Hi,

I keep getting "Weather at Home 2" tasks sent to my Boinc which are days long in length for processing. Last one was 3 days, current one is 11 days. These will take an incredibly long time on my PC to get through because I'm also subscribed to multiple other projects, plus it gets depressing seeing climateprediction tasks in my list that have hardly shifted in months.

There's no way to say "Only give me tasks that are less than 24 hours in length" is there?

Should I just untick the Weather At Home 2 project?

Sorry, but all climate models are big, and getting bigger, as the researchers move to more elaborate models. The w@h2 models are also their current favourite, as they can be run for different resolutions, and different number of model months/years.

But, yes, it is possible to choose which types you ask for.
It's in your preference settings on your account page.

And 3 days to a week is normal for most of the models, on most computers.
There are NO models that run for a day or less. Although that is a possibility with the w@h2 model types.

Another problem long running tasks face, is that the researchers can just give up, and issue a new batch, in the hope that they'll be run more quickly. Then they just ignore those results that come in months later.

Thanks for response.

Hmmm, I have suspended climateprediction project for time being in Boinc :( I'd love to contribute but I don't have the capacity really to do the long tasks justice.

I think the problem is that unless someone planning to sign up for CPDN gets round to reading the System Requirements page first they won't know that the vast majority of tasks take from a few days upwards to complete.

I think the problem is that unless someone planning to sign up for CPDN gets round to reading the System Requirements page first they won't know that the vast majority of tasks take from a few days upwards to complete.

Sorry :(

No need to be sorry, I didn't either and I haven't for World Community Grid either. What I should have suggested is that this is put on the sign up page for when you create an account.

No need to be sorry, I didn't either and I haven't for World Community Grid either. What I should have suggested is that this is put on the sign up page for when you create an account.

Agree :-)

Long? The ones that we have now aren’t long. You should have been running CPDN back in the days of the 160 year models. They took about 33,000 hours to complete on a single core 1.2 Ghz machines with 265 MB’s (that's right 1/4 of a GB) of RAM. That was about 6 months running 24/7. :)

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Long? The ones that we have now aren’t long. You should have been running CPDN back in the days of the 160 year models. They took about 33,000 hours to complete on a single core 1.2 Ghz machines with 265 MB’s (that's right 1/4 of a GB) of RAM. That was about 6 months running 24/7. :)

LOL. Might have to give this project a break until I finish creating my supercomputer ;)

And, just to prove me wrong, a small batch showed up half a day ago that have only taken 9.5 hours to run.

CPDN.net admin. I am not open to doing projects that are 14.5 days long. I will no longer be contributing my computer time until the work units are 24 hours or less.

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CPDN.net admin. I am not open to doing projects that are 14.5 days long. I will no longer be contributing my computer time until the work units are 24 hours or less.

Perhaps read a bit about projects before signing up to them. Most CPDN tasks are likely to take about 5 days on your machine even if the BOINC estimate is longer. As has been pointed out near the beginning of this thread, climate models are large. Splitting them into smaller tasks greatly increases the chances of errors creeping in. This does mean that CPDN is not suitable for all, particularly not machines that are only crunching for a short period of time each day.

CPDN.net admin. I am not open to doing projects that are 14.5 days long. I will no longer be contributing my computer time until the work units are 24 hours or less.

Perhaps read a bit about projects before signing up to them. Most CPDN tasks are likely to take about 5 days on your machine even if the BOINC estimate is longer. As has been pointed out near the beginning of this thread, climate models are large. Splitting them into smaller tasks greatly increases the chances of errors creeping in. This does mean that CPDN is not suitable for all, particularly not machines that are only crunching for a short period of time each day.

We could split the model forecast into shorter segments if people get a kick out of seeing the boinc client progress meter move faster, similar to how WCG do it. If done correctly it would not introduce errors. However, that's a very inefficient way of running the models. It means each forecast will take considerably longer to achieve, plus moving more data between the volunteers and the servers. So that's why it's not done that way. You'll generate credit faster by letting the task run than breaking it up into smaller chunks & uploading/downloading new smaller tasks.

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CPDN Visiting Scientist

Just saw the system requirement link above and of course it's dead after migrating to the new site. I dug out the new page: https://cpdn.org/volunteering-your-computer/system-requirements/

Updating that with an expected runtime would be helpful to set the expectations right.

Edited: Initially I thought that's out of date, but if we just consider the lightest app for "minimum requirements", that does work out. (Other than perhaps removing Mac at this point.)

Just saw the system requirement link above and of course it's dead after migrating to the new site. I dug out the new page: https://cpdn.org/volunteering-your-computer/system-requirements/

And that page doesn't mention the requirements for the OIFS tasks. A while ago, I had a netbook that ran at 2 and tasks took a long time on it. Well over 30 days for some tasks.

Yes, I noticed the information on that page was out of date. I was going to mention it to Andy. He's working his way through the webpages updating them. I think the information is also best placed on the project preferences page. People are more likely to see it there.

It's very hard to give a time estimate. Depends so much on CPU and time that boinc is running.

For this particular thread though, I don't think it would have made much difference...

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CPDN Visiting Scientist

I agree with this. a correct estimation of time is always helpful when choosing tasks for donated computer time. Is there a way to dedicate time to one weather model over another or select regions?

Is there a way to dedicate time to one weather model over another or select regions?

Not currently. The OIFS tasks may be opt in. There should be more information from testing before they reach the main site.