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UBT 10th Birthday / Anniversary

Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2014 1:08 pm
by UBT - Timbo
Hi all,

Back in the recesses of my mind, I seem to recall that UBT was created sometime around June 2004.

And given than it's now 2014, a quick use of Windows Calculator returns a figure of 10..... !!!!!

So, for June this year, anyone got any ideas about how we ought to celebrate 10 years of UBT ?

Ideas below please ;)

regards
Tim

Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2014 9:57 pm
by UBT - Mikee
A newsletter-emaily type thing to all past and present members would certainly be in order. (That sent the spellchecker into paniky mode as did this!)

I think the email went pear shaped last time as it thought you were a spammer due to so many going out at the same time.

Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2014 10:52 pm
by UBT - Timbo
UBT - Mikee wrote:A newsletter-emaily type thing to all past and present members would certainly be in order. (That sent the spellchecker into paniky mode as did this!)

I think the email went pear shaped last time as it thought you were a spammer due to so many going out at the same time.
Hi Mike

That *could* be a good idea....I did use Mailchimp the last time, (late last year) but the maximum number of email addy's you can send to is limited (on the free account) to 2,000 - and we have more than that.

Of course not everyone is still crunching, so the total number who are current members would be far less than 2000 - the trouble is "scrapeing" all the email addys, off each and every project website, and then trying to see which ones are still crunching.....

I just wish BOINC project websites allowed team founders to contact all their team members directly....would make things so much easier.

(I know that WCG allow founders to contact team members, but that's only some of the membership).

I wonder if anyone else has any good ideas about how to do this ?

regards
Tim

Posted: Thu May 01, 2014 5:41 pm
by UBT - Timbo
Hi all,

Just a month to go until our Birthday / Anniversary :)

I think I mentioned this before elsewhere, but I've set up 4 Challenges on BOINCstats.com - one per week.....so, the chosen project is SETI@Home (as that was the original BOINC project).

Members don't need to join anything, and BOINCstats will just "count" all the credits generated during June for this project - so to participate just return some SETI WU's during June - the more the better.

Likewise, I've set up a month long Challenge on WCG - the same applies, just ensure you crunch some WCG WU's during June.

We'll see if we can make a nice effort.

regards
Tim

Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2014 9:59 am
by UBT - Mikee
Okay - It's June so I've stopped Convector, CAS and Moo and just started my first SETI WUs for months. Should be interesting to see what the credits are like.

Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2014 10:55 am
by hgblade
So here we go with Seti - can't remember when I last crunched it - just got a few PG to finish.

Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2014 5:16 pm
by UBT - Timbo
Hi Mike and 'blade

Thanks for throwing your weight behind this...I did some SETI WU's before I left for a short break in Australia, so with luck those pending credit WU's will help....but I'll be back at the end of this week, and I can start up my little network of PC's on a lot of SETI GPU WU's and a little bit of WCG CPU WU's. :)

Anyone else care to join in ?

regards from Oz (where it's currently 00:17 on Tuesday !!)
Tim

Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2014 9:53 pm
by Kieron J. Barr
Is it just SETI, or the Beta as well?

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 7:04 am
by UBT - Mikee
Kieron J. Barr wrote:Is it just SETI, or the Beta as well?
Just SETI

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 10:04 pm
by Kieron J. Barr
Ok, well just Seti and WCG it is then :)

Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2014 5:45 pm
by UBT-mark3346
Not keen on Seti AstroPulse, it's taken over 63 hrs (cpu) to get to 95% done, don't like long work units when a machine is a bit dodgy.

The shorter types have worked out around 7 to 10 credits/hour on an old machine, rubbish against GPU.


Work unit on CPU - Run time (secs) 42,280 CPU time 36,196
Same wu on GPU - Run time (secs)  2,827  CPU time 222
Credit for both  71.76


Image

Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2014 7:11 pm
by UBT - Timbo
UBT-mark3346 wrote:Not keen on Seti AstroPulse, it's taken over 63 hrs (cpu) to get to 95% done, don't like long work units when a machine is a bit dodgy.

The shorter types have worked out around 7 to 10 credits/hour on an old machine, rubbish against GPU.


Work unit on CPU - Run time (secs) 42,280 CPU time 36,196
Same wu on GPU - Run time (secs)  2,827  CPU time 222
Credit for both  71.76
Hi Mark,

Firstly, you can set your SETI preferences on their website to NOT crunch the Astropulse WU's.....

And like you, I found there's a huge disparity between the credits earned vs time spent on CPU and GPU tasks.....

So, I now use my GPU's for SETI (and other GPU enabled projects) and the CPU for non-GPU enabled projects (such as WCG where you don't have a choice).

Hope this helps
regards
Tim

Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2014 11:40 pm
by UBT-mark3346
Hi Tim,

It has finished now, took just under 67 hours and got 10 credits an hour

I have set the preferences back to not accepting them, I changed it when there was no other Seti CPU work to get started on (having forgotten why I didn't take them in the first place).

Thanks

Mark

Posted: Sat Jun 07, 2014 2:50 pm
by UBT - Timbo
UBT-mark3346 wrote:It has finished now, took just under 67 hours and got 10 credits an hour
It hardly seems worth the effort for that sort of credit...but it's still "real science" so maybe it can be justified.

On the other hand, I think some projects offer big credits, just so they can get lots of WU's crunched....and hence maybe get their results quicker......maybe SETI should consider doing something like that, especially given that some WU's have been processed multiple times.....
UBT-mark3346 wrote:I have set the preferences back to not accepting them, I changed it when there was no other Seti CPU work to get started on (having forgotten why I didn't take them in the first place).
You might want to consider getting a cheap CUDA graphics card and installing that.....I got myself a  2nd hand NVidia 8400GS, which has a PCI edge connector (note: NOT a PCI-Express type)...they are a bit rare on fleabay, but can be bought quite cheaply.....I paid about £15 for mine and it allows you to run GPU tasks on older, non-PCI-Express enabled hardware.

Truth be told, the 8400GS has only got 8 shader units, but it works and (as far as it's been my experience) it'll crunch GPU WU's more effectively than a CPU task :)

regards
Tim