giving ZERO credit as such

Before BOINC Studio

Granted credit 1.34472386501421

After BOINC Studio

Granted credit 0.000500338853611954

(so don't use that part of BOINC Studio, leave credit correction switched off for now, I assume one day it may work correctly)

UBT - Simon · Post by **UBT - Simon** » Sat Jun 24, 2006 9:43 pm

bah i'll leave it as is atm, i'll just wait for the next version of manager and reinstall as service i guess. not going through the week of boinc trying to figure out its stuff.

UBT - Halifax-lad · Post by **UBT - Halifax-lad** » Sat Jun 24, 2006 9:46 pm

UBT - Simon wrote:bah i'll leave it as is atm, i'll just wait for the next version of manager and reinstall as service i guess. not going through the week of boinc trying to figure out its stuff.

I suppose that is quite sensible, I'm testing 5.4.9 at the moment, the next big release is going to be 5.6 with some major changes in the code

UBT - Halifax-lad · Post by **UBT - Halifax-lad** » Sat Jun 24, 2006 10:10 pm

All back to normal now with credit correction switched off

Granted credit 1.1358879042093

UBT - Halifax-lad · Post by **UBT - Halifax-lad** » Sun Jun 25, 2006 7:21 pm

Right well I now know how back-up mode works.

Say your running SETI 24/7 but you don't want your computer to stop crunching if you run out of SETI WU's then set another project as a backup project.

Once your SETI WU cache has gone and BOINC Studio can't get no more it would turn to the backup project and download 1 WU crunch it, send it back and then get another 1 WU. This would keep on happening until it detects that SETI was back up and running, the backup project would then be pushed on to the back burner ready for the next time

UBT - PiezPiedPy · Post by **UBT - PiezPiedPy** » Sat Jul 29, 2006 6:52 am

I like it, but i'll wait till the next version comes out

Martle · Post by **Martle** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 12:29 pm

Installed this baby and I agree that it's better than BoincView.

Just a couple of minor issues that perhaps you could help me on:-

The 'Options' in the File menu doesn't seem to do anything. I would suspect that this allows you to start it with Winders and minimise it to the tray on closing etc. Does this baby work for anyone else?

I notice that Boinc.exe that is packaged with the app is version 5.4.09 and when I dragged it over to my BOINC folder it overwrote my version 5.4.11. It's not a problem but to keep things tidy and to stop Boinc reporting that there's a newer version available, Do you reckon I could overwrite it again with the latest version? This isn't really a problem now but I'm just wondering what would happen when a radical newer version of Boinc becomes available.

Perhaps my best option is just to upgrade to 5.4.11 and see what happens.

UBT - Halifax-lad · Post by **UBT - Halifax-lad** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 2:54 pm

I am pretty sure you can just layer BOINCstudio over whatever BOINC client you have

Make sure you don't have the credit adjustment option switched on it kind of messes up the credits awarded.

Not used it in a while will try layering it over the top of my developmental version of BOINC tonight when I get home

Martle · Post by **Martle** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 12:03 am

I've just installed Boinc 5.4.11 replacing the older version packaged with BoincStudio and everything is working fine and my crunchers are talking to each other nicely.