worktodo juggling

[nitf]

Hi, long time listener, first time caller.

I've got a new computer and I was fiddling with the number of workers to try to get the optimized throughput. One problem I have is that whenever I go down in workers, Prime95 moves the orphaned assignment into Worker #1's queue, but when I go up in workers, Prime95 leaves Worker #1's queue stuffed and requests a new assignment.

So, if I go to Test->Worker Window and go from 4 workers, to 3, to 2, to 1, to 4, suddenly my Worker #1 queue is now backlogged for months. I tried just stopping Prime95 and moving those work items back to [Worker #4] or whatever in the worktodo.txt, but they just seem to get moved back to [Worker #1].

I know the easiest thing to do is just decide on my optimal number of workers and then just let this run for months on end, but now Test->Status forecasts Worker 1 to finish its queue sometime next April while Workers 2-4 will be done in a couple days, and the Worker 1 queue has a lot of half-complete stuff in it I'd like to get finished.

What's the right way to adjust my workers, without Prime95 constantly grabbing new assignments whenever I increase workers and reassigning those to Worker #1 whenever I decrease workers?

[Uncwilly]

Stop and exit Prime95. Set you DaysOfWork in Prime.txt to something low like 2. (Or you can do this through the menus under Preferences.
Restart Prime95
Do your optimization.
Once you have everything optimized, stop and exit Prime95
Go to https://www.mersenne.org/workload/ On the bottom copy all of the assignments for this particular PC.
Then go to https://www.mersenne.ca/balance.php and set it for however many workers you have and leave it set for evenly across all workers. Hit Process.
Copy the results into your worktodo file. Save. Close your text editor.
Restart Prime95.

It is always important to stop and exit Prime95 when making adjustments to your worktodo.
(It is possible to stop it, edit, then continue and have it read in the worktodo, but that is not perfect.)


Someone else may give you different advice, but this is how I would do it. And if you wind up with too many assignments, you can use the workload link to unreserve some before balancing your worktodo.

[nitf]

Thanks, that all conceptually makes sense.

The one hiccup is that balance.php doesn't seem to be able to handle PRP work items as it highlights them all as "unknown", but otherwise it did rebalance the DoubleCheck work items.

[Uncwilly]

Originally Posted by nitf

The one hiccup is that balance.php doesn't seem to be able to handle PRP work items as it highlights them all as "unknown", but otherwise it did rebalance the DoubleCheck work items.

I left a note for the owner of that site over in the mersenne.ca subforum. That should be an easy fix for him to tackle.

[James Heinrich]

Originally Posted by Uncwilly

I left a note for the owner of that site over in the mersenne.ca subforum. That should be an easy fix for him to tackle.

The balancer should handle all valid assignment lines, PRP included. In general, if something doesn't work as expected please email me, or PM me. In this case, please just post a sample of the lines you're putting in the balancer that aren't being recognized and I'll take a look. (I don't have any active workers with PRP assignments at the moment to quickly check).

[James Heinrich]

Thanks kruoli for some samples of PRPDC lines, those should now be accepted in the balancer.
Let me know if anything else still doesn't work as expected.

[James Heinrich]

Turns out it's not a problem with the balancer but with the output of the Workload page. I can fix that, but I need to consult with George on how to fix it.