Estimated points drop rapidly after completion of work unit

[Oussebon]

Hi all,

New to the forum, and to folding too like so many. Don't have much computing resource to give, but giving what I can (we've got 5 machines running in the household).

I've noticed that the estimated points for a work unit drop massively once the GPU/CPU has finished its work and it is being sent off to folding@home.

For instance, my RTX 2060 is given some work, with an estimate of usually 80,000-100,000 points, and maybe a 2.5-3h time frame. All fine. Predicted score appears to stay pretty consistent throughout.

Once it finishes the work, I assume it starts being uploaded - Task Manager shows FAH using network to send, and the Advanced Control says it's in the Sending stage. Also fine.

But my relatively slow broadband internet connection (~0.7mbps upload) makes that take several minutes, during which time the estimated points drop rapidly and often seem to shave ~10+%, maybe upto 20%, off the score, despite adding nowhere near to that amount extra time to send the work off.

Similar story for all other GPUs and CPUs when returning work, not just my 2060.

Is it normal to lose such a huge amount of the (anticipated) score due to a few minutes of uploading? If so, what's the reasoning / what's the process that leads to that?

Ofc points don't really matter! Completing work units and sending them off so they can be put to use matters. And it's great to play a part in that, even a very small one. It just seems a bit strange and I wondered what the deal was.

Cheers,

[JimboPalmer]

The Bonus for F@H is Called the Quick Return Bonus.
While computing the Work Unit, it assumes you will turn it in quickly.
When it takes a long time to send, That does lower the bonus.
I confess I don't stare at my log, I think of F@H as a hobby for my Computers, not a hobby for me. I am not doing math for hours!

It is frustrating when a server is down, as our bonus goes down until the server can accept it.

[avatusxan]

well.....at least you can send.
I am having works stacked up in the queue for hours.....Upload fails

[Oussebon]

I get that.

So my question still stands - what's the reason that leads to such a huge % being cut off the score for an upload time that is still quite small as a % of the overall time to run the project?

Apologies if that wasn't clear in my initial post, I did try to be clear in what I was asking.

[Nathan_P]

Ignore the estimated PPD in FAHControl, it assumes that you are folding constantly at full power and will rapidly drop if you are not running a Work unit. If you look in the log you will a line in the log that will let you know how many points you should receive for that WU, but it assumes that your passkey is valid and qualified

[anandhanju]

Take a look at your logs. Upon upload, you should see a line that looks like "13:36:28:WU00:FS00:Final credit estimate, 1052.00 points". Check if your stats reflects this.

As Nathan_P said, the estimated PPD can fluctuate wildly. It assumes you will run the same kind of work for 24 hours. However, each project and each WU don't exactly give the same returns in terms of points. Additionally, any time spent between WUs, either waiting for one, or waiting for estimates using the new WU can influence the estimated PPD.

Can you post your log? By default, a new WU is downloaded when the old WU is at 99%. If your download speeds are slow and the last step of the WU takes longer than the WU step completion and finalization time, your client is effectively idle for that interval. If you're consistently seeing this interval of no folding, you can try downloading at 98% or 97%. Do note however, that the bonus calculation starts when the WU is downloaded so it doesn't make sense to download it and keep it for a long time.

[Oussebon]

Many thanks for the replies.

I was never talking about the PPD as I figured idle time would cause that to drop. I'm talking about the estimated points for a given unit. The web client shows they drop 10-20% over about the 5-10 minutes it takes to send a work unit - despite the work unit itself having taken 2-3 hours. It seems like a disprop drop in points.

As it seems I'm having trouble conveying this, I'll see if I can get some screenshots and logs of what I mean (which will require me to be at the PC when a work unit finishes so I can screenshot the differences, which I'll post / link to and also provide the logs.