version of boinc question

[artemis8]

Are the newer versions of BOINC Manager worth upgrading to? I noticed that when I installed boinc at work the version is higher than the one I use at home. I wasn't sure if it was worth upgrading, since it seems to be running just fine and it's not like I see an easy 'upgrade now' or 'new version click here' type thing on my home install. I am on 6.10.60 at home and 6.12.34 at work.

[Slicker]

If it works, why fix it?

The "alpha" versions are often very buggy, but there are some times where the new versions are required. The 7.x.x versions support OpenCL. Except for Mac OS X which didn't support AMD graphics cards, that doesn't help much. That and OpenCL doesn't perform nearly as well as nVidia's CUDA or AMD's CAL so unless you want to run a project that only has OpenCL tasks for your graphics card, there really isn't any point in upgrading right now.

[Mike029]

If it works, why fix it?

The "alpha" versions are often very buggy, but there are some times where the new versions are required. The 7.x.x versions support OpenCL. Except for Mac OS X which didn't support AMD graphics cards, that doesn't help much. That and OpenCL doesn't perform nearly as well as nVidia's CUDA or AMD's CAL so unless you want to run a project that only has OpenCL tasks for your graphics card, there really isn't any point in upgrading right now.

Do you know which projects use openCL? I think I read Yoyo but not sure who else.

I did try the 7,x,x and could not get Moo to run unless I added something to the XLM file. I'll wait until they get it ready for prime time.

[spingadus]

So, can anyone summarize the positives and negatives of upgrading to the latest BOINC 7.x.x?

I want to run POEM on my HD 6970. Will that cause problems with any other projects and if so in what way? I have heard that you can't run DiRT, but since this isn't an Nvidia box I wasn't worried about it? Any other pro/cons?

[zombie67]

So, can anyone summarize the positives and negatives of upgrading to the latest BOINC 7.x.x?

I want to run POEM on my HD 6970. Will that cause problems with any other projects and if so in what way? I have heard that you can't run DiRT, but since this isn't an Nvidia box I wasn't worried about it? Any other pro/cons?

Only do it if you need to run opencl. There is nothing to gain otherwise. And a lot to lose.

And if you do upgrade, understand that the work queue settings operate completely differently. Instead if "connect every" and "additional", those fields really mean min and max respectively. So for me, I use 0 and 1, which meant I always had about a days worth of work under 6.12.34. But under 7.x, that meant that I would download 1 days worth of work, and then it would run completely dry before downloading any more. So under 7.x, you would need something like .9 and 1 for the same type of queue that 6.12.34 had.

And using any of these settings in a mixed fleet is frustrating.

[spingadus]

Thanks Z, definitely some important info. I hadn't noticed, but the pc I updated to ver 7.x hadn't downloaded more tasks... until I made the changes to .9 and 1 as you said. You'd think they would change the description in the preferences to something meaningful.

[spingadus]

Ok. Looks like all my MW wu's have computational errors, so NNW for that project. I believe others have had issues as well. No problems with Moo! and Collatz.

The updater was working for POEM, but it never requested any tasks. Just said it's 'not requesting or reporting tasks'. Apparently, my cache was too full. I deleted some gpu tasks and NNW'd my other gpu tasks and now it's requesting 0 tasks. Much better, but I don't really want to leave my other gpu projects NNW.

[Duke of Buckingham]

Yeha, I am missing those times that were the projects that try to keep them working in all Boinc versions.

http://img474.imageshack.us/img474/3916/a2jwtfvr0.jpg

Is she looking at me? No she isn`t. I am missing it also.

Missing it Duke:rolleyes: