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Guest

2008-10-01 15:01:09

Has anyone run Simap Wu's on their PS3 yet, I picked up 4 of them & their showing 2 hr's to completion. To me thats not very fast for a PS3 ... ??? But then I've been wondering about mine, I've been runing a Astropulse Wu that their saying takes about 160 hr's on a PS3 for 180 hr's now with 20+ hr's still showing to completion.
Guest

2008-10-01 19:17:23
last modified: 2008-10-01 19:18:27

I did 1 Wu on the PS3 & it took the better part of 3 hours to run for 22 Credits, seems awful slow to me & not even worth bothering with or else there is something wrong with my PS3 that it took so long ... ???
zombie67
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2008-10-01 21:29:49

I believe that the SIMAP application for PS3 uses only the PPC PPE, and none of the SPEs. So you should experience performance similar to a G4 Mac.
Reno, NV
Team: SETI.USA
Guest

2008-10-01 22:23:48

Yeah, they explained it to me over @ the SIMAP Project, the PS3 App's it's not really set up for any sort of speed that the PS3 can Utilize or something like that anyway ...
zombie67
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2008-10-02 03:25:21

Yeah, they explained it to me over @ the SIMAP Project, the PS3 App's it's not really set up for any sort of speed that the PS3 can Utilize or something like that anyway ...


There are only two projects that I know for sure use the SPEs: yoyo, which is about to end the only sub-project that uses SPEs; and PS3GRID. I have heard talk about a couple other projects that may be making some progress. I just can't recall which.
Reno, NV
Team: SETI.USA
Guest

2008-10-02 10:37:40
last modified: 2008-10-02 10:40:44

Well I hope they get them going soon, I'm not running the PS3 Grid Project because of Account problems over there. Trying to get GDF to straighten it out but it's been slow going & don't know if it will ever be actually. I've been runing a Astropulse Wu on my PS3 & nothing on my GPU's for now until maybe my Account gets straightened out @ PS3Grid.

I have 2 Accounts there some how, had 3 at 1 time with but got it down to 2 for now. Both use my Nick of PoorBoy & both have the same e-mail address & password, how the project allowed that to happen I'll never know but it did. So now I'm stuck with a bogus Account that gets any work I do but the CPID refuses to match up with my proper CPID. I'm trying to get GDF to Delete 1 of the Accounts to see if that straightens it out but he's been dragging his feet on the matter, says he'll do it but have no idea when.

I poked him with a stick yesterday to refresh his memory that he needs to do this in order for me to run the Project and get the Credits under my rightful CPID, says he forgot about but will get around to it ...
Dotsch
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2008-10-02 19:30:16

Yeah, they explained it to me over @ the SIMAP Project, the PS3 App's it's not really set up for any sort of speed that the PS3 can Utilize or something like that anyway ...


There are only two projects that I know for sure use the SPEs: yoyo, which is about to end the only sub-project that uses SPEs; and PS3GRID. I have heard talk about a couple other projects that may be making some progress. I just can't recall which.

The SETI@home Astropulse application uses the SPE really good. A lot of better than the SETI@home Enhanced Mutibeam application for the PS3.
Guest

2008-10-02 20:50:19
last modified: 2008-10-02 20:56:52

Yeah, they explained it to me over @ the SIMAP Project, the PS3 App's it's not really set up for any sort of speed that the PS3 can Utilize or something like that anyway ...


There are only two projects that I know for sure use the SPEs: yoyo, which is about to end the only sub-project that uses SPEs; and PS3GRID. I have heard talk about a couple other projects that may be making some progress. I just can't recall which.

The SETI@home Astropulse application uses the SPE really good. A lot of better than the SETI@home Enhanced Mutibeam application for the PS3.



You have to be kidding of course, I just finished a Seti Astropulse Wu this afternoon after close to 8 days of running it 24/7 ... I received less than 800 Credits for it or 4 Credits Per Hour & other people have told me thats all they got too for running 1 of them. If thats what you call running real good you can have at it because I won't run another 1 thats for sure. I'll leave the PS3 shut off before I try another 1 of them again ...

Yoyo's been a pain in the rear too, I ran 1 for 80+ hr's conversing back and forth with Yoyo @ the project to try & find out why it was running so long. In the end I had to just abort the Wu with no Credits awarded. I gave it a rest the 8 days I was running the Astro Wu and started another 1 this afternoon when the Astro Wu finished. Well that Wu has a problem too I think, after 3 hr's running time the Wu still shows the 175+ hr's to completion it showed when it started ...

So far the PS3 has been a complete bust if I don't run the PS3Grid Project it's self which I can't do now because of my Account problems there. These off Projects that profess to having PS3 Wu may as well keep them because you expend more electricity that it's worth running them as far as I can see ...
Dotsch
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2008-10-02 21:33:33
last modified: 2008-10-02 21:34:22

Credit is no indicator of the performance of a application...
If you made real performance meassurement of the application, the AP PS3 application perfomance is good.
Also your attitude is very frustrating for us volunteers which invests a lot of time and work to port such applications. You should be be happy that there is more than one project which supports the PS3.
Guest

2008-10-02 21:49:33

If you made real performance meassurement of the application, the AP PS3 application perfomance is good.
Also your attitude is very frustrating for us volunteers which invests a lot of time and work to port such applications. You should be be happy that there is more than one project which supports the PS3.


How can you say the performance is good when the Wingman for the Astropulse Wu I ran was running a Q6600 and did the Wu in less than half the time that it took my PS3 to do it in, he only received about 9 Credits for the Wu which still blows as far as I'm concerned.

As far as my frustrating attitude goes it's no different than a lot of other PS3 Owners that have tried running the Astro Wu's, if it can't get more than 4 Credits Per Hour then it's still a total waste of electricity as far as I can see. Why waste your time getting less than 100 Credits Per Day running Astro Wu's when you can get close to 4000 Per day running the PS3Grid Wu's ... ??? ... I'm pretty sure which way 99.999% of the PS3 Owners will go if given that choice.
Dotsch
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2008-10-02 22:04:47

How can you say the performance is good when the Wingman for the Astropulse Wu I ran was running a Q6600 and did the Wu in less than half the time that it took my PS3 to do it in, he only received about 9 Credits for the Wu which still blows as far as I'm concerned.

Primarly the test in the AP Beta projects showed a lot of better perofmance of the Intel CPUs compared with the PPC based systems. Also, have you let ran two AP WUs parallel ? - The application is designed to shift out each WU to three SPEs and so it utilize the PS3 only full with 2 WUs. Also a volunteer has seen some performance problems in some circumstances, when the SPEs would be accessed by other applications.


As far as my frustrating attitude goes it's no different than a lot of other PS3 Owners that have tried running the Astro Wu's, if it can't get more than 4 Credits Per Hour then it's still a total waste of electricity as far as I can see. Why waste your time getting less than 100 Credits Per Day running Astro Wu's when you can get close to 4000 Per day running the PS3Grid Wu's ... ??? ... I'm pretty sure which way 99.999% of the PS3 Owners will go if given that choice.

As I written in the last posting credits or credits/hours is no value for meassuring performance....

But, this is exatlcy the point here where your attitue is frustrating. Some peoples expect that the buy excotic hardware and get a full perfomance with every application from every project. - We volunteers do this porting in our spare time and just for fun.
Also, I have writen you the detailed technical problems of the PS3 porting in the SIMAP forums, but I got the impression that you did not have understand this.
Guest

2008-10-02 22:22:13

Primarly the test in the AP Beta projects showed a lot of better perofmance of the Intel CPUs compared with the PPC based systems. Also, have you let ran two AP WUs parallel ? - The application is designed to shift out each WU to three SPEs and so it utilize the PS3 only full with 2 WUs. Also a volunteer has seen some performance problems in some circumstances, when the SPEs would be accessed by other applications.


I would maybe try that if 2 Wu's would download, so far only 1 will even with my preferences set to 10 Day's it won't download the next Wu until the 1 running is almost finished. So even if I do that I still can only expect 8 Credits Per Hour I take it, still not really worth it to me. The SPE's shouldn't be accessed by anything but the Wu running as I use the PS3 for nothing else but Processing Wu's. From what I've seen of the PS3 so far is that it's slow doing anything, and thats just not running Wu's, it will re-boot it's self if I open FireFox to much, slow opening folders or files, just slow in general. Maybe something isn't right with it I don't really know.

But, this is exactly the point here where your attitue is frustrating. Some peoples expect that the buy excotic hardware and get a full perfomance with every application from every project. - We volunteers do this porting in our spare time and just for fun.
Also, I have writen you the detailed technical problems of the PS3 porting in the SIMAP forums, but I got the impression that you did not have understand this.


So far I consider a PS3 anything but Exotic, maybe an Exotic Deloreon or Edsel but other than that it's just a experiment with me & a failed one at that so far. I've talked to other PS3 owners and they feel about the same way, they got bored with it after awhile & don't even use them anymore for running Wu's.

Don't think I didn't appreciate your response over at the SIMAP Project because I did. But I'm no Programmer or Coder or anything remotely like that, I'm just somebody that runs the Projects so when you start throwing things like SPE's at me your wasting your time. I understood it to the point the Application doesn't take full advantage of the PS3 Capabilities, other than that it all just goes over my head ...
Rakarin
 
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2008-10-03 16:28:42


Oh, I really should know better than to wade into debates like these....

OK, I should start by pointing out that I'm not a programmer. I do work in IT (desktop support), and I have an interest in operating systems, processor architecture, distributed computing, and such. My current “farm” is: Windows, AMD 32-bit; Fedora Core 8, AMD 64-bit; OSX, G5 PPC; Ubuntu, Via C7-D; PS3 (a.k.a. “the other boyfriend”)(not running Linux, no HDMI). I have also worked with SunOS and Solaris on Sparc workstations.

I'm not trying to pass myself off as an expert on such things, and welcome anyone pointing out my mistakes. I'm just trying to say I've done some reading and done some work, so I can also offer observations. This is also a fairly broad and complex issue, so I hope I say something useful rather than just muddy the water.

Let me start off by repeating a quote about Intel vs. mainframe systems, “It's like comparing a sports car to a tractor. Both are powerful, but one will burn out in the field, the other will be a speed bump on the highway.”

People who talk about the Cell processor usually quote the flops, whetstones / dryhstones, or other measure of processing power. Unfortunately, this is not always the best measurement, as this is under optimized conditions, or an extrapolation of “all transistors in use”. If you look, graphics processors on the video card have measurements that can smoke the CPU, but only under very specific kinds of work.

If you have a PS3, remember you also have Folding@Home, which is a very worthy project. Their web site is also well worth checking out, as they discuss the advantages and disadvantages of running F@H on a CPU, GPU (or VPU, graphic processor), and PS3. The best output is on the GPU client, by far. If you look, what it can do is staggering. However, it only works well for specific kinds of formulas. Very specific modeling processes on a GPU very quickly, but if you try to force other modeling into the client, it actually slows down, sometimes quite a bit. The PS3 is similar to a GPU, but more robust. It does not have the same speed, but is able to handle more kinds of modeling. So, on a PS3, more kinds of modeling get a significant speed increase than the GPU, but the increase is not as much. Also, some kinds of modeling do not work well on the PS3, and are faster on a mid-range desktop computer. Computer CPU's are designed to handle just about anything. Modeling equations that choke a GPU and are slow on a PS3 will work fine on a computer CPU, although perhaps not with blazing speed.

Now, to change gears, I'm going to do a very broad and generalized discussion of processor architecture. I work at a research institution, and was at a few presentations by Apple. Before they dropped the G5 PPC architecture, they were trying to push it in research settings. Certain modeling programs worked significantly faster on a G5 than on Intel / AMD processors.

There are two things to look at here. The first I believe is called “program registers”. These are basically points on the processor where a bit of programming starts working on each processor cycle. It's a starting gate at the transistor fields. To a degree, the more a processor has, the more programs can run in parallel on a processor. Traditionally, Intel processors have (historically) had less than other architectures (PPC, Sparc, Tru64, Itanium, Opteron). This was actually one advantage of older AMD processors over Intel, and how AMD Athlons could get similar performance to Intel Pentiums at lower clock speeds.

The second thing to look at is the basic processor architecture. PPC processors (G3 [Nintendo Game Cube], G4 [processor of the Aegis Physix card], G5, G6, Cell Broadband, Freescale PPC, as well as the Nintend Wii, the 3DO console, and others) are what is called “vector based”. This is the same basic architecture as video card. Essentially, it is an architecture designed for SIMD data, or Single Instruction, Multiple Data, and a “short pipe length”. This type of architecture was imported, in pieces, by the different SSE sets in x86 processors, but is still an optimized library.

The basis of SIMD data is that you have a large data set, say pixel shading for a video card or a population set for a population simulation running on a PPC Mac, and fairly short, simple, repeatable instructions to be run on each data point. Let's look at graphics for a moment. Say you're displaying a bunch of pixels, and you have to find the RGB (red, green, blue) value for each in the display. This is perfect for SIMD computation. You load as many data points as your processor registers allows, on the next processor cycle you run the fairly simple calculation for Red value across each, then the next cycle repeat for green, then the next cycle for blue, then record and release. (Yes, this is a gross over simplification, I know.) The same applies for bio-statistical modeling of human populations. You can apply short, simple bits of math to numerous data points simultaneously, allowing you to go through your entire population set much more quickly.

This is what is meant by “short pipe length”. On each processor cycle, the processor cannot do a lot of math to each data point. However, if you do not need a lot of math for each point, the processor can handle many more points in parallel, and release the results more quickly.

Graphics processors use this because they have to get (relatively simple) shading information on lots and lots of pixels, as many as possible at once, very quickly.

Now, the x86 architecture uses what is called a “long pipe length”. It is the opposite approach. It handles fewer points of data at once. However, what it is designed to do is, in mathematical terms, really beat the snot out of the data before it lets it go. SIMD processing does parallel, non-sequential data quickly. The x86 architecture can put data through long, sequential, convoluted math, and hold it until it is done. If you are working with fewer data points, but need a lot of processing on each point, the x86 architecture can process the data with fewer loads and releases, and be more efficient per processor cycle, having a significant advantage over PPC processors (read “Cell Broadband”).

OK, I should wrap this up... So, the Cell Broadband processor is freaking awesome, yes. It can crunch data fast as heck, yes. However, it's a PPC processor. It's essentially a hyper complex video card on steroids with cybernetic implants, but a video card at heart. It was designed around streaming SIMD data. For “grab-crunch-release” data, it's great. Again, look at what F@H is doing with it. For something it can't do quickly and really has to chew on, though, its advantages really begin to fall apart.

This is where you have to look at the statement, “throw all the BOINC projects on it, and they will be really fast”. Well, not not always. If they handle data in a way that works well on a PPC processor (look for the ones that already support PPC, like WCG, which has excellent PPC clients), and a Playstation 3 will tear the data apart. It will be glorious. However, take a project that requires lots of computation on individual data points, and the data must be crunched in successive stages (non-parallelizeable data), and the PS3 will suddenly seem slow and a disappointment.

I hope the “signal to noise” in all that was petty good....

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