While you do that, here's the full list of pairings against my host 5367 which have given me a credit score above 2,500: 15 out of 86 validations so far.

HostID owner platform device
11455 mikey Win7/64 AMD ATI Radeon HD 5800/5900 series (Cypress/Hemlock) (1024MB) driver: 1.4.1848 OpenCL: 1.2
10100 AMG11041963 Win7/64 "GeForce GTS 450" (192 CUDA cores / 606.34 GFLOPS)
8733 Anonymous Win7/32 "GeForce 8800 GTX" (128 CUDA cores / 518.40 GFLOPS)
8733 Anonymous Win7/32 "GeForce 8800 GTX" (128 CUDA cores / 518.40 GFLOPS)
6517 Cazamarcianos Win7/32 "GeForce G210" (16 CUDA cores / 67.20 GFLOPS)
7157 Andrew Dicker Darwin "GeForce GTX 680MX" (0 CUDA cores / 0.00 GFLOPS) (Darwin)
3719 doug Darwin AMD ATI Radeon HD 5770 (1024MB) OpenCL: 1.1 (Darwin: shows errors in stderr for task 1495019)
11418 Lion Win Server 2008 AMD Bonaire (2048MB) OpenCL: 1.2
3637 B Johansson Win7/64 "GeForce GTX 760" (0 CUDA cores / 0.00 GFLOPS)
11189 Jean-Emmanuel BUISSON Win7/64 "GeForce GTX 580" (512 CUDA cores / 1581.06 GFLOPS)
8733 Anonymous Win7/32 "GeForce 8800 GTX" (128 CUDA cores / 518.40 GFLOPS)
8733 Anonymous Win7/32 "GeForce 8800 GTX" (128 CUDA cores / 518.40 GFLOPS)
1463 Anonymous WinXP/32 "GeForce 9600 GT" (64 CUDA cores / 336.00 GFLOPS)
11189 Jean-Emmanuel BUISSON Win7/64 "GeForce GTX 580" (512 CUDA cores / 1581.06 GFLOPS)
8733 Anonymous Win7/32 "GeForce 8800 GTX" (128 CUDA cores / 518.40 GFLOPS)

Whenever possible, I've taken the "device" string from the stderr report by the BRP4G app: where that is too sparse to be meaningful, I've taken it from the host details instead.

Whenever possible, I've taken the "device" string from the stderr report by the BRP4G app: where that is too sparse to be meaningful, I've taken it from the host details instead.

Thanks. It's looking like a fairly complex (chaotic) interaction.

Do you still have one of those 8800/9800 GPUs knocking about to do a test ? EVen better if you can drop its clock rate without the client picking up a change in GFLOPS (marketing peak_flops).

---

On two occasions I have been asked, "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - C Babbage

Whenever possible, I've taken the "device" string from the stderr report by the BRP4G app: where that is too sparse to be meaningful, I've taken it from the host details instead.

Thanks. It's looking like a fairly complex (chaotic) interaction.

Do you still have one of those 8800/9800 GPUs knocking about to do a test ? EVen better if you can drop its clock rate without the client picking up a change in GFLOPS (marketing peak_flops).

I've still got them, but they're all dismounted and lying on the bench now. I've also got a dead host that didn't survive the transplant, but I don't think I have a realistic chance of reviving that. Pity - that was a nice Q9300 (but the GTX 470 is running safely in another host).

Whenever possible, I've taken the "device" string from the stderr report by the BRP4G app: where that is too sparse to be meaningful, I've taken it from the host details instead.

Thanks. It's looking like a fairly complex (chaotic) interaction.

Do you still have one of those 8800/9800 GPUs knocking about to do a test ? EVen better if you can drop its clock rate without the client picking up a change in GFLOPS (marketing peak_flops).

I've still got them, but they're all dismounted and lying on the bench now. I've also got a dead host that didn't survive the transplant, but I don't think I have a realistic chance of reviving that. Pity - that was a nice Q9300 (but the GTX 470 is running safely in another host).

That's alright, that would be desperate measures if a small mind experiment fails to shed light [I could potential downclock my GPU, or dig out old 9600GSOs if they have enough VRAM). working on the mind experiment first.

Initial state (WU issue):
-task is issued to some 'converged' (i.e. well past 10 validations) host with an older GPU (8800GTX) running one task at a time
- task is issued to Richard's host with 670's (also converged), 2x tasks at a time
- tasks process
...

8800GTX gets about 33 GFLOPs with the task ( Pfc ~0.05 )
Richard's gets about 93 GFlops ( Pfc ~ ? Richard what's Boinc say your marketing peak flops is ?)
...

---

On two occasions I have been asked, "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - C Babbage

CreditNew seems to use different calculations depending whether an app is above or below a sample level, could it be that one app version is above the sample level and the other isn't?

Claggy

The crucial code seems to start by calling 'assign_credit_set' at

http://boinc.berkeley.edu/gitweb/?p=boinc-v2.git;a=blob;f=sched/credit.cpp;h=93c554ebd3ffb0b9d3e505a214aae8bc85cef787;hb=HEAD#l877

CreditNew seems to use different calculations depending whether an app is above or below a sample level, could it be that one app version is above the sample level and the other isn't?

Claggy

The crucial code seems to start by calling 'assign_credit_set' at

http://boinc.berkeley.edu/gitweb/?p=boinc-v2.git;a=blob;f=sched/credit.cpp;h=93c554ebd3ffb0b9d3e505a214aae8bc85cef787;hb=HEAD#l877

yeah, that's the back end part after [report, during] validation and fits in the mind experiment we're working on as the last stage --> averages the claims between the two hosts

[Edit:]

...Richard what's Boinc say your marketing peak flops is ?[for the 670's

---

On two occasions I have been asked, "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - C Babbage

CreditNew seems to use different calculations depending whether an app is above or below a sample level, could it be that one app version is above the sample level and the other isn't?

Claggy

The crucial code seems to start by calling 'assign_credit_set' at

http://boinc.berkeley.edu/gitweb/?p=boinc-v2.git;a=blob;f=sched/credit.cpp;h=93c554ebd3ffb0b9d3e505a214aae8bc85cef787;hb=HEAD#l877

yeah, that's the back end part after [report, during] validation and fits in the mind experiment we're working on as the last stage --> averages the claims between the two hosts

I'm beginning to wonder whether it's going to be worth asking Bernd (when he's back from holiday, next week) to do a snapshot database dump of the two vectors

881 vector<DB_APP_VERSION_VAL>& app_versions,
882 vector<DB_HOST_APP_VERSION>& host_app_versions,

(database tables)
for us to pore over.

CreditNew seems to use different calculations depending whether an app is above or below a sample level, could it be that one app version is above the sample level and the other isn't?

Claggy

The crucial code seems to start by calling 'assign_credit_set' at

http://boinc.berkeley.edu/gitweb/?p=boinc-v2.git;a=blob;f=sched/credit.cpp;h=93c554ebd3ffb0b9d3e505a214aae8bc85cef787;hb=HEAD#l877

yeah, that's the back end part after [report, during] validation and fits in the mind experiment we're working on as the last stage --> averages the claims between the two hosts

I'm beginning to wonder whether it's going to be worth asking Bernd (when he's back from holiday, next week) to do a snapshot database dump of the two vectors

881 vector<DB_APP_VERSION_VAL>& app_versions,
882 vector<DB_HOST_APP_VERSION>& host_app_versions,

(database tables)
for us to pore over.

Could be. I think this experiment will shed some light though. What's those Boinc marketing peak_flops for the 670's ?

---

On two occasions I have been asked, "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - C Babbage

[Edit:]

...Richard what's Boinc say your marketing peak flops is ?[for the 670's

05-Jun-2014 19:23:54 [---] Starting BOINC client version 7.3.19 for windows_x86_64
05-Jun-2014 19:23:54 [---] log flags: file_xfer, sched_ops, task, coproc_debug, sched_op_debug, work_fetch_debug
05-Jun-2014 19:23:54 [---] Libraries: libcurl/7.33.0 OpenSSL/1.0.1g zlib/1.2.8
05-Jun-2014 19:23:54 [---] Data directory: D:\BOINCdata
05-Jun-2014 19:23:54 [---] [coproc] launching child process at D:\BOINC\boinc.exe
05-Jun-2014 19:23:54 [---] [coproc] relative to directory D:\BOINCdata
05-Jun-2014 19:23:54 [---] [coproc] with data directory "D:\BOINCdata"
05-Jun-2014 19:23:54 [---] CUDA: NVIDIA GPU 0: GeForce GTX 670 (driver version 337.88, CUDA version 6.0, compute capability 3.0, 2048MB, 1885MB available, 2915 GFLOPS peak)
05-Jun-2014 19:23:54 [---] CUDA: NVIDIA GPU 1: GeForce GTX 670 (driver version 337.88, CUDA version 6.0, compute capability 3.0, 2048MB, 1958MB available, 2915 GFLOPS peak)
05-Jun-2014 19:23:54 [---] OpenCL: NVIDIA GPU 0: GeForce GTX 670 (driver version 337.88, device version OpenCL 1.1 CUDA, 2048MB, 1885MB available, 2915 GFLOPS peak)
05-Jun-2014 19:23:54 [---] OpenCL: NVIDIA GPU 1: GeForce GTX 670 (driver version 337.88, device version OpenCL 1.1 CUDA, 2048MB, 1958MB available, 2915 GFLOPS peak)
05-Jun-2014 19:23:54 [---] OpenCL: Intel GPU 0: Intel(R) HD Graphics 4000 (driver version 9.18.10.3257, device version OpenCL 1.2, 1240MB, 1240MB available, 45 GFLOPS peak)
05-Jun-2014 19:23:54 [---] OpenCL CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3770K CPU @ 3.50GHz (OpenCL driver vendor: Intel(R) Corporation, driver version 1.2, device version OpenCL 1.2 (Build 66956))

These Alberts are running exclusively - two-up - on device 0: device 1 is permanently assigned to GPUGrid.

Thanks:

Initial state (WU issue):
-task is issued to some 'converged' (i.e. well past 10 validations) host with an older GPU (8800GTX) running one task at a time
- task is issued to Richard's host with 670's (also converged), 2x tasks at a time
- tasks process
...

8800GTX gets about 33 GFLOPs (from APR) give or take with the task ( Pfc ~0.06 )
Richard's 670 gets about 93 GFlops, give or take (APR presumably after ~2x slowdown) , ( Pfc ~0.03)

'claim' gets averaged across the wingmen (Eric's change IIRC, it used to select the minimum) so the ratio 0.06/0.3 (=2x , average .045/.03= 1.5x) would appear indicate a course credit scale entering. Then add the known +/- 30%+ variation in both directions. [sheer chance]

If along the right lines, then a few people with high end GPUs should pack as many tasks as possible into VRAM, run as slow as possible. Whenever an old GPU wingman that could only run 1 task at a time is encountered, then there should be a high likelihood of jackpot.... Unless everyone does it and overall credit gets scaled down, in which case the antique cruncher's credit would drop.

---

On two occasions I have been asked, "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - C Babbage

Richard's 670 gets about 93 GFlops, give or take (APR presumably after ~2x slowdown) , ( Pfc ~0.03)

You're looking at a very old app_version.

The current value is 68.88 GFLOPS, from the very last entry in the application details list (Number of tasks today 20) ;)

... Then add the known +/- 30%+ variation in both directions. [sheer chance]

Award from that case should then be anyway from about 1.5x=30%=1x , through to 1.5x1.3 = 1.95x, on average, ignoring noise.

---

On two occasions I have been asked, "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - C Babbage

Richard's 670 gets about 93 GFlops, give or take (APR presumably after ~2x slowdown) , ( Pfc ~0.03)

You're looking at a very old app_version.

The current value is 68.88 GFLOPS, from the very last entry in the application details list (Number of tasks today 20) ;)

That would be worse, Jackpot :)

---

On two occasions I have been asked, "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - C Babbage

Richard's 670 gets about 93 GFlops, give or take (APR presumably after ~2x slowdown) , ( Pfc ~0.03)

You're looking at a very old app_version.

The current value is 68.88 GFLOPS, from the very last entry in the application details list (Number of tasks today 20) ;)

That would be worse, Jackpot :)

So you're saying that a host which has a very low actual throughput, relative to its marketing rating, will 'claim high' for credit?

Given that cuda32 will run slow-ish on Kepler hardware, does that imply we should start up a cottage industry for de-optimising GPU apps, so they earn more gollum points per task?

Richard's 670 gets about 93 GFlops, give or take (APR presumably after ~2x slowdown) , ( Pfc ~0.03)

You're looking at a very old app_version.

The current value is 68.88 GFLOPS, from the very last entry in the application details list (Number of tasks today 20) ;)

That would be worse, Jackpot :)

So you're saying that a host which has a very low actual throughput, relative to its marketing rating, will 'claim high' for credit?

Given that cuda32 will run slow-ish on Kepler hardware, does that imply we should start up a cottage industry for de-optimising GPU apps, so they earn more gollum points per task?

Absolutely on both counts. while the jackpot scales are well above 1x on average for multi-tasking at least. That correlates with Eric's observations that the system appears to penalise everyone for optimisation on a holistic level. You have al lthe noise and natural usage variation clouding the issues, along with the improper scaling on CPU apps dragging it all down where connected, but in essence it all says that Boinc just gets confused when it sees computers that can do multitasking and/or have situations too far outside the 'average'. That's the key characteristic that it's a control system issue, as opposed to a statistical one.

---

On two occasions I have been asked, "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - C Babbage

...That's the key characteristic that it's a control system issue, as opposed to a statistical one...

I'd like to clarify that in light of Carola's request for explaining things in more layman's terms.

It's been proven as you catch a ball, your brain doesn't do statistics for the control of your arms. It does a number of differential (calculus) equations to compute the trajectories, in parallel, in real time.

i.e. statistics is a modelling tool, not a control system. Control systems deal on a case-by-case basis, statistics via probabilities over a large population.

---

On two occasions I have been asked, "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - C Babbage

So you're saying that a host which has a very low actual throughput, relative to its marketing rating, will 'claim high' for credit?

My HD7770 against another HD7770 (3,215):

https://albert.phys.uwm.edu/workunit.php?wuid=620885

My HD7770 against another HD7770 (4,555):

https://albert.phys.uwm.edu/workunit.php?wuid=618068

against a HD 7500/7600/8500/8600 series (2,927):

https://albert.phys.uwm.edu/workunit.php?wuid=620828

against a HD 5800/5900 series (2,897):

https://albert.phys.uwm.edu/workunit.php?wuid=620875

against a HD 6900 series (3,409):

https://albert.phys.uwm.edu/workunit.php?wuid=619539

against a GeForce G210 (3,218):

https://albert.phys.uwm.edu/workunit.php?wuid=620250

against a 8800GTX (3,013):

https://albert.phys.uwm.edu/workunit.php?wuid=619497

against a 8800GTX (4,890):

https://albert.phys.uwm.edu/workunit.php?wuid=617804

against a 9600 GT (3,525):

https://albert.phys.uwm.edu/workunit.php?wuid=618083

against a 9600 GT (3,258):

https://albert.phys.uwm.edu/workunit.php?wuid=618072

against a 9600 GT (3,374):

https://albert.phys.uwm.edu/workunit.php?wuid=618075

against a 9600 GT (3,441):

https://albert.phys.uwm.edu/workunit.php?wuid=618080

against a NVS 4200M (4,598):

https://albert.phys.uwm.edu/workunit.php?wuid=606864

against a GT 555M (4,229):

https://albert.phys.uwm.edu/workunit.php?wuid=612309

against a GTX 670M (3,388):

https://albert.phys.uwm.edu/workunit.php?wuid=617797

against a GTX 680 (3,363)

https://albert.phys.uwm.edu/workunit.php?wuid=617769

Against Richard's GTX670 (all around 2400):

https://albert.phys.uwm.edu/workunit.php?wuid=620884

https://albert.phys.uwm.edu/workunit.php?wuid=620851

https://albert.phys.uwm.edu/workunit.php?wuid=620495

https://albert.phys.uwm.edu/workunit.php?wuid=620346

I guess AMD's, legacy NV's, and modern mobile NV's have a relative high flops to their actual throughput.

Claggy

I guess AMD's, legacy NV's, and modern mobile NV's have a relative high flops to their actual throughput.

Claggy

Absolutely, you got it. With GeForce line then the faster the GPU then fixed system latencies dominate to a greater degree ( As I understand both AMD and NV are affected, probably Intel too without past history). Proper latency hiding techniques are most likely a disruptive technology in that sense. That'll mess with the stats some more as the developer world comes to grips with it. It's been a long time that similar CPU multithreading's been around though, and a lot of devs can't deal with that today.

---

On two occasions I have been asked, "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - C Babbage

OK, we have a working theory for the pseudo-random outliers, subject to wider checking tomorrow (after shut-eye) across my whole gamut of wingmates.

Next up: the gradual upward drift in credit across the population as a whole?

OK, we have a working theory for the pseudo-random outliers, subject to wider checking tomorrow (after shut-eye) across my whole gamut of wingmates.

Next up: the gradual upward drift in credit across the population as a whole?

Will have to stew on that one for sure :). Perhaps look at the deadlines assigned to older CPUs (I presume far from expired ?). Since their Boinc Whetstones would be closer to their actual throughput, they should gradually roll in late to the party and cause a levelling. Fast, early, hosts by contrast drive things down by virtue of saturating the early statistics. The efefcts of that may be tempered here, by the app being resitricted to SSE2 (? like seti's astropulse), so the extreme latecomers would be SSE amd FPU (if available, e.g. Pentium 1/II. android with no vfp or NEON)

---

On two occasions I have been asked, "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - C Babbage