Job assignment

[polycarbonate1]

Hi all.
I have just joined, and in fact have not even yet completed my first job (I'm working on project 3405). Is it possible to request to be put on a specific project, or how does the distribution of jobs work? I would imagine bigger tasks get given to more capable machines.

Cheers,
Peter

[John Naylor]

Welcome to the forums!

It is not possible to request a specific project, the projects are assigned according to the speed at which the Pande Group decide they need to be completed (i.e. those that are deemed to have a higher priority by the Pande Group are given a higher priority by the assignment servers). You can influence which units you are assigned by setting certain options when configuring the client (advmethods, big units), but these are just preferences and can be overruled by the servers if need be.

As for machine capability, the new (version 6) clients have the ability to, and do, check what processor the computer has, but this information is not yet taken into account by the assignment servers, so at the moment, no, bigger tasks are not necessarily assigned to more capable machines.

[polycarbonate1]

Thanks. Sorry my first contact had to be from obviously the opposing team. I'm with 1971. The reason I asked is because there are other projects that have to be completed sooner than the one I'm working on.

[7im]

Well, even though the much improved hardware detection in the v6 client is not in full use yet, I will comment that people with more capable machines do tend to configure their clients to request Big Work Units and such, so the bigger tasks do tend to go our to those faster computers.

Also, please do not mistake a WU that finishes faster as necessarily being better. The work unit projects are benchmarked. So a work unit that takes one day to complete may be worth 110 points. A work unit that takes 2 days is worth 220 points, etc. A WU that takes longer is worth more points, but the rate at which those points are earned tends to be about the same.

[polycarbonate1]

Quote: "Sorry my first contact had to be from obviously the opposing team."
I may at a later date, but at the moment I'm not actually folding competitively, but I do fold whenever I don't need 100% of my system resources (I run a lone iBook G4).

[jrweiss]

Actually, there is no "opposing team" around here...

Though there are teams set up to foster a bit of good-natured competition, we are ALL on the SAME team -- the team that wants to further science that will eventually lead to breakthroughs in medicine. I doubt you can find even a single instance of someone here steering another person wrong because he happened to be a member of another team. you'll get good answers from anyone here!

[John Naylor]

Actually, there is no "opposing team" around here...

Though there are teams set up to foster a bit of good-natured competition, we are ALL on the SAME team -- the team that wants to further science that will eventually lead to breakthroughs in medicine. I doubt you can find even a single instance of someone here steering another person wrong because he happened to be a member of another team. you'll get good answers from anyone here!

Quite right. Please leave all team affiliations at the metaphorical door, on this forum

[polycarbonate1]

Yes, sorry. We are all really on the same side anyway.

[PlayLoud]

...As for machine capability, the new (version 6) clients have the ability to, and do, check what processor the computer has, but this information is not yet taken into account by the assignment servers, so at the moment, no, bigger tasks are not necessarily assigned to more capable machines.

I am curious. I have two computers folding at home (no pun intended). One is a dedicated Q6600 (OCd to 3.0GHz), and the other is a laptop (T7100 1.8GHz Core 2 Duo). The laptop seems to get project 2605 virtually every time. However, the Q6600 gets all sorts of SMP units. The are both running Ubuntu 64 bit.

Also, my folding@work computer (Pentium D 2.8 on Win XP) has gotten project 2653 fairly exclusively (maybe two exceptions) for the past 6 months or so. This was fine, as the computer completed the WUs with about 6-12 hours to spare (depending on how much I am using it) before the preferred deadline. However, within the last few days, it is no longer receiving work units that it can complete before the preferred deadline (even if I wasn't using the computer). This is a little odd, as I know the WUs still exist (as I said, my laptop gets 2605 still, and it is the same speed as 2653). I may have to change from the SMP client to the standard client, as I don't want work to be duplicated by not making the preferred deadline.

[7im]

p2653 was designed for dual core SMP clients. Most of the 30xx projects are for 4 core SMP clients, although quicker dual cores can still finish before the deadline.

p2653 can't last forever. Projects get completed, and new projects are released. The other problem is that so many people with Quad cores are running 2 VMs, so they look like dual core SMP clients. They are draining the servers of all the work for dual cores. When they are gone, everyone gets the quad WUs until a replacement project for dual cores is released.

Since contributors are gaming the system, Stanford might have to figure out how to make incentives to stop gaming the system.

[PlayLoud]

Why does my Q6600 (single instance in Linux) get "dual core" WUs then, while at the same time my Pentium D is getting "quad core" WUs?

[bruce]

There may be preferential SMP assignments, but I'm quite confident that it's not absolute. If a server is busy or down, you'll be assigned work from another server and that will be a different project. There's really no way to tell why a quad might get a WU that's preferentially intended for a duo or why a duo might get a WU that's preferentially intended for a quad. The assignment logic has to decide which of the available choices will run on your machine -- and if none of them are suitable, tell you that there is presently no work for you. It's a very dynamic set of conditions and from the outside of the server, it's not possible to know all that went into the decision it made.

[PlayLoud]

Hmm. So it may have just been a server that was down. Well, hopefully I start getting dual core WUs on my Pentium D soon, or I will have to go back to dual standard clients on my work computer.