Question about WU assignments to computers

[1974Mode]

I hope this is the right place to ask this and hopefully it is not covered elsewhere, however I have a few questions on the F@H software.

1) Does the F@H software check to see what your machine specs are?
2) If so, are WU's assigned based on those specs or is it random?

I ask this because I have three computers that I have dedicated for use on F@H and I noticed that the older and slower of the three machines tends to get assigned the larger and harder WU's. (this assumption based on the # of points the WU's score from that machine compared to the others) I'll see the newer machines working on projects with "CPU F@H Working (970/1500)" all the time. These generally score points of between 150 and 225 each and it takes them around 14 hours to complete one of those. However my older machine has never seen a WU that scores under 1000 points with "CPU F@H Working (130/200)" being the norm. It takes this machine two or three days to grind through one of those WU assignments, which I honestly think would be best suited for the newer machines if it is that intensive. I am using the F@H Windows CPU client Version 6.23 Built on November 26, 2008. My machine specs are below, and you can tell the last one has the best specs, but it's the first one here that gets all the hard work. These machines have Windows and F@H on them and nothing more software wise.

(Oldest)
AMD Athlon 64 3800+ (single core)
2GB PC2-5300 RAM
250GB HDD
ATI Radeon 3400 Series PCI-E 512MB
Windows XP Professional SP3

(Newer)
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0GHz
3GB PC2-6400 RAM
320GB HDD
ATI Radeon 3400 Series PCI-E 512MB
Windows Vista Home Premium

(Newest)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 5000+ (2.6GHz)
4GB DDR2 800 (PC2-6400) (3.35GB recognized by vista 32-bit)
750GB HDD
Nvidia Geforce 9500GT 128bit 1GB RAM PCI-E
Windows Vista Home Premium

[7im]

Yes, it has been covered, though I'm not sure how the find the old thread quickly. You might try the forum search tool.

Short answers are...

1. Yes, it does check system hardware, but some other factors can be more or less important that PC hardware. Client types and the type of work units available are also considered, as are many other lessor factors.

2. Yes, and Yes. Some work units are assigned to clients with specific types, settings, hardware, etc. Other work units are assigned to all types of hardware, etc. So depending on which work units Stanford needs to be completed first to help move the science of the project forward, you might get one of the specific work units, or one of the general work units.

Note: I am just using general terms, and paraphrasing, so don't read too much in to the exact terms I used.

[John Naylor]

In addition to what 7im said:

1) Yes, it does, but as far as I'm aware this information is currently not used in any meaningful way by the Assignment Servers, other than to differentiate client types (e.g. so that SMP units don't get sent to classic clients). If you look in the client log file you will see a line like this....

Code: Select all

[19:34:50] - Detect CPU. Vendor: GenuineIntel, Family: 6, Model: 15, Stepping: 11

when the client is about to request a new unit. (It only does this once per run, so if your computer downloads and completes 3 units without the client being shut down, the CPU detection should only occur the first time I think).

[1974Mode]

If you look in the client log file you will see a line like this....
CODE: SELECT ALL
[19:34:50] - Detect CPU. Vendor: GenuineIntel, Family: 6, Model: 15, Stepping: 11

I've gone through all three logs from start to finish and no where in any of them is there a line that has anything to do with detecting cpu or machine type. Just seems like a waste to me to have a machine that could do more complex work and complete it faster, just doing quick little projects while the antique grinds along.

[7im]

They are still in the process of upgrading their hardware detection, and rewritting the backend server code to take more advantage of the improved detection in the v6 client. Clearly, it's not perfect. However, there is currently no way to predict when a faster machine will request a work unit, so work is given out the next available client, which might be a "antique" as you call it. They can't "save" complex work units for a faster machine and let older systems go idle.

However, you can help with the selection process by making sure your faster machines are set to accept Big work units, and your older machines are set to request small or normal sized work units. Also add the -advmethods flag to the newer systems, but not the older systems. Again, this still won't be perfect, but it can help.

[Pick2]

1974Mode , I think you are confusing the size of a Work Unit ( in points ) with it scientific value , and that is not the case.
When a project is started , they run a few of its first WU on the benchmark machine and assign points by how long it takes to finish it.
Each WU is a small slice of time of the protein's folding process , some WU that you get fold a larger slice of time , they take longer and have a higher point value.
There are also many different algorithms used to investigate different things. Take a look at the "Code" column in the "Project Summary" link at the top of the forum replicated here:
Project Summary
You'll notice that different WU use different " Computational cores" to do their job. Some are FahCore_a2.exe ,FahCore_82.exe , and FahCore_a1.exe
Hope this helps

[7im]

Actually, Pick2 has the right idea. I must have mis-read part of the original post. Work unit size has nothing to do with importance, and only the size determines the points.

And the numbers when you hover over the client icon can be misleading as well. All work units have 100 "steps." So a work unit like your example (970/1500) counts up by 15 "frames" at a time. 0, 15, 30... same as 0, 1, 2... or in your other example of 130/200, it counts up by 0, 2, 4, etc. The size and length of steps or frames has nothing to do with points. Work units are assigned points by how long they take to process.

A work unit with 10,0000 frames might only take a day to finish and be worth 110 points. However, a WU with 200 frames/steps might take a week to process because it is a very complex protein, and it would be worth 770 points (based on the benchmark). Please read the Points FAQ on the project web site for more details.

[codysluder]

John Naylor forgot to tell you the whole story. If you're running with default settings you will not see that information. There's a special option that many people use which causes extra messages to appear in FAHlog. If you add " -verbosity 9" (without the quotes) to the command line or add it in the extra parameters section, you'll get those extra messages and one of them is the CPU detection report.

If you look in the client log file you will see a line like this....
[19:34:50] - Detect CPU. Vendor: GenuineIntel, Family: 6, Model: 15, Stepping: 11

I've gone through all three logs from start to finish and no where in any of them is there a line that has anything to do with detecting cpu or machine type. Just seems like a waste to me to have a machine that could do more complex work and complete it faster, just doing quick little projects while the antique grinds along.