Can a client install be cloned? + some planning q's

I am going to be joining in the Gauntlet under the OCFoldingTeam id that someone is going to setup.

I will throw most of my farm at it - all the candidate rigs are c2d's and c2q's.

Here are a few questions:

1. Is there a way to clone an install from one rig to the others? From an initial look i think the optimization are the same for all of them (sse3 core 2). Would this work from a dc to a quad or would i need to clone separately? Most of the rigs i would switch over are quads. I assume I would still have to give each client a unique id somehow?

2. I can run them in windows or ubuntu 6.10/7.04 or under vmware/linux 7.04 if there is an advantage to one of them although i am still a bit noobish in linux for I would use wxp unless the others have a performance advantage.

3. What is the optimal balance in oc'ing the memory ... eg in folding smp it is advantageous to run memory faster than 1:1 ratio even if you need to relax timings. Does this hold true for seti or are tighter timings better at 1:1?

4. in smp folding, there is a fair bit of heat produced (temps 3-5C lower than n x P95 blend). Does seti produce the same temps or is there an opportunity to bump up my cpu oc?

5. since these are all dedicated folders, i find it more convenient to NOT run them as a service with the folding client. Is it better to run seti as a service as per your sticky? or run it like a text folding client from the desktop? Would this mean 4 windows showing on a quad (not a problem just curious)?

Thanks for the help

Once someone pm's me the OCFoldingTeam email/password I will setup a test install.

Let me see if I can answer some of these questions for you, Pete.

1. I don't think you can clone them, but BOINC uses an installer for windows installs so it's no big problem to set up. The Seti client will also set itself up with a separate computer ID for each computer when you assign the computer to Seti. The BOINC client is also much smarter than the CLI version of F@H and will run the correct number of threads needed for the processor core count (example: 2 threads processing with a dual core processor or 4 threads processing with a Quad). So you only need 1 install of BOINC per machine.

2. Windows is what most all of us Seti crunchers use and has the most developed optimized apps for the greatest crunching efficiency. The use of the optimized (chicken apps) apps will definitely maximize your crunching speed and efficiency. And they are basically a "unzip and drop in the client folder" type of thing, with no editing required to get them working correctly.

3 This is one I have no real idea; I don't know that it makes a big difference with Seti.

4. Temps wise, it is probably about the same as SMP folding.

5. When you set up the windows client, it will ask if you want to start the client on bootup. If you leave the box checked to start on bootup it will just make a shortcut in the startup folder. And as I stated in #1, you only need 1 BOINC client running to handle your crunching because the client is smart enough to use the right number of threads needed.

I don't know about cloning and you're right, each rig needs a seperate ID. The optimized app's are split along x86, x64 & linux variations, so yes you could certainly use the same optimized app on both dual & quad rigs if they are both running the OS architecture. Good question on memory config's, it sounds like you guys have done alot of homework on the folding teams. I would expect that a quick test with Everest would give you a good idea about which is faster, it works that way in benchmarking.

Another good question about heat, maybe one of the veterans knows the answer to that one. As for the installation type I do not run as a service either, I think the only advantage to that is the machine will continue to crunch no matter who is logged in.

Welcome aboard!

pscout said:

I am going to be joining in the Gauntlet under the OCFoldingTeam id that someone is going to setup.

I will throw most of my farm at it - all the candidate rigs are c2d's and c2q's.

Here are a few questions:

1. Is there a way to clone an install from one rig to the others? From an initial look i think the optimization are the same for all of them (sse3 core 2). Would this work from a dc to a quad or would i need to clone separately? Most of the rigs i would switch over are quads. I assume I would still have to give each client a unique id somehow?

Click to expand...

setting up BOINC is very easy, much less hassle than F@H. no special command or anything is needed. so cloning setup isn't needed!

2. I can run them in windows or ubuntu 6.10/7.04 or under vmware/linux 7.04 if there is an advantage to one of them although i am still a bit noobish in linux for I would use wxp unless the others have a performance advantage.

Click to expand...

Window is perfectly fine. in fact, last I've checked, the Linux client is still in a somewhat beta stage.

3. What is the optimal balance in oc'ing the memory ... eg in folding smp it is advantageous to run memory faster than 1:1 ratio even if you need to relax timings. Does this hold true for seti or are tighter timings better at 1:1?

Click to expand...

some other seti expert will help in here as I've left seti for awhile.... but from my pass experience, memory speed play a good part of the performance too.

4. in smp folding, there is a fair bit of heat produced (temps 3-5C lower than n x P95 blend). Does seti produce the same temps or is there an opportunity to bump up my cpu oc?

Click to expand...

I've tested seti and folding produce 'bout same amount of heat.

5. since these are all dedicated folders, i find it more convenient to NOT run them as a service with the folding client. Is it better to run seti as a service as per your sticky? or run it like a text folding client from the desktop? Would this mean 4 windows showing on a quad (not a problem just curious)?

Click to expand...

no, the BOINC client will take care of how many instance a machine will run depends on the CPU count. and just set it up as a normal startup program is fine, no need to be install as service for a dedicated machine. oh, there's no complex CLI client neither, everything is very easy user interface setting! (yeah, folding sure could learn a thing or two from them in this area!!)

another thing good 'bout BOINC is once you've setup your preference/setting, it will apply across to all of your machines! (you can setup like home, work, school, etc. preference) and you can cache WUs too (I would recommend 7+days)!

edit: got beaten by Mud! I just type toooo slow....

From my personel experience with boinc i have found running your memory as fast as possible is better than tight timmings also if your temps are ok you can run a higher o/c than with folding.

3. What is the optimal balance in oc'ing the memory ... eg in folding smp it is advantageous to run memory faster than 1:1 ratio even if you need to relax timings. Does this hold true for seti or are tighter timings better at 1:1?

Click to expand...

Truthfully, I have never noticed a difference in SETI production by changing the memory timings/speed. Of course, we don't really have a benchmarking WU to compare apples to apples, but I can say it has never impacted my production more than a few points per week either way.

Cloning: no bad idea. Do a normal install so that each pc gets an ID assigned by the project.

Heat: SETI will run each core at 100% processor load.

Timings: Less important, go for fsb and cpu speed over all other factors.

In my experience with heat (AMD only) I've found SETI overall to run not more than 1-2°C lower than P95 if that. On single cores it will fluctuate slightly depending on the WU but with multi-cores you shouldn't notice it ...

Thanks for all the replies everyone

You have answered all my planning questions

Since I won't be permanently joining, I will leave all my oc's as is.

I might experiment with the cloning approach ... the unique id thing also applies when i clone my folding instances but is easy to deal with in linux since the unique id is stored in a file so just deleting it in my clone template cause the client to get a new one when it first starts and in windows i am generally cloning to a new install so no need to delete an exiting id fom the registry. Hopefully the boinc client is the same.

Lately i have been using mostly vmware and linux to run the smp client, and it is relatively easy to clone the entire vm with a customized linux os + folding client - it only requires 3 changes to the network config in linux. ATM only 2 of my 27 folding instances run native wxp.

Pete