Weekly DC Stats - 05MAY2024

Hi!

Here is the end-of-April-start-of-May edition of the Weekly DC Stats. Pentathlon related activity can be spotted in these stats only with a microscope, because unlike the contest stats proper (which are implemented via hourly RPC calls from contest server to project servers), our stats here are based on the less frequent stats file exports by the projects + the corresponding periodic file imports by FreeDC and the associated database refresh at FreeDC.

But before your credits can show up in stats based on RPC or on files, they first need to be granted to the results which your host reported to the project server. This happens after the server determined that results are valid, obviously. I know of five different methods how this determination is implemented:

• Minimum quorum of 1.
  The project server performs some sort of computation of its own to check each result. Naturally, this method is only feasible if the numeric effort for these computations is only very light-weight relative to the prior computational workload which the DC contributors' hosts conducted. Still, it means that the project server has to spend a certain amount of CPU cycles in order to accomplish validation. As long as the server hasn't gotten around to validate a particular result, it is carried as "pending validation" without credit in the BOINC server database. During times when a server is only lightly loaded, results remain in this state only for the blink of an eye. But a very heavily loaded server may take many hours for validation, especially when the server is I/O bound rather than CPU bound.
  My understanding is that many years ago, in ages way before I entered this hobby myself, some projects did not perform an actual validation but simply accepted results as canonical right away as they were reported by a host. That's obviously pretty bad, as random hosts are making random errors, or results could even be faked. I hope that projects perform validations nowadays which are indeed thorough enough to meet their respective scientific goal. (Not every last bit needs to be correct in order to answer some scientific questions. But, for example, if the question is whether or not a number is prime, then yes, every single bit needed to be correct during hours or days long computations, and validation needs to happen in a way which holds up to this high requirement.)

• Minimum quorum of 2.
  For many algorithms, the project server doesn't have a way to prove or disprove correctness of the results with little numeric effort. Therefore it tasks two more or less randomly selected hosts with one and the same workunit, waits until both of these hosts report that they succeeded and have a result, and compares both results. If they match (bit for bit, or in certain non-deterministic fields, are close enough to each other), the results go from "pending validation" to "valid" and credit is given.
  If they don't match or one of the hosts reported an error or did not report before the due date, the server selects a third host to perform another copy of the same computation, and so on, until the server either received two matching results, or until too many errors occurred.
  From a contributor's point of view, the person who operates the host which is supposed to eventually deliver a result which matches your result, is commonly called your "wingman".
  Obviously, for a variety of reasons this whole routine can take a long time until conclusion of a given workunit, and therefore until credit is given to good results.
  BTW, while many projects cannot use a quorum of 1 and therefore use a quorum of 2, it's the other way around for certain projects — NCI projects namely. ( = non-compute intensive projects, which are basically data-gathering projects. iThena Measurements, Radioactive, and WUProp come to my mind. These projects just cannot get same results from different hosts, by their very nature. They have to make do with some sort of minimal validation on the server, and it occurs to me that this validation boils down to guesswork.)

• Adaptive validation.
  Obviously, validation by a minimum quorum of 2 is very costly in terms of contributed computing capacity. Therefore, some projects which can't implement a minimum quorum of 1 are validating only an arbitrary small fraction of the results (by a minimum quorum of 2), and are accepting the rest of the results as probably valid right away. There are of course the problems mentioned above associated with blind trust into random hosts on the internet. To counteract these problems at least somewhat, this trust is only put into hosts which delivered a certain amount of quorum-of-2-validated results in recent time. That is, new hosts are given only quorum-of-2 work at first until they have showcased that they function as desired, and tried-and-true hosts are periodically given some quorum-of-2 work also in order to keep at least an eye on their proper functioning too.

• Fast proof.
  This is so far implemented at PrimeGrid only.
  A host which computes a task does not merely report the end result to the server, it also uploads certain data from intermediate steps of this computation. The server processes these steps cryptographically and then generates a rather different, corresponding but much smaller task and sends this to a different host. This other host performs certain computations to prove or disprove if the mentioned intermediate results and final result (or rather, their cryptographic representations) fit together. If yes, big credit is given to the result of the big initial task, and proportionally small credit is given to the result of the much smaller proof task. If no, the big task is replicated and sent to another host, and so on.
  It's complicated and I may have misrepresented how it actually works.
  Downsides: Several orders more data traffic and storage requirements on hosts and server, and much more CPU load on the server in comparison to the quorum-of-2 approach. But the huge saving in contributed computing capacity makes it all worthwhile. Additional caveats are that the nature of the algorithm in the scientific application needs to amenable to all this in the first place, and somebody needs to sit down and implement it in the application. Hence, this approach hasn't been seen outside of PrimeGrid yet. AFAIK SRBase has implemented, or at least tested, part of this approach (Gerbicz check) for the purpose of self-testing on each host, but did not go all the way to fast proof across hosts yet.

• MilkyWay@Home's individual implementation of a quorum of 2.
  Normal projects which rely on a quorum of 2 generate two corresponding tasks out of one workunit right away and assign both of them to hosts almost simultaneously. Ideally, both hosts take similar time to get back with good results, such that server can mark the original workunit as finished with a canonical result in its database without too much delay.
  Not so at MilkyWay@Home: Just one task is generated initially from a given workunit, assigned to a host, and after this host returned a result (or an error), another task is generated and eventually assigned to another host, and the waiting for a result from this host begins (until either two matching results or too many error reports came together).
  For MilkyWay@Home's current applications, this approach makes no sense compared to classic quorum-of-2, apart from "never change a running system" which of course has its own merit. I have been told on MilkyWay@Home's message board that with applications which were active at this project in the past, it was possible to validate some of the incoming results directly on the server in quorum-of-1 fashion, and just subject the remaining results to individual-implementation-of-a-quorum-of-2; so MilkyWay@Home's individual approach made sense in the past.
  PS, if you observe the state of any non-error result at MilkyWay@Home, you see it briefly in "pending validation" state but quickly going to "inconclusive", then staying there a long while until a match ("valid") or mismatch ("invalid") with another result of the same workunit.

Most of you who are reading this know all this already, and some know it much better than I do, so I hope those concerned skipped right to the stats below rather than letting an off-topic wall of text bore them. :-)

(Some comments on validation delay in the Pentathlon shoutbox inspired this wall of text.)

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In the event we have any non-crunching AnandTech readers who happen to wander into this thread: Distributed Computing is where you allow your computing device (smartphones/tablets included) to work on things like medical research, mathematical stuff, sifting through telescope data to further the field of Astronomy, and many other 'citizen science' projects. It allows networked computers to band together to act as a supercomputer. And you should join us. Thanks go, as always, to the folks responsible for Free-DC, who make this possible by keeping score for us.
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Amicable Numbers overall position - 4
TeAm total for the week - 30,530,440
TeAm rank for weekly production - 15

__Credit/week _ UserName
1_______19,763,435___Fardringle
2_______6,077,376____Skillz
3_______3,144,649____emoga
4_______1,490,290____crashtech
5_______27,344_______Ken_g6
6_______27,344_______b-bone


Asteroids@Home overall position - 18
TeAm total for the week - 522,438
TeAm rank for weekly production - 21

__Credit/week _ UserName
1_______241,512______crashtech
2_______122,516______Tyler F
3_______61,739_______Orange Kid
4_______40,485_______Skillz
5_______21,144_______[TA]Assimilator1
6_______12,218_______Skivelitis2
7_______9,531________Drnickriviera
8_______8,567________cellarnoise2
9_______1,645________Ken_g6
10______1,328________mmonnin
11______1,165________mYst
12______256__________fuzzydice555
13______63___________b-bone


Climate Prediction overall position - 9
TeAm total for the week - 1,220,775
TeAm rank for weekly production - 1

__Credit/week _ UserName
1_______672,948______ChelseaOilman
2_______259,396______Ingleside
3_______140,988______mmonnin
4_______133,361______biodoc
5_______4,969________Hothead
6_______4,141________Peti


DENIS@Home overall position - 6
TeAm total for the week - 3,362,393
TeAm rank for weekly production - 3

__Credit/week _ UserName
1_______2,122,019____Skillz
2_______480,393______10esseeTony
3_______337,999______Fardringle
4_______119,438______Orange Kid
5_______102,063______Pokey
6_______63,157_______Drnickriviera
7_______51,176_______Skivelitis2
8_______40,110_______fuzzydice555
9_______25,073_______xii5ku
10______6,905________waffleironhead
11______6,144________Ken_g6
12______5,481________kampe
13______2,248________Icecold
14______133__________biodoc
15______88___________ChelseaOilman


Einstein@Home overall position - 14
TeAm total for the week - 27,734,140
TeAm rank for weekly production - 27

__Credit/week _ UserName
1_______14,331,900___crashtech
2_______9,922,341____Skillz
3_______2,939,897____Orange Kid
4_______199,984______biodoc
5_______142,561______Alan J. Simpson
6_______90,168_______Endgame124
7_______49,623_______TA_JC
8_______36,663_______Pokey
9_______36,663_______emoga
10______693__________zzuupp
11______312__________fuzzydice555


Folding@Home overall position - 12
TeAm total for the week - 1,665,348,487
TeAm rank for weekly production - 15

__Credit/week _ UserName
1_______805,265,531_______Mark_F_Williams
2_______228,160,898_______Pokey_TA
3_______124,134,248_______Endgame124
4_______121,324,406_______cellarnoise2
5_______109,150,881_______Oneto
6_______43,855,980___Hostile
7_______37,966,208___King_of_Efland
8_______36,544,655___fhonyotski
9_______25,216,009___JHutch2000
10______20,764,814___xcaliber219
11______17,314,703___drnickriviera_GRC_7133603969c815049908de72f2635e64
12______15,054,564___Gizmo23
13______11,309,263___slowbones
14______10,499,671___Dexter
15______10,129,812___Cliff_Taylor
16______9,898,602____dennc66
17______9,195,018____2StepBlack
18______8,679,517____Paul_McAvinney
19______6,525,484____Mihryazd
20______6,162,100____Spungo
21______6,052,452____JohnnyWong1213
22______3,638,103____JDAMe1hLojVd
23______2,839,312____sduguid
24______2,830,373____mondrasek
25______2,371,005____tmhoang
26______2,341,668____Ailthas
27______2,325,652____TA_JC
28______1,271,165____mykchin8
29______876,099______Athlex
30______838,222______Icecold
31______735,119______Datoth
32______494,200______Desslok
33______461,412______AddyAnonY
34______356,174______ensignlee
35______332,108______Chanz
36______329,070______davidm103
37______291,354______drussell
38______269,010______shabs42
39______188,657______Karetaker
40______166,453______jlinfitt
41______126,644______rderickson
42______105,427______Pete_Nyholm
43______70,812_______BOARINDSHIL
44______61,131_______Daniel_Trudeau
45______57,162_______balzams
46______51,002_______Aegis_Kay
47______27,881_______QuietDad
48______24,962_______CCHomebrew
49______20,139_______RL
50______16,639_______jakeg
51______5,684________Dr.N0


Gerasim@Home overall position - 5
TeAm total for the week - 1,527,905
TeAm rank for weekly production - 22

__Credit/week _ UserName
1_______1,372,394____Orange Kid
2_______142,868______emoga
3_______12,642_______crashtech


GPUGrid overall position - 6
TeAm total for the week - 492,375,000
TeAm rank for weekly production - 3

__Credit/week _ UserName
1_______293,100,000_______Skillz
2_______133,724,999_______mmonnin
3_______29,925,000___10esseeTony
4_______22,125,000___Orange Kid
5_______11,250,000___Fardringle
6_______2,250,000____Ken_g6


iThena Measurements overall position - 2
TeAm total for the week - 213,760
TeAm rank for weekly production - 5

__Credit/week _ UserName
1_______156,632______Fardringle
2_______17,088_______Skivelitis2
3_______15,198_______ChelseaOilman
4_______11,506_______mmonnin
5_______6,840________Orange Kid
6_______6,416________Skillz


Latin Squares overall position - 8
TeAm total for the week - 76,187
TeAm rank for weekly production - 14

__Credit/week _ UserName
1_______74,699_______crashtech
2_______809__________Fardringle
3_______744__________Skivelitis2
4_______22___________Skillz


LHC@Home 1.0 overall position - 14
TeAm total for the week - 160,140
TeAm rank for weekly production - 13

__Credit/week _ UserName
1_______141,698______crashtech
2_______18,393_______kampe
3_______48___________[H]Skillz


LHC Dev@Home overall position - 99 — err, no, it's 2 really, just LHC Dev's stats export is still defective
TeAm total for the week - 59,472
TeAm rank for weekly production - 4

__Credit/week _ UserName
1_______59,472_______Fardringle


MilkyWay@Home overall position - 4
TeAm total for the week - 1,927,646
TeAm rank for weekly production - 3

__Credit/week _ UserName
1_______1,076,365____xii5ku
2_______292,824______mmonnin
3_______144,263______crashtech
4_______101,773______Drnickriviera
5_______84,711_______Endgame124
6_______81,425_______Stig
7_______72,179_______Orange Kid
8_______38,205_______Brent
9_______13,428_______fuzzydice555
10______10,656_______idlorj
11______8,927________burninator34
12______2,372________CASEYH
13______771__________Fardringle
14______746__________cellarnoise2
15______436__________ChelseaOilman


Moo! Wrapper overall position - 20
TeAm total for the week - 38,385,990
TeAm rank for weekly production - 8

__Credit/week _ UserName
1_______22,692,554___Skillz
2_______6,471,776____geecee
3_______4,575,260____waffleironhead
4_______2,039,824____emoga
5_______1,520,784____Skivelitis2
6_______565,192______Ken_g6
7_______368,448______crashtech
8_______152,120______mmonnin


NFS@Home overall position - 10
TeAm total for the week - 771,092
TeAm rank for weekly production - 11

__Credit/week _ UserName
1_______739,570______crashtech
2_______20,540_______emoga
3_______10,982_______fuzzydice555


NumberFields@Home overall position - 9
TeAm total for the week - 1,405,508
TeAm rank for weekly production - 9

__Credit/week _ UserName
1_______660,428______crashtech
2_______364,442______Skillz
3_______218,686______Pokey
4_______100,430______emoga
5_______32,816_______waffleironhead
6_______10,480_______biodoc
7_______6,250________mmonnin
8_______5,988________ChelseaOilman
9_______3,406________cellarnoise2
10______2,320________Orange Kid
11______262__________Icecold


ODLK overall position - 3
TeAm total for the week - 36,135
TeAm rank for weekly production - 19

__Credit/week _ UserName
1_______35,034_______crashtech
2_______1,101________Skivelitis2


Primegrid overall position - 16
TeAm total for the week - 35,541,776
TeAm rank for weekly production - 21

__Credit/week _ UserName
1_______3,611,909____crashtech
2_______2,520,525____waffleironhead
3_______2,037,392____w a h
4_______1,058,587____kiska
5_______1,041,941____mike656
6_______1,025,904____johnnevermind
7_______769,356______mmonnin
8_______601,524______Letin Noxe
9_______511,834______Skivelitis2
10______261,870______Ken_g6
11______234,180______Icecold
12______228,179______Endgame124
13______56,614_______Oneto
14______40,548_______geecee
15______37,218_______Pokey
16______14,246_______ChelseaOilman
17______12,265_______cellarnoise2
18______903__________xii5ku
19______571__________markfw
20______501__________DROFFUNGUS


Private GFN server overall position - 8
TeAm total for the week - 2,433,203
TeAm rank for weekly production - 7

__Credit/week _ UserName
1_______1,389,681____mmonnin
2_______578,053______Skivelitis2
3_______455,385______crashtech
4_______10,082_______Orange Kid


Radioactive@Home overall position - 38
TeAm total for the week - 7,787
TeAm rank for weekly production - 6

__Credit/week _ UserName
1_______2,191________Skillz
2_______2,086________ChelseaOilman
3_______1,890________xii5ku
4_______1,043________biodoc
5_______575__________mmonnin


Rakesearch overall position - 18
TeAm total for the week - 21,477
TeAm rank for weekly production - 29

__Credit/week _ UserName
1_______20,981_______Orange Kid
2_______495__________crashtech


Ramanujan Project overall position - 5
TeAm total for the week - 318,185
TeAm rank for weekly production - 3

__Credit/week _ UserName
1_______243,274______crashtech
2_______34,383_______Skillz
3_______28,880_______mmonnin
4_______11,375_______Skivelitis2
5_______272__________emoga


RC5-72 overall position - 15
TeAm total for the week - 3,885,373
TeAm rank for weekly production - 10

__Credit/week _ UserName
1_______2,881,775____Skillz
2_______575,801______Waffle
3_______254,978______emoga
4_______70,649_______Ken_g6 - TeAm Anandtech
5_______49,600_______boehm@nc.rr.com
6_______46,056_______crashtech
7_______3,743________Mad Pierre
8_______2,442________vss1980 - Team Anandtech
9_______314__________drdoug@techie.com
10______10___________iamwiz82@hotmail.com
and 5 one-credit records


Rosetta@Home overall position - 13
TeAm total for the week - 4,012,212
TeAm rank for weekly production - 5

__Credit/week _ UserName
1_______2,115,619____ChelseaOilman
2_______1,107,195____markfw
3_______244,128______cellarnoise2
4_______148,116______Endgame124
5_______137,975______Pokey
6_______93,946_______crashtech
7_______35,304_______cyost91
8_______30,616_______Davepl
9_______26,778_______Rob608
10______18,766_______slowbones
11______17,793_______fuzzydice555
12______17,702_______xii5ku
13______15,811_______TA_JC
14______13,026_______Peti
15______13,021_______Bundyman
16______11,625_______Drnickriviera
17______8,457________geecee
18______2,892________idlorj
19______1,360________Neurodog
20______971__________Ken_g6


SiDock@home overall position - 13
TeAm total for the week - 269,178
TeAm rank for weekly production - 23

__Credit/week _ UserName
1_______201,532______crashtech
2_______36,132_______cellarnoise2
3_______30,220_______mmonnin
4_______1,293________Skillz


Symmetric Prime Tuples overall position - 1
TeAm total for the week - 1,138,359
TeAm rank for weekly production - 1

__Credit/week _ UserName
1_______637,356______biodoc
2_______379,741______mmonnin
3_______121,260______crashtech


TN-Grid overall position - 15
TeAm total for the week - 83,365
TeAm rank for weekly production - 14

__Credit/week _ UserName
1_______48,514_______Orange Kid
2_______12,048_______mmonnin
3_______10,410_______Skillz
4_______3,345________xii5ku
5_______2,886________Ken_g6
6_______2,465________crashtech
7_______2,167________geecee
8_______1,135________fuzzydice555
9_______284__________Fardringle
10______124__________Dwan


World Community Grid overall position - 26
TeAm total for the week - 78,158,694
TeAm rank for weekly production - 1

__Credit/week _ UserName
1_______42,448,806___Skillz
2_______17,620,668___markfw
3_______12,657,045___crashtech
4_______3,927,994____biodoc
5_______1,104,468____mmonnin
6_______77,370_______Neurodog
7_______76,101_______Drnickriviera
8_______51,160_______Fardringle
9_______43,929_______Pokey
10______39,567_______wayliff
11______23,079_______geecee
12______22,897_______Rob608
13______21,278_______cellarnoise2
14______12,810_______fuzzydice555
15______11,370_______[TA]Assimilator1
16______9,713________asimperson
17______8,335________Skivelitis2
18______1,109________Endgame124
19______378__________Odettejd
20______347__________Gizmo23
21______93___________zzuupp


WUProp@Home overall position - 28
TeAm total for the week - 62,122
TeAm rank for weekly production - 4

__Credit/week _ UserName
1_______37,480_______Fardringle
2_______5,442________Skivelitis2
3_______4,342________ChelseaOilman
4_______4,188________mmonnin
5_______2,942________Skillz
6_______2,782________crashtech
7_______1,270________Kiska
8_______1,156________biodoc
9_______1,090________Orange Kid
10______502__________fuzzydice555
11______394__________drfungus
12______324__________Endgame124
13______154__________Neurodog
14______56___________zzuupp


YAFU overall position - 9
TeAm total for the week - 227,573
TeAm rank for weekly production - 7

__Credit/week _ UserName
1_______227,573______crashtech


Yoyo@Home overall position - 14
TeAm total for the week - 903,739
TeAm rank for weekly production - 9

__Credit/week _ UserName
1_______623,855______DRFUNGUS
2_______251,467______crashtech
3_______23,247_______geecee
4_______5,168________emoga