BOINC Mini Event - Input and Discussion

[Ithanul]

Hello all.

 

I'm wanting some input to see if anyone that likes crunching BOINC be interested in the team doing a mini event as a warm up for the upcoming BOINC Pentathlon in 2020.  The team did great in this year's Pentathlon, but there was a lot of new folks just diving into BOINC during the event and not sure what to do or where having issues right off the start.  I would like to see if folks be interested in a small mini BOINC event as a way to become familiar with the software and terms before the big Pentathlon starts.

 

The next Pentathlon in 2020 starts in May.  Specifically, May 5th to May 19th.

 

So, what month and time frame all of you would like to see this mini event held? 

 

 

UPDATES:

 

Possible months for the event:

January

February

March

 

Nominated Projects:

CPU

Rosetta@Home

Enigma@Home

WCG

 

GPU

Enstein@Home

Milkyway@Home

[Favebook]

Woah, I was looking forward to this!

 

Hope that you can organize one while it's still cold here in Europe. January/February/March would be great for me!

 

An event of week or two would be great for start, but I am even okay with longer one.

[Ithanul]

2 minutes ago, Favebook said:

Woah, I was looking forward to this!

 

Hope that you can organize one while it's still cold here in Europe. January/February/March would be great for me!

 

An event of week or two would be great for start, but I am even okay with longer one.

The main purpose of this thread is to see when folks would like the event to take place and length.

 

After I get good bit of input, the plan is to do up a Poll later and let folks vote for the month and than length of the event.  

 

Also, discussion on what project to crunch for and what should be some goals for the event that people can work toward.

[Metallus97]

YOOOO Great idea Bro!

 

So here my though in no particular order 

 

• end of February would be great for me! Still cold here and the semester at the university is over so I will have more time
• one or two weeks are enough, it’s still a warmup and this is enough to dial in some settings and OCs
• Forbid coollaz lol
• chose projects that MATTER
• CPU: Rosetta 
• GPU: difficult! Most scientific and use for humanity I see in GPUGrid, but AMD ( so also me) will be left out. Second most important seems to be Einstein (but the stats of it are real flaky)

 

REALLY looking forward to this!

[Favebook]

1 hour ago, Metallus97 said:

YOOOO Great idea Bro!

 

So here my though in no particular order 

 

• end of February would be great for me! Still cold here and the semester at the university is over so I will have more time
• one or two weeks are enough, it’s still a warmup and this is enough to dial in some settings and OCs
• Forbid coollaz lol
• chose projects that MATTER
• CPU: Rosetta 
• GPU: difficult! Most scientific and use for humanity I see in GPUGrid, but AMD ( so also me) will be left out. Second most important seems to be Einstein (but the stats of it are real flaky)

 

REALLY looking forward to this!

I agree with you about collatz, but I think it should just not be mentioned. No need to forbid it...

 

Rosetta sounds fine for me. 

[Ithanul]

4 hours ago, Metallus97 said:

YOOOO Great idea Bro!

 

So here my though in no particular order 

 

• end of February would be great for me! Still cold here and the semester at the university is over so I will have more time
• one or two weeks are enough, it’s still a warmup and this is enough to dial in some settings and OCs
• Forbid coollaz lol
• chose projects that MATTER
• CPU: Rosetta 
• GPU: difficult! Most scientific and use for humanity I see in GPUGrid, but AMD ( so also me) will be left out. Second most important seems to be Einstein (but the stats of it are real flaky)

 

REALLY looking forward to this!

So far Rosetta as a nomination for CPU project.

 

Hmmm, the GPU project definitely needs to be taken into consideration, since we don't need to choose one that excludes specific brands of GPUs.  So, that makes Einstein a nomination for that category.

 

The weather seems to be a deciding point so far.  Also, as you mention, when universities' semesters conclude as well.

[Metallus97]

6 hours ago, Ithanul said:

So far Rosetta as a nomination for CPU project.

 

Hmmm, the GPU project definitely needs to be taken into consideration, since we don't need to choose one that excludes specific brands of GPUs.  So, that makes Einstein a nomination for that category.

 

The weather seems to be a deciding point so far.  Also, as you mention, when universities' semesters conclude as well.

GPU: I nominated Einstein, because I think we should not calculate mathematics projects and stuff. I love math and am a PD in it lol. But I don’t see the real use for society. Something like biological or medicine projects are much more worthwhile do do. Some physics and astronomy also. Since there is no AMD/Nvidia Biology project on BOINC i choose Einstein but could also have gone with Milky-way. 

And well about the university: That would be nice for me personally. But everyone has different sh... to do IRL. Besides that those dates dont match up internationally. Therefore I think that should not be to big of a deciding factor. Same goes for other region/job specific dates.

[porina]

I could join in outside February. There's a month-long event at PrimeGrid and I'm in another team for a long time there.

 

I'd suggest World Community Grid for CPU, although their website is a bit different from most other BOINC projects. If learning how to run BOINC is a major goal, it wouldn't be best in that.

[Favebook]

2 hours ago, porina said:

I could join in outside February. There's a month-long event at PrimeGrid and I'm in another team for a long time there.

 

I'd suggest World Community Grid for CPU, although their website is a bit different from most other BOINC projects. If learning how to run BOINC is a major goal, it wouldn't be best in that.

WCG is pain in the... But it is a good project once you get it up and running.

Projects that I'd nominate for GPU:

Enigma@Home (if they are even active at all)

Milkyway@home (personal favorite)

SETI@home

[Metallus97]

1 hour ago, Favebook said:

WCG is pain in the... But it is a good project once you get it up and running.

Projects that I'd nominate for GPU:

Enigma@Home (if they are even active at all)

Milkyway@home (personal favorite)

SETI@home

May I ask why enigma? Personally I don’t see the use for humanity of throwing computing power at a nazi submarines commands.

 

[Favebook]

2 hours ago, Metallus97 said:

May I ask why enigma? Personally I don’t see the use for humanity of throwing computing power at a nazi submarines commands.

 

It's one of few that support both AMD and NVIDIA. And I personally like cryptography. 

[Metallus97]

Just now, Favebook said:

It's one of few that support both AMD and NVIDIA. And I personally like cryptography. 

Ture and me to. But I think it is more worthwhile to do natural sciences!

[porina]

3 hours ago, Favebook said:

WCG is pain in the... But it is a good project once you get it up and running.

What problem do you have with it? It's slightly different to sign up, but no different in running after that. 

 

3 hours ago, Favebook said:

SETI@home

Do Navi based cards work correctly with it yet?

[Favebook]

1 hour ago, Metallus97 said:

Ture and me to. But I think it is more worthwhile to do natural sciences!

Sure, could be true. I am up for anything as long as we got an event.

54 minutes ago, porina said:

What problem do you have with it? It's slightly different to sign up, but no different in running after that. 

 

Do Navi based cards work correctly with it yet?

I do not have anymore, but it was pain for me to get it all set up, I do not remember why exactly, but I did it on one system and never again.

 

Not sure about Navi.

[Ithanul]

1 hour ago, porina said:

Do Navi based cards work correctly with it yet?

Last I check, Navi was spitting out errors.  I have yet to see any recent news about the issue.

 

Though, looking at the message boards.  Seems the newer Nvida drivers are causing longer compute times.

[porina]

1 minute ago, Ithanul said:

Last I check, Navi was spitting out errors.  I have yet to see any recent news about the issue.

 

Though, looking at the message boards.  Seems the newer Nvida drivers are causing longer compute times.

Making it sound like a less than great choice to get people into crunching. While I haven't done it much in a while, I do recall their servers were also up and down a lot. Since they crated BOINC with potentially big caches in mind it is a different way to how I like to run.

[Ithanul]

1 minute ago, porina said:

Making it sound like a less than great choice to get people into crunching. While I haven't done it much in a while, I do recall their servers were also up and down a lot. Since they crated BOINC with potentially big caches in mind it is a different way to how I like to run.

Yep, if running Nvidia, one has to downgrade to 431 drivers.  So, it don't seem like a good one.

[RollinLower]

what kind of event would we be doing tough? just two set CPU/GPU projects and run them untill the event ends, or do we actually switch it up pentathlon sstyle?

[Ithanul]

34 minutes ago, RollinLower said:

what kind of event would we be doing tough? just two set CPU/GPU projects and run them untill the event ends, or do we actually switch it up pentathlon sstyle?

Nothing hard set yet.

 

The event can be done as select one or two projects and do those for a set length, or the event can be done up as a small pentathlon style with set dates to crunch certain projects.  

 

Right now just getting ideas and discussing, than later this month or early next month do some polls to see what folks want to do for the event.

[mescalin]

I'm in with rosetta@home. I think it's the most valuable project which will change our lifes in the short term. this project will help to revolutionize medicine, clean energy, new meterials, food supply and many things. 

[Metallus97]

6 hours ago, mescalin said:

I'm in with rosetta@home. I think it's the most valuable project which will change our lifes in the short term. this project will help to revolutionize medicine, clean energy, new meterials, food supply and many things. 

Yes SIR!

[Ithanul]

Ok. So another for rosetta@home.

 

I will start a list in the main post for tracking project nominations.

[RollinLower]

my vote goes towards february, since i'll be away on holiday for most of it and my rigs at home can make as much heat and noise as they can without bothering my girlfriend

 

also votes for rosetta and einstein

[Ithanul]

I will soon set up a vote for the months and projects.  Probably aim for this weekend to start the vote.

 

If any more ideas, project nominations, and/or discussion for the event, post soon.

 

 

Also, I will try to get some prizes done up for the event as well (got a 3D printer now, good excuse to practice).  Nothing big, but I will aim for something unique for the event.

 

UPDATE:  Added poll for what month the mini BOINC event should occur in.

[RollinLower]

Voted march because I'll be away from home then and I could just run all my systems on full power!