hello everyone just joined yesterday so im very new to this
my computer is not that fast only I have a few questions to ask if that's ok

I only have 2 proccessors on this computer.

boinc has been running 12 hours and im on 89% and 86% on my first 2 tasks.

Q1 - how long do tasks take, and is the time I stated above normal.

Q2 - 6gig has been used but the data directory only shows 4.6mb is that normal.

Q3 - what size will the file be after completed.

Q4 - when a task is done do I have to upload it or does it upload automatically.


thanks for your time

Ok, I'll answer what I can

How long will they take? Depends on your system. The server will give you an general estimation when you first start. The time to complete will change and get closer actual after you have 11(?) validated work units.

How much data space is used? I'm going to say yes, Multibeams tend to be smaller than Astropulses but both don't take up much. Space over time will fill as you do more and more work units but generally it's not too much.

what size? Someone else will have to answer that

Do you have to upload? No, Boinc Manager will report back the results at a predetermined time via your connection to the web. Usually it's around every 5 minutes it will check in and if a result is ready, it will upload it.

I'm sure someone else will be along and help you with some details

Zalster

thanks for making it more clear to me, thank you for the response zalster

A bit more in-depth:

Q1 - how long do tasks take, and is the time I stated above normal.

It does depend on your hardware, but not just that.
A faster more modern CPU will crunch the data faster than an old CPU will do. Things as speed of the CPU, the amount of floating operations it can do per second, the amount of L1, L2 and L3 cache, are all of impact here. However, a CPU will only run one task per CPU or CPU core. So a 4 core CPU can run 4 tasks at once.

A GPU will crunch the data quicker than a CPU will do, due to a GPU having more processors which all at the same time calculate part of the data. A GPU normally runs one task at a time, but really really fast. Your AMD however cannot be used here, it lacks the right amount of memory (min req. 512MB).

But then it also depends on the angle range of the task, which is at what angle the data was recorded. High angle range and the task's calculations are reasonably fast, low angle range and they are slow.

And lastly there are two sorts of tasks, one called Multibeam - the normal Seti tasks - and another called Astropulse. Both are split from the same data, but Astropulse are bigger and take (much) longer when calculated on a CPU. Astropulse are only split when new 'tapes' are being split, so they are not always available.

Q2 - 6gig has been used but the data directory only shows 4.6mb is that normal.

You only have Multibeam tasks, and these are 367 kilobytes in size per task, so not taking up much space. For comparison, when you get Astropulse these are 8 megabytes per task.

Q3 - what size will the file be after completed.

32 kilobytes per result file. For Multibeam at least. I'm not sure about Astropulse, but doubt they're much larger.

Q4 - when a task is done do I have to upload it or does it upload automatically.

BOINC does all this automatically. As soon as a task has finished calculations, will it start uploading to the Seti server. After that, you may see one or more tasks in BOINC Manager sitting at a status called "Ready to report".

Reporting is a separate thing from uploading. Uploading is just moving data from your hard drive to a hard drive on the server. Reporting the task though takes up the server's CPU, memory and database. And because reporting one task takes as much overhead here as reporting multiple tasks does, we prefer to report multiple tasks in one go.

So therefore BOINC reports multiple results at once, and does so at least:
1) 24 hours before the task's deadline.
2) 24 hours after the task has completed and is uploaded.
3) On the next work request.
4) When you press the Update button in BOINC Manager.
and at a handful of other times. At the least, you shouldn't ever have to interfere here and press the Update button.

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thanks ageless for the extra info very helpful indeed


have a good day sir

I am though hesitant. I may be wrong on the GPU you have, it may be possible that you can use it here. But will leave that for someone else to debunk. :)

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