Xansons4cod

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Alez
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#1 Re: Xansons4cod

Post by Alez »

I 've set up the team page on the project. Team Page

Looks like another project with GPU capability.
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#2 Re: Xansons4cod

Post by Alez »

About XANSONS for COD
XANSONS for COD is a research project aimed to create an open access database of simulated x-ray and neutron powder diffraction patterns for nanocrystalline phase of the materials presented in the Crystallography Open Database (COD). You can participate by downloading and running a free program on your computer.

This project is under heavy developement and will be re-launched when ready (approximately at the end of 2017). All the results obtained before the re-launch will likely be lost.

This project uses original open source (GPLv3 license) software XaNSoNS (X-ray and Neutron Scattering on Nanoscale Structures) to simulate the diffraction patterns on CPU and GPU.

XANSONS for COD is a privately managed BOINC project supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (project RFBR #15-07-07901-a).
Scientific Problem
The conventional technique used to recover the structural properties of the crystalline samples by their powder diffraction pattern is the Rietveld refinement method. In this method, the theoretical powder diffraction pattern refined until it fits the experimental one. The computation of the angles and intensities of the Bragg peaks can be made almost instantaneously in the approximation of the infinite size of the crystallite. To adjust for the finite size of the crystallites in the samples or finite resolution of the measurement device, these peaks are broadened artificially with the broadening function (usually Gaussian). This artificial broadening works great until the size of the crystallite in the sample is something below few tens of nanometers. For the such small crystallites, it is very hard to get the right broadening function which works fine for all Bragg peaks. Fortunately, for the such small crystallites, it is not a problem to calculate the powder diffraction patterns using the Debye equation (with the distance-histogram approximation, such as that proposed by Marcin Wojdyr and implemented in his Debyer code). This project is aimed to calculate the x-ray and neutron powder diffraction patterns for the nanocrystallites with the size varying from 6 nm to 21 nm for the most of the entries of the Crystallography Open Database. The obtained database may simplify the diagnostics of the nanocrystalline samples and complement the Full Profile Search Match method in the crystallite size analysis of the nanocrystalline samples.

In addition to the above, the calculation of the powder diffraction pattern using the Debye equation allows to account the lattice defects such as site vacancies, atom replacements and displacements. So, if the Crystallography Information File (CIF) for the given structure provides the site occupancy numbers and atomic displacement parameters, the application will use them to calculate the diffraction pattern.
System Requirements
Supported operating systems:

Windows 7 SP1 64-bit and above. Visual C++ Redistributable Packages for Visual Studio 2013 are required (64-bit version).
OS X 10.9.5 and above (including macOS).
64-bit Linux with kernel 3.16 and above.

Supported GPUs:

Nvidia GPU with CUDA Compute Capability 1.3 and above (Windows, Linux) or 2.0 and above (OS X/macOS) with at least 1GB of memory (GDDR5 memory is recommended). Driver version 340.21 and above (Windows, Linux) or CUDA Driver for MAC version 7.0.29 and above (OS X/macOS).
AMD GPU with OpenCL 1.2+ support with at least 1GB of memory (GDDR5 memory is recommended) including the integrated ones.
Intel GPU with OpenCL 1.2+ support (HD graphics 5xxx/5xx and above or Intel Iris are highly recommended, see Important Notes below).

Important Notes

Some antivirus software may place the executables into quarantine as unknown (and therefore suspicious) files. To prevent this from happening, disable blocking of unknown files in the antivirus preferences (e.g. in Avast disable CyberCapture feature). When BOINC client will download the executables, you can manually scan the BOINC data directory (C:\ProgramData\BOINC\ by default) for viruses. After that, the disabled antivirus functionality may be re-enabled again.

The task progress displaying in the BOINC manager is incorrect for now. This will be fixed by the time of the release. The tasks vary greatly by the computational time. Some tasks can be completed within a second but some require about 10 minutes to complete even on the modern CPU.

The algorithm which solves the problem on GPU requires high memory bandwidth and high memory read/write performance. It uses 64-bit integer atomic functions on Nvidia and AMD GPUs and emulates them on Intel GPUs. Therefore, for the tasks of this project, the GPUs with GDDR3 memory perform significantly slower than the GPUs with GDDR5 memory. For the integrated Intel GPU below 8th generation (HD graphics 4xxx or older) the performance may be even slower than for the CPU. If you'll notice the very slow GPU performance, disable it in project preferences in your account page.

Participate

Read our rules and policies
Download and run BOINC.
Choose Add Project and enter URL: http://xansons4cod.com/xansons4cod/
If you have any problems, get help here.
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#3 Re: Xansons4cod

Post by Bryan »

They are going to do a server upgrade tomorrow and then issue some WU. After that they will be finished with the "Alpha" stage and shut it down until May/June of 2017.

They are exporting stats now.
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#4 Re: Xansons4cod

Post by scole of TSBT »

Better get your credit and hours while you can....
Active phase of the project is completed by 20% in the first 24 days (as of July 12th)
Not bad 20% in 24 days.
This is the beta part of the project??
Or when we'll finish the remaining 80%, the project will close?
This is for the whole project, not for the beta part.

Reaching 100% will mean that we processed all the materials currently available in the COD (to be more precise only ~94% of COD contents can be processed). However, about 1500 new materials are added to the COD every month. These materials also should be processed. Current computing power allows to do that in less than 10 hours.

So, the project will not be closed completely, but the new WUs will be generated only once or twice per month to keep the database of the diffraction patterns in sync with the COD.
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#5 Re: Xansons4cod

Post by Bryan »

They are 36% complete now.

Has anyone tried playing with the MT CPU tasks? How many threads are optimal?
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#6 Re: Xansons4cod

Post by scole of TSBT »

Bryan wrote: Wed Aug 09, 2017 1:46 pmHas anyone tried playing with the MT CPU tasks? How many threads are optimal?
Not thorough test. Difficult to test because credit/cpu sec varies so much. I think reducing the threads per WU helps because it doesn't spend as much time init'ing and completing WUs though.
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#7 Re: Xansons4cod

Post by Bryan »

I looked and found that I had done 265 WU using 4 threads on one of the 72 thread machines. The times ranged from 50s to 6m. I think it probably makes sense to take it down to 1 thread per WU to get the time longer.

It's hard to figure out how well it pays ... the payout / sec is all over the place.
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#8 Re: Xansons4cod

Post by Andrew »

Bryan wrote: Wed Aug 09, 2017 8:11 pm I think it probably makes sense to take it down to 1 thread per WU to get the time longer.
Hints on how to do this if you don't mind :)

I've been googling a fair bit to see if there are any examples, but I've come up with nothing so far
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#9 Re: Xansons4cod

Post by scole of TSBT »

This app_config.xml will run 1 thread per CPU WU and 2 WUs per GPU. Just make sure the <project_max_concurrent> and <max_concurrent> tags are set correctly for the number of threads you have.

EDIT: If I set threads to 2 on my 72 thread system, I can't keep all threads busy. The server won't give it enough work. Setting threads to 4 to earn more per WU with all threads working.

<app_config>
<project_max_concurrent>8</project_max_concurrent>
app>
<name>xansons_gpu</name>
<max_concurrent>2</max_concurrent>
<fraction_done_exact/>
<gpu_versions>
<gpu_usage>.5</gpu_usage>
<cpu_usage>.5</cpu_usage>
</gpu_versions>
</app>
<app>
<name>xansons_cpu</name>
<max_concurrent>7</max_concurrent>
</app>
<app_version>
<app_name>xansons_cpu</app_name>
<plan_class>mt_windows</plan_class>
<avg_ncpus>1</avg_ncpus>
<cmdline>--nthreads 1</cmdline>
</app_version>
</app_config>
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#10 Re: Xansons4cod

Post by Andrew »

Appreciate that, thanks
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#11 Re: Xansons4cod

Post by Bryan »

So the question is; is it better to run 4 threads or 4 instances of 1 thread? Even running 1 thread I have a lot of WU that only last 2 minutes so that would be a lot of loading/unloading and doing prep work if you cut that time by 4.

I'm stuck on Asteroids for the next 3 days due to deadline issues. When I finish there I can play around.
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#12 Re: Xansons4cod

Post by scole of TSBT »

I ran test with 2 threads per WU and 10 thread per WU. Credit per CPU sec was 80% higher running 2 thread per WU. Then I ran another test with 1 thread per WU and the credit per CPU sec was 150% higher than running 10 thread per WU. Now I've got to run multiple instances to see if I keep all threads busy.

EDIT: server will only give you 25 WUs per host so I'm running less than 20 WUs per client in order to keep a few ready to start and not wait for downloads.
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#13 Re: Xansons4cod

Post by Bryan »

scole250 wrote: Fri Aug 11, 2017 5:45 pm Now I've got to run multiple instances to see if I keep all threads busy.
That's great Steve ... thanks! That is the testing I had planned on doing when I finish my load of Asteroids WU. I need another couple of days to finish those off and then I'll see whether it makes sense to put CPUs on it or just stick with the GPU.
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#14 Re: Xansons4cod

Post by scole of TSBT »

I think I have all my rigs dialed in. I'm even going to run the GPUs here at home for a bit to see what kind of numbers I can pull down. Watch out Pete!
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#15 Re: Xansons4cod

Post by Bryan »

:lol: Hey Pete, what's a GPU?

Next week I may have to see about a remedy to my lack of GPUs. I've really been fighting the impulse but it is becoming too much to handle!
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#16 Re: Xansons4cod

Post by Bryan »

Pete it's a little more complicated than just adding an app_config (which is also needed). The problem is that the project will only give you 25 WU/machine. So if you setup your 56 thread machine to run single threaded, by using an app_config, then you will have 31 threads sitting idle. If you set it up to use 2 threads you'll still have 6 threads doing nothing. You could run 3 threads/WU and then all threads would be crunching but not as efficiently as only doing 1 thread.

What we are talking about is running multiple instances of BOINC on the machine. To "most" projects each instance will appear as a different machine even though it will show the same name. So to get all 56 of your threads running as a minimum you would have 3 instances of BOINC running with the ncpus set to 18, 18, 20. Due to another issue called NUMA, it would be best to run 4 instances of BOINC with the ncpus on each set to 14.

I think Scole put the directions for how to do multiple clients on TSBT somewhere. If not, check HERE on SUSA. The 1st post and also #7 give you everything you need to know. You monitor/control the extra instances with BoincTasks. It really isn't difficult! Once you've gone through it one time you'll be an expert from then on.

This is the app_config I'm using. Unless you install more instances you'll need to set the cmdline to nthreads 4 and avg_ncpus to 4

<app_config>
<app_version>
<app_name>xansons_cpu</app_name>
<plan_class>mt_windows</plan_class>
<avg_ncpus>4</avg_ncpus>
<cmdline>--nthreads 4</cmdline>
</app_version>
<project_max_concurrent>36</project_max_concurrent>
</app_config>

This app_config will use 4 threads/ WU and all threads will be active. That will generate many more credits than running 56 threads/WU but won't be anywhere near as good as running 1 thread/WU which requires multiple instances of BOINC.
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#17 Re: Xansons4cod

Post by Bryan »

scole250 wrote: Fri Aug 11, 2017 11:34 pm I think I have all my rigs dialed in. I'm even going to run the GPUs here at home for a bit to see what kind of numbers I can pull down. Watch out Pete!
Uh, just an impartial observation but I think Scole may have bitten off more than he can chew :lol:
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#18 Re: Xansons4cod

Post by Alez »

Bryan wrote: Sat Aug 12, 2017 7:37 pm
scole250 wrote: Fri Aug 11, 2017 11:34 pm I think I have all my rigs dialed in. I'm even going to run the GPUs here at home for a bit to see what kind of numbers I can pull down. Watch out Pete!
Uh, just an impartial observation but I think Scole may have bitten off more than he can chew :lol:
Don't know about you Bryan, but I think I'll get in some popcorn to watch this one unfold. :dance:
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#19 Re: Xansons4cod

Post by scole of TSBT »

Nah, Pete has to much gear. He crunched double what I can do today.
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#20 Re: Xansons4cod

Post by scole of TSBT »

I'm going to back off all but one rig. I'll come back before the project ends to get in a good finishing spot but it still has a couple months left.
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#21 Re: Xansons4cod

Post by Bryan »

As my machines are finishing up with Asteroids I'm moving them over. I'd like to hit 25M before it goes away. I should be able to do that.

There are 9 FB sprints between now and 11/23 so that is going to chew into fun time.

Very impressive numbers Pete and no slouch from Scole either. Dang, I think I need some GPUs.
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#22 Re: Xansons4cod

Post by Bryan »

McShane of TSBT wrote: Mon Aug 14, 2017 2:58 am Bryan, 8 or 10 GTX1080Ti should do it. It will only cost you around 10grand. :laughing-rolling:
I was thinking of adding 2 of em. Of course that means a new PSU also and then the current 1080 has to be moved to another machine and that means another PSU.

Then again maybe I'll get smart and do nothing :lol:

I finally got the last machine off of Asteroids so now I've got everything pointed at Xansons. I'm 1/2 way to my goal so it's downhill from here.
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#23 Re: Xansons4cod

Post by scole of TSBT »

The project's active phase is 66% complete. You have been warned!
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#24 Re: Xansons4cod

Post by Bryan »

I'm going as fast as my old legs will carry me :walk: With any luck I'll be finished in 2-3 more days.
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