| Index | Recent Threads | Unanswered Threads | Who's Active | Guidelines | Search |
 |
World Community Grid Forums
Category: Completed Research
Forum: The Clean Energy Project - Phase 2 Forum
Thread: To Project Scientists: Clean Energy Project Phase 2 - Limited Cruncher Participation |
| No member browsing this thread |
|
Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 84
|
|
| Author |
|
|
Dataman
Ace Cruncher Joined: Nov 16, 2004 Post Count: 4865 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
|
I was looking at project stat’s this morning and noticed CEP2 has less than 25% of the run time of the most active project (HFCC) and less than half the other least crunched project (Water). With all the hoopla about the Win/Mac release, I was expecting more.
----------------------------------------CEP2: Run Time (y:d:h:m:s) - Day 15:110:15:12:06 Water: Run Time (y:d:h:m:s) - Day 38:031:12:57:09 HCMD: Run Time (y:d:h:m:s) - Day 57:073:15:27:38 HFCC: Run Time (y:d:h:m:s) - Day 65:067:11:09:23 HPF2: Run Time (y:d:h:m:s) - Day 47:293:08:05:09 HCC: Run Time (y:d:h:m:s) - Day 56:014:08:03:03 FAH: Run Time (y:d:h:m:s) - Day 60:336:06:42:29 I have been running 30-40 threads over the past few weeks and there is no problem getting work so I was wondering why so few crunchers. Is it just because this is such a horrible project to crunch? In my case, this is the worst project I have crunched since the African Climate debacle of 2007. From huge bandwidth requirements, large disk and memory impact, lengthy uploads, unpredictable run times, odd return codes, etc. almost every aspect of this project is cruncher unfriendly. Tonight or tomorrow I will reach one year of runtime and I plan to stop there. CEP2 just causes too many problems with my network, my farm and with other projects I crunch. (Before all the “helpful” folks post tips to reduce the impact, save your keystrokes as I already know them.) To me, this project fails to meet WCG’s otherwise high project standards. I know this is a short project which will soon be completed even with limited participation but if there are plans for CEP3, the project scientists should rethink their approach and please consider the impact on the crunchers who do the work. Anyway … just some feedback from one of your crunchers.  Cheers and crunch on …    |
||
|
|
gb009761
Master Cruncher Scotland Joined: Apr 6, 2005 Post Count: 2955 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
|
Hi Dataman, although I'm not one of the CEP2 scientists, I think it's mainly due to this project being an 'opt-in' one - basically because of all the challenges you've mentioned.
----------------------------------------From time to time, no matter what the scientists/WCG techs do, there will be a 'tough nut to crack' (such as this), and perhaps this is one true benefit of WCG itself - i.e., the power and number of crunchers behind it who contribute only a small part so as to get all of the project data generated. What we've got to keep focused on, is that the project IS moving on - as it's already had over 804 years of runtime against it, so that's 804 years nearer completion  Sometimes, it's the 'toughies' which, in time, produce the biggest benefits - and hopefully, this project really will produce some major step forwards in generating clean energy.  |
||
|
|
anhhai
Veteran Cruncher Joined: Mar 22, 2005 Post Count: 839 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
|
Dataman, I share your frustration for this project. However, the reason for the "low" runtime is not because of too few volunteers. The reason for the "low" runtime is because WCG/Harvard has set it to run less then the other project. You have to remember that WCG determines what percentage of the crunch time each project gets.
----------------------------------------Personally, I have some problems uploading on this project (had to abort the WU after they wasted hrs of CPU time since they won't upload). I will agree that CEP2 is doesn't live up to the normally high standards set by other WCG projects. On a side note, I do not believe this is a short project, currently people at WCG have no idea how long this will really run because the scientist haven't told them (they may not know themselves).  |
||
|
|
Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Problem 1: CEP2 really challenges the Harvard servers. We have to be careful not to overload them.
----------------------------------------Problem 2: CEP2 is running on commercially licensed software. The project scientists can spot where the inefficiencies are but are not licensed to change the software. They can report the problem areas to the company that licenses the software. So I don't expect any major changes. Personally, I limit my Windows 7 computer to just 1 CEP2 work unit. Lawrence  My mistake. A post by cleanenergy at https://secure.worldcommunitygrid.org/forums/wcg/viewthread_thread,30422#305292 gives the correct information.[Edit 1 times, last edit by Former Member at Dec 1, 2010 3:00:13 AM] |
||
|
|
kateiacy
Veteran Cruncher USA Joined: Jan 23, 2010 Post Count: 1027 Status: Offline Project Badges:
|
Thanks for the explanations of the problems, Lawrence. I knew that the huge uploads were problematic for the Harvard servers. I didn't realize that even the scientists couldn't see and try to fix the software issues.
----------------------------------------I want to say thank you to the project scientists for communicating with us crunchers. Their blog is great! The human communication helps to make up for the technical challenges of running CEP2. But it's the science that really makes participatig in CEP2 rewarding. I really want to be part of helping to make solar energy more feasible. I've been crunching CEP2 on my tiny farm since it first came out for Linux, and am excited that I should hit 180 days next week. My Core 2 Duo does fine running nothing but CEP2 24/7. I'd been doing a lot of babysitting to enable one of my other machines to run 1 CEP2 unit at a time; now that that restriction can be imposed automatically, running CEP2 is pretty easy for a tiny operation like mine. Kate  |
||
|
|
KerSamson
Master Cruncher Switzerland Joined: Jan 29, 2007 Post Count: 1664 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
|
From a credit point of view, CEP2 is a real disaster. Since I decided to not take part on "credit competition", it does not have a significant impact for me. However if you consider earned credits as an indicator, CEP2 is definitively inefficient.
----------------------------------------In few words: "CEP2 ! How to waste energy for improving energy generation in the future?"  Cheers, Yves |
||
|
|
Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Here's another quick post to say I am fully behind CEP2 and I have only been crunching this project for 13 days. I expect it will take another 60 days for me to reach the 2 year run time mark. I have 4 machines and a total of 12 cores running only CEP2. The project I have the most problems with (now that the Windows support for BOINC for CEP2 is available) is the DDDT2 project, but I will be happy to continue with DDDT2 after 2 years of CEP2.
|
||
|
|
KerSamson
Master Cruncher Switzerland Joined: Jan 29, 2007 Post Count: 1664 Status: Offline Project Badges:
|
Your calculation seems to be a little bit too optimistic, because for CEP2 the average efficiency is around 90%. If you crunch CEP2 only, you will "loose" 1 core per 10 cores. This observation reflects the decreasing of daily earned credits for my machines (from 9'600 to 8'400 daily).
----------------------------------------Cheers, Yves |
||
|
|
Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
All these credit issues, problems and other complaints are totally irrelevant if you stop for a moment and think of the importance of this project and all the consequences if it is even partly successfull.
---------------------------------------- So from me 24/7 crunching no matter what as long as there is electricity and my machine works the only thing to regret is that I could not start helping earlier because didnt have a Linux machine [Edit 1 times, last edit by Former Member at Nov 27, 2010 9:37:19 PM] |
||
|
|
gb077492
Advanced Cruncher Joined: Dec 24, 2004 Post Count: 96 Status: Offline |
Looking at the stats I would say that we have around three times as many crunchers now we have Win+Mac as we did when this project was Linux only. I figure that's pretty good going for a "toughie".
The performance issues seem to be very machine dependent. I figure you always have the option to decide whether to run it or not and on which machine if you have more than one. So long as there are enough volunteers to provide useful input then that's all the scientists need. And I reckon 15 years CPU time per calendar day is very worthwhile! For me, I find this to be a meaningful project and I'll stick with it, though I'll move some cores over to DDT2 when that wakes up again. But that's my choice. |
||
|
|
|