Folding Forum

What happened to the "Min PerfFrac" and "Max PerfFrac" columns on the Folding@Home server status page?

The columns used to show the minimum & maximum performance fraction a machine can have and still get an assignment from a given server. Has this requirement for WU assignment become unused with the new v6 client and/or new assignment logic, or have the columns simply been removed from the server status page?

These values were used to select the appropriate hardware for new machines that get a PF as good or better than the Min PF values on the server status page for some servers. E.g. only buy hardware capable of a PF >= 0.8, as was once used as the Min PerfFrac for some servers in the not too distant past.

I don't think that PF was ever really used. Apparently it wasn't as useful as it was expected to be.

It was used quite a while back, but didn't work as well as expected. It wasn't fine grained enough to offer a lot of help. IIRC, it was taken out with the v6 client code base.

7im wrote:It was used quite a while back, but didn't work as well as expected. It wasn't fine grained enough to offer a lot of help. IIRC, it was taken out with the v6 client code base.

So in 2 weeks or so, when one has a I7 965, you would get the same wu's as on an A64 x2 from 3 years back? That doesn't sound very optimized to me

MtM wrote:

7im wrote:It was used quite a while back, but didn't work as well as expected. It wasn't fine grained enough to offer a lot of help. IIRC, it was taken out with the v6 client code base.

So in 2 weeks or so, when one has a I7 965, you would get the same wu's as on an A64 x2 from 3 years back? That doesn't sound very optimized to me

I doubt that will happen, the v6 client calculates the FLOPS per CPU in your system, this, the number of SMP cores to use and the amount of RAM available to your client now propably weigh the heaviest in assignment.

Does it? Isn't what you're describing exactly what 7im says has been removed from the codebase? That's what I understood from it anyway.

The Performance Fraction (PF) is a number which represents the average time left to the deadline required by your FAH client to finish WUs. It gives an indication how well the FAH client can complete WUs within the deadline. This information used to be considered during WU assignment in the time of the v5 client.

Now with the v6 client a number of different properties of your machine are known to the FAH client, like the number of CPUs/CPU Cores, the amount of RAM in your system, and in the case of the GPU client the amount of VRAM per GPU too, it also stores the number of FLOPS (FLoating-point OPerationS) your CPU is capable of. This should also give an indication how fast it can complete a certain WU. The v6 client also detects the exact CPU model you have installed, and this together with the other new bits of info used by the v6 client are now probably used during assignment, instead of the Performance Fraction.

smoking2000 wrote:The Performance Fraction (PF) is a number which represents the average time left to the deadline required by your FAH client to finish WUs. It gives an indication how well the FAH client can complete WUs within the deadline. This information used to be considered during WU assignment in the time of the v5 client.

Now with the v6 client a number of different properties of your machine are known to the FAH client, like the number of CPUs/CPU Cores, the amount of RAM in your system, and in the case of the GPU client the amount of VRAM per GPU too, it also stores the number of FLOPS (FLoating-point OPerationS) your CPU is capable of. This should also give an indication how fast it can complete a certain WU. The v6 client also detects the exact CPU model you have installed, and this together with the other new bits of info used by the v6 client are now probably used during assignment, instead of the Performance Fraction.

Pffff am I glad to I was wrong ( and thinking about it I actually already knew I just forgot. )

Thanks for explaining what a flop is .. but it's per second, that last S

Why do people assume when someone asks a question about one thing, they need to be informed about everything related

It's all about completeness, and keeping threads as informative as possible

smoking2000 wrote:It's all about completeness, and keeping threads as informative as possible

Well then let me correct your information haha it's actually 'FLoating point Operations Per Second'. Now, I don't want to come across as an 'beter weter' so let's leave it at that.

ps leuke naam, smoking2000 voor iemand uit Amsterdam, helpt wel het stereotype te bevestigen

Groetjes Marvin