Is bigadv still a thing?

[Jeg]

I'm new to FAH due to the current Coronavirus outbreak. I've been poking round the FAH world for a couple of days now, yesterday I read about the bigadv flag and that (at the time the post was written) bigadv workloads were only available on linux. I've got a 20 core, 64GB Windows box, and I'm wondering if it's being put to best use?

[davidcoton]

IIRC the bigadv flag is no longer needed. Check the Advanced Control panel and the log therein to see what is being used.

[Jeg]

Thanks @davidcoton.

Out of curiosity, how does it work now? Are big workload-capable machines detected automatically?

[ClawzSkunk]

I was reading the guide and saw:

Downloading Problem
The AS should automatically be redirected you to another Server shortly. Make sure that you have NOT specified WUs Without Deadlines. If you're being redirected to 0.0.0.0 or you get a message saying Failed to get assignment from x.x.x.x, that means that all of the Servers which have WUs for your configuration have run out of work to assign. Modifying the selection criteria may help, but you may also need to wait until more WUs are available. The selection criteria that you can modify are:
1) The size of WUs you the Client is configured to accept:
A) Small
B) Normal
C) Big (The Big setting will also accept either Normal or Small)

But I can't find an easy to understand guide on how to set the Big setting?

[Joe_H]

Out of curiosity, how does it work now? Are big workload-capable machines detected automatically?

There is a 'big' setting to one of the options in the client, I forget what the name of that option is at the moment. I have DSL, uploading 20 MB WU's is about the most I can handle, so haven't used that option.

Beyond that setting, the number of CPU threads your system is requesting WU's for is part of the request. Some CPU projects don't scale to say 32 processor threads, they won't get assigned. On the GPU side they are grouping them into 'species' based on capabilities. They are further ahead on this with nVidia cards, AMD is less differentiated. So some projects will go to say a 2080 preferentially, and others to less powerful GPU's.

[JimboPalmer]

bigadv has been gone for 5 years https://foldingathome.org/2015/01/31/bi ... anuary-31/

The small, Normal, Big thing was a packet size thing, they would send small projects because you are on dial up, etc That ended with version 6 https://foldingathome.org/faqs/configur ... ork-units/

Edit: it may be in configuration in Verson 7

" Add max-packet-size | small to the slot-options (or the client-options to affect all slots)" or big or normal

We are now on version 7.51

If BIGADV was still a thing, it would be 256 CPUS by now.

i have no faith that any researcher is making small projects now, dial up is rare.