Across 4 differant teams at Rosetta the biggest complaint I have seen is dial-up crunchers. If a cruncher spends 2 hours to download a job that takes 3 hours to complete...he just might be a little angry. One of the best crunchers I know is stuck...he only has one option available....dial-up. How about smaller bits for slower download guys that contribute to the program.

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Do you happen to know if they have tried upping their default work unit length to 24 hours? It will download the same amount of data, but will run more simulations before returning a result (each based off a random number, so there's no downside to working longer on the same data).

This setting is available under the 'your account' link, 'Rosetta@home preferences', then adjust 'Target CPU time'.

Cheers,
Ethan

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It requires a very dedicated person to run Rosetta@home over dialup IMHO.

Nevertheless, the "variable WU runtime option" (see https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/forum_thread.php?id=669#10377) was designed SPECIFICALLY for dialup users and people with capped Internet traffic and can reduce traffic requirement to 1/10th or better.

This way you can run a single WU for several CPU hours (default is 3hr, used to be 8hr), up to 4 CPU days.

If your PC's hardware is stable, it's a good idea to increase default WU runtime even if you have fast Internet, to use longer WU runtimes (I use 8hr WU runtimes, i.e. each 24/7 PC would finish 3 WUs per day).

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They've also reduced the download size by more than half. From 6.6MB to 2.3MB. A dialup user can download lots and lots of 2.3MB WUs in the 2 hrs that you mention. Or, they can set the runtime preference to 24hrs, and download for about 15min to keep a dual core busy for a day. Caution: increase the runtime preference gradually over time so BOINC has time to adjust to the longer runtimes. Or only make such adjustments when your cache size is small.

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They've also reduced the download size by more than half. From 6.6MB to 2.3MB. A dialup user can download lots and lots of 2.3MB WUs in the 2 hrs that you mention. Or, they can set the runtime preference to 24hrs, and download for about 15min to keep a dual core busy for a day. Caution: increase the runtime preference gradually over time so BOINC has time to adjust to the longer runtimes. Or only make such adjustments when your cache size is small.

Apart from the recent jobs/tasks are about 9Mb+3Mb for the main files and for some reason even though I keep aborting the downloads, next time it tries to get a task it get the same set, so I have to abort again :-(

I have a few days left on the 4 PC's, one has been moved off again due to this, and the other 3 will move somewhere else for the time being till the large jobs are over OR I can force the reduced size jobs :-(
(even using the download on one computer then move the large data files to the other computers, like I do, is becoming inpractical at these sizes)

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I don't know if this is able to work, but you cloud try.

Maby the use of a proxy server (at your end of the line) that only is used for BOINC could reduce trafic. as when more than once a file should be downloaded it is downloaded from the proxy.

And try using Dimitris option of setting your WU's to 8 or more hours

Just my 2 cents...

PS. proxy would also cache for multiple client's so if PC1 downloads the file, PC2 and PC3 dont have to get it from the Internet but just from the Proxy.

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If your PC's hardware is stable, it's a good idea to increase default WU runtime even if you have fast Internet, to use longer WU runtimes (I use 8hr WU runtimes, i.e. each 24/7 PC would finish 3 WUs per day).

If I understand this correct, the longer WU runtimes, the better it is for the project?

If this is the case, I will adapt this setting to the max. But why isn't it like this then by default?

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If I understand this correct, the longer WU runtimes, the better it is for the project?

Whenever DB is asked, his reply is to use 8hr run time. He says that there is no impact to the science whether you use 1hr, 2hr, 8hr etc, but with 8hr it reduces the bandwidth for their servers.

DB has never said, as far as I've seen, that one time setting is better than any other for the science.

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The science is based on the number of "models" you crunch and return to the project. Whether you crunch 10 models on 10 WUs in 24hrs, or 100 models on 1 WU in 24hrs, it's the same contribution to the science. Some WUs take longer to produce a model than others, so it's not just as simple as the comparision I just made, but the concept still applies.

Since the topic of this thread was dial-up users, the idea is simply to reduce the bandwidth requirements as much as possible, and higher runtime preference is THE way to achieve that. It reduces the time to download WUs to your PC, and reduces the load on Rosetta's servers in delivering the data to you.

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Add this signature to your EMail:
Running Microsoft's "System Idle Process" will never help cure cancer, AIDS nor Alzheimer's. But running Rosetta@home just might!
https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/

If your PC's hardware is stable, it's a good idea to increase default WU runtime even if you have fast Internet, to use longer WU runtimes (I use 8hr WU runtimes, i.e. each 24/7 PC would finish 3 WUs per day).

If I understand this correct, the longer WU runtimes, the better it is for the project?

If this is the case, I will adapt this setting to the max. But why isn't it like this then by default?

Rosetta@home used to run 8hr WUs by default initially, but longer runtimes led to a larger % of errorneous/aborted WUs (that was before the improvement in the executable and the watchdog thread was implemented).

So I guess the current 3hr/WU is a reasonable compromise to accomodate the average cruncher, who doesn't have his PC running 24/7, minimize errorneous WUs and still ensure rapid (~1day) WU turn-around times.

The project has said recently that if you have a stable and/or 24/7 PC, the recommendation was to put 8hr/WU.

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Local proxy, hum (I already run through a proxy (not local) and Boinc has enough troubles with that! especialy for uploads)

anyways, in principal it may work but that may also depend on the way files are requested. Since they are probably requested direct from the server with a different encryption sequence it'll probably fail in it's purpose (either way they still have to be downloaded once).
something to look into though (any windows proxy servers that'll do this, note I need to connect to a proxy after that with autentication)


I already run at 1 day length, would love longer, say 2 weeks ;-).




As for the defualt setting, don't forget this project has to cater for less used computers as well, at a lower setting the can get results back quicker.
So it is a trade off of time till result returned and bandwidth from servers & user happiness.

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