Edit October 2008 - The problem described in this sticky was fixed in hadsm3 version 5.10 and any 6.xx version. Thus, I have unstickeyed it. Of course one really can\'t reliably view 6.xx model graphics in boinc 5.x.x.

The slab model (hadsm3 5.06) goes through three phases. After phase change (1 to 2 or 2 to 3), the globe graphic will have white blocks over where the text should be.



Or, if you have the left side panel up, and are displaying clouds instead of temperature, it might look like this...



This was first pointed out in this thread by TylerChris.

This doesn\'t hurt the computation of the model, but it obscures several things about the model\'s progress. As far as I know, the only way to get the graphic to look as it should is to exit and restart BOINC. There may also be numerous, spurious trickles that occur at phase change. This is harmless.

A correlated problem associated with phase changes is that on a multi-processor machine in which processor affinities are used to keep the science application processes \'away from each other\', the processor affinities are lost. On a processor that supports hyperthreading, a slab model may then find itself scheduled on the same physical processor as another model, thereby approximately halving both their speeds. [This has just happened to a PC of mine.]

I don\'t propose that there can or should be a fix for this, but am just noting for others in the same situation that they may profitably reset the affinities after slab model phase changes.

[Edit: The affinity problem can be fixed by setting the affinity on the hadsm3_5.06_windows_intelx86.exe process as well as the hadsm3_um_5.06_windows_intelx86.exe process. The new worker process started at the phase change will inherit its affinity from the other process, which continues through the phase change. The graphics still won\'t work.]