7im;
7im wrote:I also have to disagree with that serious attempt comment. Fah, being the world record holder for the most powerful distributed computing project, is always a serious contender. They have chosen to do one type of molecular simulation, and do it very well. Where as Boinc has tried to be some thing to all people, Fah has been the 1 best thing for a select group of people. Boinc is written by committee, with a lowest common denominator, like a family sedan. Fah was written for performance, like a race car. Family sedans do many things in an average manner. Race cars only do a few things, but do them much better than a sedan.
I remember when F@H was unofficially awarded “the most powerful distributed computer project” title. It was shortly after the release of the PlayStation 3 client, which still accounts for the majority of the processing power available to Folding@Home. If Sony does what the latest press releases say they are going to do that processing power will be gone. (
http://www.techjackal.net/internet/2010 ... ll-option/) Will this BIOs update effect F@H? It has been reported to me that it will and that it won't. I guess some of my friends are using a Linux client to run it others are running it on the PlayStation Network. Anyway; according to wikipedia F@H is currently in second place for that title. (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_di ... g_projects) I would love to see that change.
7im wrote:As for retention stats, anyone can claim anything, because that isn't tracked anywhere. So you can't really claim the high ground for Boinc, can you? And you said yourself, most quitters cited the cost of electricity. So how is that any different for fah vs. boinc?
Point noted. I am reporting what I have observed occurring as a result of my involvement with several different teams for both projects. I wish there was a way to track this accurately. I can say that I have never seen anyone leave a BOINC team saying it was too difficult to maintain, for F@H it is at least the third most popular reason. Nor have I ever had an error message from a BOINC client (BOINC itself is a shell) concerning the configuration of that client. With F@H I get this error quite often, even after I fixed it following the instructions published elsewhere. Frustrating yes, reason to quit; I don't think so but I have seen that used as an excuse several times. Personally, I feel they would have left anyway.
7im wrote:Fah was not kicked out of Boinc. Fah NEVER joined boinc, so it couldn't get kicked out. Yes, there was an attempt to develop a joint project, but both Boinc and fah clients fell short. Neither client type had enough ability to be compatible with the other. Boinc lacked many features that fah needed, and fah lacked features that Boinc needed. I was around for the development, so my knowledge is first hand, and I'll refrain from specific finger pointing. Your knowledge on the topic seems only to be biased hearsay. Sorry
No reason to be sorry, You were there. I was not. I am reporting what other people that were there told me, accurate? I don't really know for sure. Just as when I tell someone that it was reported to me that F@H never actually joined BOINC, they will happily let me know that there was a time when the F@H client was available within the BOINC project.
7im wrote: kzaske wrote:You said: “In time, the FAH SMP and GPU clients will mature and be easier to use." How long? It took Seti@Home less than five years to have an easy to use client that could use everything your computer could give, you have not even updated your client since my last post more than six months ago. You are still dealing with the same bugs, shoot, both the GPU and CPU clients’ still use the same configuration files which means they try to use the same Machine ID even if you install and configure them separately!
Ah, yes, that client has not been updated in a while, but you are completely missing the point. The client is the framework, like Boinc. The fahcores do all of the processing, and new fahcores are released many times a year. I've seen 4 new fahcores in as many weeks. As for how long it will take the SMP and GPU clients to mature, I'll let you know in 2 more years, when both of those clients finally reach the 5 year mark. Boinc wasn't any better than fah a couple years in to its development either. I was there for that as well.
And that last part about using the same config files isn't really true. The fah client only uses the config file in the folder where the client gets installed. If you follow the install guides for each client, that never happens. Clients get installed in separate directories. I suppose if someone screws up a Boinc install, it wouldn't work much better either.
As I understand BOINC it is a shell that controls various multiple clients, each client can have one or more cores. I was a BOINC user (volunteer) shortly after it was released. Yes there were problems, lots of them, but I never got a configuration error. As for the installer, I will uninstall and reinstall to see if that fixes the error. It has not done so yet but who knows. I can hope, right?
7im wrote:I am glad to hear you fully support fah, as do I. I too get frustrated at times. I have expressed many strong criticisms in the past, similar to your own. Much of what you say are not new complaints. But as a supporter, we try to work thorough the difficulties, and contribute to the success of the project while they try to improve it. And by the way, the latest GPU fah client (and latest NV and ATI drivers) don't care about SLI or Crossfire. And for reference, NO other DC project uses SLI or Crossfire to do dual GPU processing, but then neither does fah, so that's beside the point.
As you have not been working with BOINC for several years now I understand why you did not know that BOINC does support multi-GPU systems. In the user’s guild there are instructions on how to setup BOINC so that it will not use all the available GPUs. (Follow the link at the bottom of this page:
http://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/GPU_computing). To my knowledge they had a multi-GPU configuration for several years now. They had it when I quit and moved all of my systems over to F@H, about two or three years ago.
7im wrote:If you are not up to the challenge of running a high performance client, then I recommend you follow the warnings on the High Performance client page. If you don't have the technical prowess, and/or the patience and tolerance to deal with early developmental clients, then by all means, run the easier CPU clients, or easier boinc projects. Naturally we'd prefer you give your all to fah, but we understand that isn't for everyone, and wish everyone a happy and less stressful computing experience.
I did follow the instructions. I ended up printing them out and reassembling the instructions then verifying my reworked instructions to match my OS, CPU and GPU configuration. As I stated above, I plan on uninstalling then reinstalling the clients. I am not sure where the error comes from, it happened even when I had the clients installed on different drives. I have both clients installed into different directories and I have checked “client.cfg” and both indicate different Machine IDs. My GPU client is should have a Machine ID of 1 (which is default from what I read) while the CPU Machine ID is set to 3. Still, I get the error message. I am not the only member of my team that experiences this, I just complain about it more. My wife’s computer does this too.
The uninstall/reinstall did not work, I even went out and followed the instructions without modifying them for my configuration. What did I get, a Machine ID error saying that Machine ID 8 is already in use. I don’t have either configured for that ID, in fact I had not yet set that configuration or even entered my team number yet. As this issue is outside of the scope of this thread I have only mentioned it because this is a common error, for most people I was able to help correct the error.
I want to assist in making and keeping F@H the best, fastest, most powerful and easiest to use distributed computing project on the planet. To do that one needs to face a lot of unpleasantness. I will be here cheering on F@H for some time. I hope that my input will be looked at and some action taken to make it more user friendly.
Yes, I approach this from a customer ease of use point of view. I have also tested and assisted in the development of a lot of software from several different companies. The customer (volunteer) has always driven the interface design and usability; if it is not easy to use the majority will get it wrong. I have written documentation ranging from customer centric trouble-shooting documents to support agent processes. As I have said before, the documentation presented on the various F@H sites may be accurate, but it is not easy to use or understand.
This has gotten way to long.
