MacOS PPC Beta Test App 4.56 available
Bernd Machenschalk
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3 May 2006 13:54:29 UTC
Topic 191168
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I put a new MacOS App for testing on the Beta Test Page. It incorporates ideas from E@H usser "AkosF" and some others (including me) making it faster than the current official App.
On non-AltiVec CPUS (G3) which use a "generic" code this App should run about twice as fast as the current official one. The AltiVec code seems to be about 25% faster than the older one - have a try.
This Altivec code suffers from the same problem than the 4.55 Linux App, which show up as occasional invalid results. However the speedup may be worth it.
The App has been built with a modified build process on MacOS 10.4 (Tiger). It runs on the few MacOS 10.3 machines I could get access to, too, but I'm not sure about that in the global scale, which is the main reason for posting it here. Please report especially problems or success with running this on Panther.
BM
BM
MacOS PPC Beta Test App 4.56 available
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BOINC client found and read the app_info.xml file, but following errors occurred....
Wed May 3 22:04:09 2006|Einstein@Home|Unrecoverable error for result r1_1417.5__1334_S4R2a_0 (process exited with code 2 (0x2))
Wed May 3 22:04:09 2006||request_reschedule_cpus: process exited
Wed May 3 22:04:09 2006|Einstein@Home|Computation for result r1_1417.5__1334_S4R2a_0 finished
Wed May 3 22:04:09 2006|Einstein@Home|Output file r1_1417.5__1334_S4R2a_0_0 for result r1_1417.5__1334_S4R2a_0 exceeds size limit.
Wed May 3 22:04:09 2006|Einstein@Home|File size: 5017136.000000 bytes. Limit: 3000000.000000 bytes
Your recent results have (in
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Your recent results have (in stderr):
006-05-03 22:09:04 [Einstein@Home] execv(../../projects/einstein.phys.uwm.edu/albert_4.39_powerpc-apple-darwin) failed: error -1
execv: No such file or directory
Did you delete the 4.39 App? The instructions say that new work will be assigned to the 4.56 App. The old work that has already been assigned to the 4.39 App isn't touched and expected to be done with that. Seems it had been that old results that failed. Update the project and see if new work is assigned to the new App and how it works.
BM
BM
I went on to rename that
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I went on to rename that worker without the app_info.xml file, and it works...
However, I've followed your pointers now, awaiting completion of work unit....
apologies for my mistake....
by the way, does the application still reads ver 4.39 by default...?
RE: by the way, does the
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I'm not sure I understand the question.
The Workunits and Tasks haven't changed at all, assigning the tasks to the App versions is done by the BOINC client, not by the Apps. The client will make sure that a single task is done by the same App from beginning to end, it doesn't allow to change the App in the middle of a task.
On the App side the format for the intermediate result and checkpoint file hasn't changed, so in principle it should be possible to continue a task that has been started with 4.39 with 4.56. However, as I said, the BOINC client should normally prevent this. I'd rather consider this to be a good idea, as what applies to 4.39 and 4.56 here can by no means be assumed in general.
BM
BM
I've progressed 25% of a WU
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I've progressed 25% of a WU running on albert 4.56.... projected WU process/CPU times to about 10888 sec as opposed to the standard albert 4.39, which took around 10100 to 10300 sec from my system (G5 1.9GHz)....
Let's hope there's miracle towards the end of the workunit....
Completed 3 WUs under
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Completed 3 WUs under 4.56.... all pending validation...
http://einsteinathome.org/task/27873203
http://einsteinathome.org/task/27873194
http://einsteinathome.org/task/27873191
I'm not sure if I should be getting this, but this beta eliminates the MacOS error that I'd always getting with Albert 4.39 on long WUs (result below)...
http://einsteinathome.org/task/27372289
However, there wasn't any speed up at all in the new beta client, it's slightly slower than the latter.
I'm not seeing any
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I'm not seeing any improvements so far: I've gone from ~7800sec/WU to 9750sec/WU (and this is on a PowerMac11,2!!)
There haven't been any exceptions, though, so I guess that's a good thing... but come on! Optimized apps shouldn't take longer! grrr!!!
I've got two or three more E@H WUs in the pipeline. Check host 624187 for results using the (alleged) optimized app; host 606987 for stock app.
A little side effects
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A little side effects though... My CPU temp is slightly higher and CPU fan spins a tad faster while running this client.....
RE: A little side effects
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Haven't had that effect, but the fans haven't ever kicked in 'cept for when I was installing Yellow Dog.
Anywhoo, I'll come back for more WUs and an update later on this week.
RE: RE: A little side
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And I remember having that same effect when I was using MacNN's heavily optimised SETI client, of which they claimed was the result of a much efficient Altivec utilisation....
Assuming that is the case here, why the slowdown....?