FAH Changes To Bigadvs Bonus

[Cody_Irwin]

Well many of you have probally noticed but, heres for the people who havent.
Below there is also a link with the discussion on overclockers.com.

After much discussion, we are adjusting the points bonus for bigadv. Bigadv work units have been given a 50% base points bonus over standard SMP; the rationale for this was to compensate for the increased system load, increased memory requirements, and increased upload/download bandwidth requirements. As judged from the high demand for bigadv work units, this has been very much a success, perhaps a little too much so. We would like to continue to offer a bonus for bigadv to offset the above factors, but we don't want demand for bigadv to overwhelm the rest of the project or imbalance the points system.

We are therefore dropping the bigadv base points bonus from 50% to 20%, effective for all work units issued this time onwards.

We very much appreciate the donors who have volunteered to run bigadv work units; these projects add substantially to our scientific capabilities. We do important science with all classes of work units, however, and we want the points system to reflect that. Based on extensive feedback, we are considering renormalizing other parts of the system but have not finalized decisions in that regard.

Thanks again for folding!

New points values, old points values, and unadjusted base values are given in the table below. Deadlines and k-factors remain unchanged.

"Standard points" is what the project would receive for base points if standard SMP. "Old bigadv" is the old bigadv base points (50% bonus). "New bigadv" is the new bigadv base points (20% bonus).

Project Standard points Old bigadv New bigadv Preferred Final k-factor
2684 8529 12790 10235 4 6 26.4
2685 5970 8955 7164 4 6 26.4
2686 5970 8955 7164 4 6 26.4
2689 5970 8955 7164 4 6 26.4
2692 5970 8955 7164 4 6 26.4
6900 5970 8955 7164 4 6 26.4
6901 5970 8955 7164 4 6 26.4
6903 18923 28385 22708 7.2 12 38.05
6904 26284 39426 31541 10.2 17 37.31

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?p=6901344

[Cody_Irwin]

Btw, Because of these changes from how many 6900 wu's I get, I dropped around 17-18k PPD, thats how big of a change these are... Its kinda bs.

[Six Foot Ginger]

wow this sucks, in a sense this makes my folding farm half as effective now.

[lifeskills]

Damn.

[Cody_Irwin]

Yea I know, its seriously some Bs, They reduced it WAYYYYY too much imo... cause honestly I wouldnt mind a 5k ppd drop, but more then10k??? jesus...

[xeromist]

The points system always has and always will reflect the effective work being done for science. If Stanford needs to shift folders from one task to another to do more effective science then the only mechanism is to alter point earnings. It wouldn't make much sense for them to ask people to start doing other work while continuing to award extra points for something that is no longer top priority.

And anyway, the points are arbitrary. They could be a factor of 10 lower or higher and it wouldn't make a difference. The only way you have an idea of how much work you are really doing is in relation to others. Everyone else is on the same new point scale so your relative points will be about the same compared to people who were similar to you before the change.

On a personal note, I have to say that the negative responses here are rather disappointing.

[Cody_Irwin]

well I personally, Never get a bigadv besides 6900 and by looks of it arent the new ones where you need a 6core processor to finish on time? so the big ppd decrease is kinda wack if this is it. I havent looked too much into it but just going Zzzz... really at this.

[Six Foot Ginger]

he has a point, they may need to shift where the point go. its true unless you have 8 or more cores you don't get the really good big advs anways

[Gimsly]

I think I'm in the same boat as Xeromist on this. At the end of the day, our folding should be for the greater good.

[Joshua_Mahr]

Honestly guys they actually made the points more fair. The bonuses we were getting for bigadv were deterring the ones that couldn't do a bigadv. Also Vejay also said they were introducing quick return bonuses for GPU's so it can kinda even out a bit. Remember this is for science.

[Area 66]

not sure I understand; the one who make bigadv with a 920 will see their points reduce and the one who fold with dual 6 cores cpu will remain the same ?

[xeromist]

Regular SMP isn't changing but bigadv is because they don't need as many people folding bigadv.

[lifeskills]

Sorry to come off negative. It's all for a greater good and we are all on the same scale so it doesn't really matter. Just said Damn cause I like bigadv bonuses ;)

[xeromist]

It's cool.

I actually see this as an opportunity. Now that there are no longer excessive bonuses for bigadv it makes just as much sense to run regular SMP and you don't feel like you're slacking. The benefit of course is that you can actually game on your gaming rig and even pause the folding if need be. You'll still have plenty of time before the deadline even if you were gaming all weekend.

[Area 66]

Regular SMP isn't changing but bigadv is because they don't need as many people folding bigadv.

thanks Xero, but I'm was not talking about regular smp, but bigadv with 4 cores like the 920, from what I read only the new bigadv units will keep their 50% bonus, and to get those units you need a 6 or 8 cores or dual cpu builds...is this right or I miss something ?

[xeromist]

thanks Xero, but I'm was not talking about regular smp, but bigadv with 4 cores like the 920, from what I read only the new bigadv units will keep their 50% bonus, and to get those units you need a 6 or 8 cores or dual cpu builds...is this right or I miss something ?

I didn't get that from the quoted press release. When they're referring to "old" and "new" they just mean what it was and what it is from this point forward.

I'm not aware of any special bigadv that requires more than 8 threads (920 presents 8 threads) but if there is such an animal then it would make sense to still offer bigger bonuses for such a WU. A WU requiring more than 8 cores would still be a pretty specialized WU and they'd need to offer extra incentive to make sure such WU's got done.

I certainly hope that they don't just go based on threads. I have a machine with 16 threads but the CPU's only operate at a little better than 2GHz so it's hardly a beast for a massive new breed of bigadv.

[Six Foot Ginger]

this makes video cards better for folding again if you do the math. Hello GPUs goodbye CPUs

[Area 66]

I'm not aware of any special bigadv that requires more than 8 threads (920 presents 8 threads) but if there is such an animal then it would make sense to still offer bigger bonuses for such a WU. A WU requiring more than 8 cores would still be a pretty specialized WU and they'd need to offer extra incentive to make sure such WU's got done. .

You have peoples who fold on 48 cores builds and get 600k ppd on special WU, but they need Linux to do so. the WU probaly don't need more than 8 cores, but with 12 cores and more it do it faster, and it seams that I read some place that some WU will be given only to peoples with 6 cores ( 12 treads ) I may have not read it properly ....... Anyway, I always preferred fold on GPU, take 2 hours to finish a unit, and can be pause to do other thing with the PC.

[Grandpa]

You have peoples who fold on 48 cores builds and get 600k ppd on special WU, but they need Linux to do so. the WU probaly don't need more than 8 cores, but with 12 cores and more it do it faster, and it seams that I read some place that some WU will be given only to peoples with 6 cores ( 12 treads ) I may have not read it properly ....... Anyway, I always preferred fold on GPU, take 2 hours to finish a unit, and can be pause to do other thing with the PC.

Yes there is a new bigadv that requires a minimum of 12 cores to run there are 2 of them 6903 and 6904 on my 970 and 980 boxes a 6903 will make about 100,000 PPD and take just under 3 days to complete running at 4.3Ghz the 6904's will make about 97,000 PPD and take about 4 days to complete at 4.3Ghz. ;)

[Six Foot Ginger]

sweet if that's the case my folding farm will dominate all

[Grandpa]

I guess I should have added these are Linux 64bit only there is a good guide for setting up Linux folding here http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1601608

[Area 66]

sweet if that's the case my folding farm will dominate all

..... many make over 1 million PPD and anymous make 4,320,218 PPD ......

[Six Foot Ginger]

so you mean i have to set Linux box to fold these special big adv?

if that's the case... well then just crap

[Grandpa]

so you mean i have to set Linux box to fold these special big adv?

if that's the case... well then just crap

Yes you need a linux box to fold them. You can set up a duel boot rig by installing Linux alongside Windows. http://www.ubuntu.com/download

[Six Foot Ginger]

ya... maybe at-least on one just to try it.

[xeromist]

I think my 6 core is clocked at 3.4 right now. Would I even be able to complete one of these new ones by the deadline?

[lifeskills]

Hmm I'm gonna have to rethink my setup now. They probably did this to keep people like me from folding on 1090t's.

I have been working on the Linux native client but havn't quite got it goin yet. Can get it to start but have troubles writing a script to auto launch the client.

So you guys with the Intel hex chips are gonna be dominating eh? I put down a bigadv about a week ago but I think I still got like 56000 for it

[Six Foot Ginger]

only 56K i usually get 80 K for a big adv

[lifeskills]

On a 1090t?

My point was that I havnt seen much of a decrease in bonus points. Used to get around 60k and the last one I turned in got just under, but was gaming a little more than usual. The change is in effect already right

[Six Foot Ginger]

no 80 K was on a 6900

[lifeskills]

no 80 K was on a 6900

oh woops I mean an AMD 1090T CPU. cant remember the WU I think 2686

[Area 66]

you made 56k with a 1090t, what you are using, I'm very much interested as I have 2 1090t here.

[lifeskills]

The way I have had it set up before was running the windows smp bigadv client through wine in ubuntu, and you have to write a script that fools the client into thinking you have 8 cores. This worked really well, but I believe ppd could be much higher If I could get it going in a real linux install ( non-vmware) and also with a linux client (no wine), which im working on. Heres a few guides that I have been following, the first worked really well for me. I was struggling with the second guide to get the native client running, but mainly because of my linux incompetence

http://www.overclock.net/overclock-net-folding-home-team/817550-windows-7-setting-up-bigadv-amd.html

http://www.overclock.net/folding-home-guides-tutorials/970644-windows-7-2500k-x6-bigadv-folding.html

[Area 66]

thanks a lot I will look at it tonight , I have quite few 6 cores VM host server here, keep us inform ..