Boinc 5.10.7

[hawkeyefan]

Is this new...ability to control each machine's preferences individually rather than through profiles on WCG site? I don't remember seeing this before but dunno if I even checked on the 5.8.16 build

[mcflurry4321]

Yeah that's new too. You can control how much memory BOINC uses now through that. Pretty neat.

[[XC] riptide]

Hawkeye... go to network usage tab. It gives options for connection to internet. I wonder would that mean no more profile setups modifications.?

[hawkeyefan]

Hawkeye... go to network usage tab. It gives options for connection to internet. I wonder would that mean no more profile setups modifications.?

geez i hope so

these are great features for people running farms with more variables than the three available profiles allow for. So you have a cluster all with the same hardware and same profile, except that one boxen with half the RAM, so you adjust memory usage locally on each machine instead of hobbling the ones with more RAM. Friggin sweet

this will also make it a lot easier for subteams like themachine or XSTA or avoid people logging in and accidentally screwing up all the profiles

[Vapor]

Hmmmm, on OS X benches went up, then after a reboot they went down

Other new things are nice though.

[njkid32]

Weird mine went up again..

3544
7799

Not to shabby

[mukmaster]

I am liking the new look and performance !!!

[azzido]

Great release. My benches went up from 2539 / 5220 to 2635 / 2850 on WinVista 32 bit with E6300 @ 2.8 GHz

[meshmesh]

Boinc team have made a change in the benchmark routine. Finally.

[Martijn]

Well, I must be honest here... I am starting to like Boinc more and more, even though the benches still suck. I love the possibility of having everything set manually per system.

[Movieman]

Just posted this in the benchmark thread but will do so here as I want to get people to really get on this and fast!
This is the fast clover
at 3157mhz with Boinc 5.8.16:
5/14/2007 8:47:32 PM||Benchmark results:
5/14/2007 8:47:32 PM|| Number of CPUs: 8
5/14/2007 8:47:32 PM|| 2968 floating point MIPS (Whetstone) per CPU
5/14/2007 8:47:32 PM|| 6184 integer MIPS (Dhrystone) per CPU
----------------------------------------------------------------------
at 3157mhz with Boinc version 5.10.7:
6/21/2007 9:28:00 AM||Benchmark results:
6/21/2007 9:28:00 AM|| Number of CPUs: 8
6/21/2007 9:28:00 AM|| 3108 floating point MIPS (Whetstone) per CPU
6/21/2007 9:28:00 AM|| 6921 integer MIPS (Dhrystone) per CPU
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Now it makes me want to go in and crank that beech up and see if I can beat NJKID's benches!

[sierra_bound]

Just a heads-up about something I noticed. I was wondering why no new WU's were being added to the queue on one of my machines. When I went to the network usage section of the new BOINC manager (Advanced ---> Preferences ---> Network Usage tab), I noticed it was using custom settings that were different from the ones I had set in WCG's device profiles. If you want to use the web-based network settings you need to hit Clear.

[njkid32]

Both my quads had crashed desktops this morning.. This has never happened before I installed this new boinc. Weird.

[Jaco]

what do you mean njkid? explorer crashed? (if so just restart explorer)

[njkid32]

Yes and I restarted explorer but boinc had crashed as well. My machines usually just reboot if there is an issue.. So this is a bit confusing.. I know they are stable at their current speeds.

[Martijn]

Yes and I restarted explorer but boinc had crashed as well. My machines usually just reboot if there is an issue.. So this is a bit confusing.. I know they are stable at their current speeds.

You know what: I had exactly the same this afternoon!

[sierra_bound]

Check the settings in Preferences. See if there is anything unusual compared to what you have set in Device Profiles. I ran one machine overnight with the new version of BOINC and had no problems. I've changed to 5.10.7 on one of my quad-core systems. We'll see if anything bad happens.

[Okda]

old results = 2298 / 4130
new results= 2455 / 4545

a nice increase in the benchmarks indeed

[v0dka]

No crash here.

But I had to set that second number where it says 'use xxx% if PC is not in use' to 100% (it's in dutch but youll recognise this if you go to the right page). Default was 90%, that's no good...

How do you know if your Grid profile or your client settings are being used, do you have to hit the 'clear' button like sierra suggested because the client settings are used by default? If so, make sure your client isnt sitting at 90%.

[meshmesh]

A few comments:

On the Preferences dialogue, the OK" button is actually the "Save" button. Hit OK button to close the dialogue and (un)knowingly you have committed the preferences to the machine, maybe without checking the three tabs carefully to see what the default "normal" values are.

If you do not check all the tabs, the default settings may result in a loss of productivity. An example of maximum performance settings is shown below. If you have set wcg profile to "maximum performance" and thus have some problem/question about what the custom settings are please ask.

So what does this dialogue exactly do?
It allows you to assign preferences (all of them) to this particular host, which may be different from the ones set on the wcg "Profiles" pages.
It is not a viewer/editor of the wcg profile settings. It has nothing to do with it. It does not inherit those settings nor does it modify them.
It creates completely new ones for this machine only. Whatever you have set in the wcg profile is irrelevant. So be careful with what it sets up as default.

This new "facility" is actually not new. It is essentially an editor/creator for the global_preferences_override.xml file (GPOF).
You can use notepad to do just the same thing. If you had never felt the need to create a GPOF, then by all means do not use this facility. And if opened by mistake, hit the cancel button to dismiss the dialogue window. If needed, you can use the Clear button to revert to your normal wcg website profile settings.

Do you know whether the machine is actually running using the profile settings or the GPOF settings? If you have hit Ok even once, it is using GPOF without indicating this to you. Don't remember? Check Boinc directory. If you see the GPOF, then it is not using the wcg profile settings any more. Using the Clear button reverts back to the wcg profile settings. And remeber OK button = Save. use the cancel button to close the dialogue.

If you really need to create a GPOF to exclude a certain preference value from the profile for this machine, then fire up notepad to specify that preference only. As it is implemented, it is an all-or-nothing solution. Cannot override specific preferences (say CPU &#37. You loose the benefit that comes with centralized farm management. You can always open the GPOF in notepad and delete the lines you don't need to override. Save the file then update Boinc. Think of the Preferences dialogue as a GPOF template generator and no more.

[v0dka]

Clear, thanks.

So beware all, stay away form this function unless you really need it.

[Movieman]

Clear, thanks.

So beware all, stay away form this function unless you really need it.

Yes, or simply go to it, hit the clear on the right side and your back to using what you have set in your web profile on the WCG servers.

Thanks to sierra_bound for first catching this and meshmesh for the explanation!

I think the mistake the BOINC people who did this new version made is not in what they set out to do but in the implementation.
They should have left the default as it was, the old way, using the profile we'd made on the web.
Great idea, flawed followthrough..

[v0dka]

Indeed, and it's not only setting these client prefs as default but also setting 90% CPU usage as default like I said above. Why anyone would do that is beyond me.

In general though, there is nothing wrong with using these prefs insted of your profile except maybe when youre managing lots of systems.

[sierra_bound]

I've been running 5.10.7 on two machines. One has given me no problems. I had an Explorer crash on the other, though BOINC kept running. I then decided to hit "Clear" on all three preference tabs. This should cause your client to use the web-based settings. I ran it like that overnight and did not see a reccurence of the Explorer problem. Will keep monitoring.

[njkid32]

I changed one machine back to the older version that kept crashing every 5-10min and its been totally fine ever since..