Collatz: Collatz Back Online with Solo Collatz Only

Collatz is back online but there are a number of changes. First, all applications are OpenCL based including the nVidia and CPU applications. If you wish to use your CPU on this project, you will need either the Intel or AMD OpenCL driver installed. See the project home page for more info and links.Second, all new applications have been deployed for all platforms which do additional internal validation and also gets all platforms back to the exact same code base. They all use the same config file format so they can be optimized the same way as the v4.xx application.The validator will NOT accept data from versions as the output has changed slightly with the addition of v6.xx. While I hope there will be no problems with the new applications, I expect Murphy's Law will prevail.I still have work to do to be able to grant credit for any lost pending and in progress work units, but it is planned.

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I have been meandering through projects since the crash. Glad the project is back! Thanks for all your efforts!

Nice.
http://tremorsintoronto.files.wordpr...spaz.gif?w=497
http://tremorsintoronto.files.wordpr...fits.gif?w=500

yeah

Any suggestions on getting CPU usage down? It's around .9 per wu on my rigs.

@FourOh: Not sure, sorry.

I have a different issue. All my mixed GPU systems started DL'ing AMD and nVidia work even though I had prefs set for nVidia only. Ended up using <exclude_gpu></exclude_gpu> tags in cc_config on those boxes. Probably just a glitch in the server.

F$

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FourOh

Any suggestions on getting CPU usage down? It's around .9 per wu on my rigs.

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Sorry, I have nothing to add that will help other than keep an eye on the forums on collatz. If you hit "More ...'' link in the first message of this thread, they are discussing the impact of the recent changes. I haven't tried the new collatz stuff yet.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FourOh

Any suggestions on getting CPU usage down? It's around .9 per wu on my rigs.

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Tell boinc that it can use only 7 of 8 threads, for example. You will probably have to get fresh tasks before it implements the change.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by zombie67

Tell boinc that it can use only 7 of 8 threads, for example. You will probably have to get fresh tasks before it implements the change.

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Me thinks he is referring to how much CPU each wu reserves for itself. Changing % of usable cores/threads won't effect how much of the CPU the app requires, or "thinks" it requires. I do know that if the CPU resource allocation within an app is adjustable, it can be designated from within an app_config.xml file. Just not sure if that is the case with these new Open_CL apps.

The CPUs task are multi-threaded now. So setting BOINC to use 87.5% will lower the total CPU usage.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by zombie67

The CPUs task are multi-threaded now. So setting BOINC to use 87.5% will lower the total CPU usage.

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Ah, I had not realized that. Thanks for the correction.

Edit: Just to be clear, FourOh, you are referring to CPU tasks, yes?

ecafkid just started crunching and started on Collatz, can one of you send him a message?

That would be nice one new cruncher to our team.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Fire$torm

Ah, I had not realized that. Thanks for the correction.

Edit: Just to be clear, FourOh, you are referring to CPU tasks, yes?

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No, I'm talking new GPU tasks. I seem to remember before the most recent "Event" the GPU work units used only a small fraction of a cpu.

I plan to run Collatz for a couple days then move back to Milkyway throughout the POGS challenge. I need every bit of cpu I've got to make a dent there.

Ah. No. GPU task need what they need, with regard to CPU resources.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FourOh

Any suggestions on getting CPU usage down? It's around .9 per wu on my rigs.

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Change the config file. The defaults are such that slow GPUs work OK which means lots of small kernels and therefore more CPU time.
threads=8
items_per_kernel=22
kernels_per_reduction=9
sleep=1

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Fire$torm

@FourOh: Not sure, sorry.

I have a different issue. All my mixed GPU systems started DL'ing AMD and nVidia work even though I had prefs set for nVidia only. Ended up using <exclude_gpu></exclude_gpu> tags in cc_config on those boxes. Probably just a glitch in the server.

F$

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Sure you aren't getting AMD CPU work and nVidia GPU work? The AMD drivers include OpenCL drivers for CPUs. Then again, as OpenCL for CPUs is new, I'm sure it is still pretty buggy. I fixed/changed a bunch of code on the server already just so it would better handle Intel vs. AMD CPU drivers.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Slicker

Sure you aren't getting AMD CPU work and nVidia GPU work? The AMD drivers include OpenCL drivers for CPUs. Then again, as OpenCL for CPUs is new, I'm sure it is still pretty buggy. I fixed/changed a bunch of code on the server already just so it would better handle Intel vs. AMD CPU drivers.

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No, I'm sure they were AMD GPU tasks as they pushed my Moo work to the side (Waiting to Run) and started crunching. I figured all the recent changes to the server code might have contributed to the issue so I just used the work around and posted here so you would know.

Just tested again after removing exclude tag from cc_config. Still getting opencl_amd_gpu work.

Quote:

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1 2/6/2014 5:34:02 AM Starting BOINC client version 7.0.64 for windows_x86_64
2 2/6/2014 5:34:02 AM log flags: file_xfer, sched_ops, task
3 2/6/2014 5:34:02 AM Libraries: libcurl/7.25.0 OpenSSL/1.0.1 zlib/1.2.6
:
:
6 2/6/2014 5:34:02 AM Processor: 8 GenuineIntel Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80GHz [Family 6 Model 30 Stepping 5]
7 2/6/2014 5:34:02 AM Processor features: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss htt tm pni ssse3 cx16 sse4_1 sse4_2 popcnt syscall nx lm vmx smx tm2 pbe
8 2/6/2014 5:34:02 AM OS: Microsoft Windows 7: Ultimate x64 Edition, (06.01.7600.00)
9 2/6/2014 5:34:02 AM Memory: 4.00 GB physical, 7.99 GB virtual
10 2/6/2014 5:34:02 AM Disk: 41.26 GB total, 35.42 GB free
11 2/6/2014 5:34:02 AM Local time is UTC -5 hours
12 2/6/2014 5:34:02 AM VirtualBox version: 4.2.12
13 2/6/2014 5:34:02 AM CUDA: NVIDIA GPU 0: GeForce GTX 570 (driver version 306.97, CUDA version 5.0, compute capability 2.0, 1280MB, 1178MB available, 1728 GFLOPS peak)
14 2/6/2014 5:34:02 AM CAL: ATI GPU 0: ATI Radeon HD 5800 series (Cypress) (CAL version 1.4.1848, 1024MB, 991MB available, 4144 GFLOPS peak)
15 2/6/2014 5:34:02 AM OpenCL: NVIDIA GPU 0: GeForce GTX 570 (driver version 306.97, device version OpenCL 1.1 CUDA, 1280MB, 1178MB available, 1728 GFLOPS peak)
16 2/6/2014 5:34:02 AM OpenCL: AMD/ATI GPU 0: ATI Radeon HD 5800 series (Cypress) (driver version 1268.1 (VM), device version OpenCL 1.2 AMD-APP (1268.1), 1024MB, 991MB available, 4144 GFLOPS peak)
20 2/6/2014 5:34:02 AM Config: simulate 8 CPUs
21 2/6/2014 5:34:02 AM Config: report completed tasks immediately
:
:
:
37 Collatz Conjecture 2/6/2014 5:34:02 AM URL http://boinc.thesonntags.com/collatz/; Computer ID 67359; resource share 10000
:
:
:
79 2/6/2014 5:34:02 AM General prefs: no separate prefs for home; using your defaults
80 2/6/2014 5:34:02 AM Reading preferences override file
81 2/6/2014 5:34:02 AM Preferences:
82 2/6/2014 5:34:02 AM max memory usage when active: 3682.17MB
83 2/6/2014 5:34:02 AM max memory usage when idle: 3886.74MB
84 2/6/2014 5:34:02 AM max disk usage: 36.86GB
85 2/6/2014 5:34:02 AM max CPUs used: 5
86 2/6/2014 5:34:02 AM max download rate: 3072000 bytes/sec
87 2/6/2014 5:34:02 AM max upload rate: 1024000 bytes/sec
88 2/6/2014 5:34:02 AM (to change preferences, visit a project web site or select Preferences in the Manager)
90 2/6/2014 5:34:02 AM Not using a proxy
:
:
:
98 Collatz Conjecture 2/6/2014 5:34:12 AM Restarting task solo_collatz_2369757995548854167919_824633720832_0 using solo_collatz version 603 (opencl_nvidia_gpu) in slot 0
100 Collatz Conjecture 2/6/2014 5:34:38 AM update requested by user
101 Collatz Conjecture 2/6/2014 5:34:39 AM Sending scheduler request: Requested by user.
102 Collatz Conjecture 2/6/2014 5:34:39 AM Requesting new tasks for ATI
103 Collatz Conjecture 2/6/2014 5:34:40 AM Scheduler request completed: got 1 new tasks
104 Collatz Conjecture 2/6/2014 5:34:42 AM Started download of solo_collatz_2369772917296032622959_824633720832
105 Collatz Conjecture 2/6/2014 5:34:43 AM Finished download of solo_collatz_2369772917296032622959_824633720832

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One other thing I noticed, the prefs page on the website....

Use CPU []

Enforced by version 6.10+

Use NVIDIA GPU []

Enforced by version 6.10+

Use Intel GPU []

Enforced by version 7.2+

What happened to Use AMD GPU? <---- Source of problem?

Same here, I get this when calling for work >>>

133426 http://boinc.thesonntags.com/collatz/ 2/6/2014 7:41:34 AM Master file download succeeded
133427 http://boinc.thesonntags.com/collatz/ 2/6/2014 7:41:39 AM Sending scheduler request: Project initialization.
133428 http://boinc.thesonntags.com/collatz/ 2/6/2014 7:41:39 AM Requesting new tasks for CPU and ATI
133429 Collatz Conjecture 2/6/2014 7:41:40 AM Scheduler request completed: got 0 new tasks
133430 Collatz Conjecture 2/6/2014 7:41:40 AM No tasks sent
133431 Collatz Conjecture 2/6/2014 7:41:40 AM No tasks are available for solo_collatz
133432 Collatz Conjecture 2/6/2014 7:41:40 AM Tasks for NVIDIA GPU are available, but your preferences are set to not accept them
133433 Collatz Conjecture 2/6/2014 7:41:40 AM Tasks for AMD/ATI GPU are available, but your preferences are set to not accept them


There is no Preference for AMD/ATI GPU's ...

Okay now I got this >>>

PBOYZTOY16

133448 Collatz Conjecture 2/6/2014 7:49:49 AM update requested by user
133449 Collatz Conjecture 2/6/2014 7:49:52 AM Sending scheduler request: Requested by user.
133450 Collatz Conjecture 2/6/2014 7:49:52 AM Requesting new tasks for CPU
133451 Collatz Conjecture 2/6/2014 7:49:53 AM Scheduler request completed: got 0 new tasks
133452 Collatz Conjecture 2/6/2014 7:49:53 AM No tasks sent
133453 Collatz Conjecture 2/6/2014 7:49:53 AM Tasks for CPU are available, but your preferences are set to not accept them
133454 Collatz Conjecture 2/6/2014 7:49:53 AM Tasks for Intel GPU are available, but your preferences are set to not accept them
133455 Collatz Conjecture 2/6/2014 7:50:08 AM Sending scheduler request: To fetch work.
133456 Collatz Conjecture 2/6/2014 7:50:08 AM Requesting new tasks for ATI
133457 Collatz Conjecture 2/6/2014 7:50:09 AM Scheduler request completed: got 30 new tasks
133458 Collatz Conjecture 2/6/2014 7:50:11 AM Started download of solo_collatz_6.03_windows_x86_64__opencl_amd_gpu.e xe
133459 Collatz Conjecture 2/6/2014 7:50:11 AM Started download of solo_collatz_6.03_windows_x86_64__opencl_amd_gpu.p db
133460 Collatz Conjecture 2/6/2014 7:50:11 AM Started download of solo_collatz_6.03_windows_x86_64__opencl_amd_gpu.c onfig
133461 Collatz Conjecture 2/6/2014 7:50:11 AM Started download of solo_collatz_2369774716646811478383_824633720832
133462 Collatz Conjecture 2/6/2014 7:50:11 AM Started download of solo_collatz_2369774717471445199215_824633720832
133463 Collatz Conjecture 2/6/2014 7:50:11 AM Started download of solo_collatz_2369774718296078920047_824633720832
133464 Collatz Conjecture 2/6/2014 7:50:11 AM Started download of solo_collatz_2369774625937102186863_824633720832
133465 Collatz Conjecture 2/6/2014 7:50:11 AM Started download of solo_collatz_2369774626761735907695_824633720832

And a Collatz Wu is off & running on 1 of my 7970's >>>

PBOYZTOY16 Collatz Conjecture solo_collatz_2369774696030968457583_824633720832_0 6.03 solo_collatz (opencl_amd_gpu) 2/13/2014 7:50:35 AM Running 00:01:54 (00:00:49) 12.435 00:13:58 43.26 0.962C + 1 ATI GPU

And it completed >>>

34432 30288 139549 6 Feb 2014, 12:50:35 UTC 6 Feb 2014, 13:09:32 UTC Completed and validated 917.32 395.73 7,837.49 solo_collatz v6.03 (opencl_amd_gpu)

I'm not going to run Collatz right now as I need to still get to 250 Million on Moo, still about 25 Million to go will take another 30 Days or so at the pace I'm on, no hurry to get there on Moo just want to get there though eventually ... :) ... Just was wanting to see if the Collatz GPU Wu's would run on my 7970's now, may go for a Billion on Collatz when I'm done with Moo ...

All my AMD cards are working and earning good credit (although CPU usage is high). Interestingly, my 7790 is outperforming my 5850s by 56% while using about half the power.

The Project is down again, I can't connect to it ...

It was missing a preference for selecting AMD GPUs. Maybe he had to take it down to fix that?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by zombie67

It was missing a preference for selecting AMD GPUs. Maybe he had to take it down to fix that?

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Back up again, has the ATI/AMD Option now in the Preferences ...

Had to stop running Collatz with my 7870, it was running just fine for the last 4-5 Days since I started running the Project with the 7870 but this morning the GPU Load dropped to under 35% & nothing I did would bring it back up to the 98%-99% GPU Load it was running at. So I put it back over on MOO & it seems to be running okay there like it was before. I don't know what it is with Collatz but I can never get more than a few day's if that much out of any Card ATI or NVIDIA without them puking their guts out I have to take them off the Project ... Weird ... b-(

Quote:

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Originally Posted by STE\/E

Had to stop running Collatz with my 7870, it was running just fine for the last 4-5 Days since I started running the Project with the 7870 but this morning the GPU Load dropped to under 35% & nothing I did would bring it back up to the 98%-99% GPU Load it was running at. So I put it back over on MOO & it seems to be running okay there like it was before. I don't know what it is with Collatz but I can never get more than a few day's if that much out of any Card ATI or NVIDIA without them puking their guts out I have to take them off the Project ... Weird ... b-(

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I have one 7970 that I have to run two solo wus at a time to get the usage % up. Of course that was before the application changes and I haven't tried it since.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Al McAdams

I have one 7970 that I have to run two solo wus at a time to get the usage % up. Of course that was before the application changes and I haven't tried it since.

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I'm just going to try to finish MOO for 250 Million & then I'll try Collatz again ...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by STE\/E

Had to stop running Collatz with my 7870, it was running just fine for the last 4-5 Days since I started running the Project with the 7870 but this morning the GPU Load dropped to under 35% & nothing I did would bring it back up to the 98%-99% GPU Load it was running at. So I put it back over on MOO & it seems to be running okay there like it was before. I don't know what it is with Collatz but I can never get more than a few day's if that much out of any Card ATI or NVIDIA without them puking their guts out I have to take them off the Project ... Weird ... b-(

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The apps were not reading the config file correctly. They now do. Without changing the config file, especially the items_per_kernel and kernels_per_iteration settings will result in a lot of CPU usage and really slow run times since the app's default settings are set up to work on HD 4830 and 8400GS GPUs.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Slicker

The apps were not reading the config file correctly. They now do. Without changing the config file, especially the items_per_kernel and kernels_per_iteration settings will result in a lot of CPU usage and really slow run times since the app's default settings are set up to work on HD 4830 and 8400GS GPUs.

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There's nothing in the gpu.config file in the Collatz Project Directory, I reset the Project but still nothing so I assume it's something I'm supposed to put there. I don't have a clue what to put there so I'll stay with MOO for now. Probably why I don't run Collatz no more, way too much configuring for me to bother with ...

Think reset is not enough , I removed it completely and made a new install and all works fine.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by conf

Think reset is not enough , I removed it completely and made a new install and all works fine.

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I tried that too, still run's very slow, I think the problem is the Collatz GPU Wu isn't using any CPU Resource, I show 24% Idle CPU in the Task Manager which is about 2 of the Thread's that the Collatz Wu should be using but isn't. Like I said there's nothing in the gpu.config file to tell it what to use I assume & I don't know what to put there to tell it what to use ...

The collatz config files are not universal any more. There is a config file unique to each app. So you need to update the specific app config file now.

Quote:

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There is a config file per app version, platform, and plan class. When the version gets updated, a new config file goes with it. I tried using a generic one but that wasn't getting read. So, the app is back to the config file matching the app name exactly. In other words, solo_collatz.config will not work. It would need to be in the format:
solo_collatz_<version>_<platform>__<plan_class>.co nfig

e.g.
solo_collatz_6.04_windows_x86_64__opencl_nvidia_gp u.config

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Read more here: http://boinc.thesonntags.com/collatz...ad.php?id=1115

I put a couple files in the collatz directory that I thought might work but no go, right now I can't even get the project to send me any work ...

I downloaded what I think is the proper files from the collatz project & will try later to see if I can get it running at the speed it should run ...

I spent a little time with it this morning on a system with a 570 and one with a 7970. I had to detach and re-add the project. From there it downloaded work without doing anything else.

570 - 33 min/wu @ 92% usage. I don't believe I tweaked this one at all.

7970 - 57 min/wu @ 47% usage. I did add Slicker's settings to the application configuration file, but did not use an app_config. Not sure why it wants to use most of a cpu core and BoincTasks shows it uses next to none. Anyway, 2 tasks/7970 will probably be needed to get the usage closer to 99%.

I was running 1 solo Wu in under 20 Min's on my HD7870 for close to 5 days without doing a thing, I just downloaded some Wu's & ran them & was using 98%-99% of the GPU without any added files. Then yesterday morning for whatever reason the Wu's started taking 50 Min's each, now I've been messing around for the last 1.5 days trying to get that GPU Usage back, will try the files tomorrow morning & see what I get ...

57 Min for 1 solo Wu on a 7970 is way to long if a 7870 will do them in under 20 Min's, may as well put them on a better paying or quicker running GPU Project for more Credits ...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by STE\/E

57 Min for 1 solo Wu on a 7970 is way to long if a 7870 will do them in under 20 Min's, may as well put them on a better paying or quicker running GPU Project for more Credits ...

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Agreed, but I'll try some further tweaking on it tonight and report any positive results.

Al you may find this helpful, it is prior to collate changes however. http://www.setiusa.us/showthread.php...utable-configs

Have Faith all you QWERTY challenged volunteers who cannot master using a mouse that has more than one button, if this 70+ year old Sickly BOINC Volunteer can get the Collatz Solo GPU WU's running like they should then anybody aged 8 to 80 probably can get them running like they should ... lol ... Spent some time playing around with Collatz Files on my HD7870 this morning & then a little more this afternoon because what I tried this morning didn't work. I hate to count my QWERTY's before they Type but the 7870 is running the solo Wu's again & running them faster than before.

172539 152970 139550 11 Feb 2014, 19:23:45 UTC 13 Feb 2014, 20:20:08 UTC Completed and validated 914.70 840.42 7,493.43 solo_collatz v6.04 (opencl_amd_gpu)
172516 152948 139550 11 Feb 2014, 19:23:45 UTC 13 Feb 2014, 20:33:32 UTC Completed and validated 902.23 829.10 7,257.81 solo_collatz v6.04 (opencl_amd_gpu)

Before they were running in the 18-20 Min Range & then started messing up & jumped up to to 40-45 Min Range but now they seem to be running about 15 Min's Flat, I even gained 1 Thread back so I can use 7 of the 8 CPU Threads for CPU Work. So just when I thought I was just to Damn Dumb to run BOINC anymore like the Blind Squirrel I found an Acorn ... lol ... I hope they stay that way though, seems like every time I do get them running right within a few days they start to mess up again, time will tell.