Mersenne Digest Thursday, March 8 2001 Volume 01 : Number 824 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 06 Mar 2001 17:08:37 -0500 From: "Joshua Zelinsky" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [none] The list has been pretty quiet lately... This is a little embarrassing but I was thinking of switching my iterations between screen outputs to 1 for Prime95, just to make it "feel faster." However, I wasn't sure how much resources it would take up. I checked and it seems negligible. Is that true? Are there any other reasons to set the number that low? Regards, Joshua Zelinsky [EMAIL PROTECTED] _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2001 23:40:24 +0100 From: "Steinar H. Gunderson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Mersenne: Spontaneous Reboots, The Final Message (TM) Just to finish off what seemed to create the longest thread for quite a while on this list: My machine came back today, with a replacement motherboard of exactly the same type. It now works flawlessly, or at least it has run mprime for 6-8 hours now with no problem at all (the old one had a bit habit of rebooting _while in the BIOS_ for its last hours)... So... is it now a new machine? How much do you change before you can call it a new machine? ;-) /* Steinar */ - -- Homepage: http://members.xoom.com/sneeze/ _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2001 23:50:15 +0100 From: "Shot" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Mersenne: PII 233 vs Cel 333 Hello. I just checked the benchmarks on <http://mersenne.org/bench.htm> - is Pentium II 233 MHz really that much slower than Celeron 333 MHz (79 days vs 58 days for the default 11000000 exponent)? I ask because I just put together my uncle's Duron 650 and as a gratitude I got his old Pentium II 233 (+ motherboard). I guess it's not worth selling, so I'm thinking about putting a second computer (next to my Celeron 333) and I wanted to know which one is faster (or how much speed is architecture- and how much clock-dependand). Cheers, - -- Shot - -----------------------------------------------> http://shot.prv.pl/ GCS/CC/IT/O d- s:>+: a-->? C++(+++) ULS P+ L(+) W++>$ N>++ w(--) PS+(++) PGP- t 5 X- R tv- b++>+++ DI D G++ e>* h-->--- r++>+++ y+** - ---------------------> Geek Code Decoder: http://www.ebb.org/ungeek/ God created the world out of nothing, but the nothingness still shows through. - -- Soren Aabye Kierkegaard _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 03:11:22 +0100 From: "Robert van der Peijl" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Mersenne: prime95 - v21 progress Joshua Zelinsky wrote on Tuesday, March 06, 2001 at 17:08:37 -0500 : > The list has been pretty quiet lately... Could it be that's because everyone is holding their breath for prime95 v21? But that might still take quite a while, since AFAIK no public announcement has been made about its scheduled completion date. Of course, that date would depend on the intended new features. Still, some indication would useful -- say, between 3 and 9 months from now?? Personally, it would help me in deciding whether to continue translating the v20 readme file into my language (Dutch), or to wait for the new stuff. Hey, how about calling it primeXP? It would allow the new user to run only 50 iterations, after which time registration is mandatory. We would have to uglify (is that good English?) the user interface however, to make the whole thing believable. And, existing software should no longer be able to execute with our new version. Those two criteria may be quite hard for us to fulfill. What software company could we ask to implement those changes for us? The Good Thing (TM) would be, that no new features would be necessary. But then we'd have to charge a lot of money for the product. The revenues could go to Bill Gates' family -- to help them extend their house. > This is a little embarrassing but ... That's quite allright, this is a private conversation, right? :-) > I was thinking of switching my iterations between screen outputs to 1 for Prime95, just to make it "feel faster." Actually, I have several alternative suggestions to make it, how did you put it, 'feel faster'? Do something fun. Don't look at prime95's output. Go read a good book. Go on a long vacation. You name it. > However, I wasn't sure how much resources it would take up. I checked and it seems negligible. Is that true? If you say so. You say you checked, right? But, seriously: yes, a first time LL test on a new exponent would complete about as fast with "iterations between screen outputs" = 1. > Are there any other reasons to set the number that low? You tell me -- are there? Hope this answers your question. It doesn't answer mine. Cheers, Robert. P.S. Sorry for this lame response, but I was getting bored looking at prime95's screen output. ;-) _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 09:08:59 +0100 From: "Hoogendoorn, Sander" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Mersenne: Status reports (was: reports corrupt?) Siegmar Szlavik wrote: > btw: would it be possible to get those huge > status.txt and cleared.txt files in a compressed > (gzip?) format? This would definitively save > download time and bandwith... And can they be split up between doublechecks, first time test and factoring assingnements? This would also save a lot of time when checking 1st time and factoring tests. Sander _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 10:18:38 +0100 From: "Steinar H. Gunderson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Mersenne: Re: Status reports (was: reports corrupt?) >> btw: would it be possible to get those huge >> status.txt and cleared.txt files in a compressed >> (gzip?) format? This would definitively save >> download time and bandwith... (I never got this message, so I'm replying to a reply...) What about simply installing mod_gzip on the server, given that it runs Apache? Then any compression-compatible browser (at least Mozilla and IE works just fine, think at least Lynx will accept it too) will automatically get a gzip-encoded version :-) /* Steinar */ _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 07 Mar 2001 14:24:37 -0500 From: George Woltman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Mersenne: prime95 - v21 progress Hi, At 03:11 AM 3/7/2001 +0100, Robert van der Peijl wrote: >Could it be that's because everyone is holding their breath for prime95 v21? >But that might still take quite a while, since AFAIK no public >announcement has been >made about its scheduled completion date. I have no idea when a new release will be available. I've done no work on prime95 from v20 release until last December. Since then all available time has been devoted to a P4 version of prime95. Much of this has been writing code samples to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the architecture. This is not particularly easy - a lot like reverse engineering chip design. After a P4 recoding, I'll look at what new features to add to a v21 release. I liked the screensaver ideas recently suggested, but would like to have one executable that runs like it does now, as a screensaver only, or both. I've received many other minor suggestions which I dutifully write down and implement the easiest and/or most useful. In any event, I cannot imagine a release of v21 in less than 6 months. >Hey, how about calling it primeXP? Several versions ago, I thought about renaming prime95 to prime98. However, the upgrade issues are enormous. I can just imagine hundreds of users running both prime95 and primeXP on their machine - then a flood of email questions and hand-holding. > > I was thinking of switching my iterations between screen outputs to 1 > for Prime95, >just to make it "feel faster." > > However, I wasn't sure how much resources it would take up. I checked > and it seems >negligible. Is that true? I'm betting this is a rather significant penalty! You have to use the wall clock to time your iterations / minute. Prime95 will report the same time, but it is only measuring the time to do an iteration, not the additional time to write to the display. Have fun, George _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 20:28:10 -0000 From: "Brian J. Beesley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Mersenne: More than 10000 athlons!. On 5 Mar 2001, at 18:42, Guillermo Ballester Valor wrote: > > George, it is possible an optimization for Athlons?. I mean if it is > worthwhile, as far as I know (I'm possibily wrong) the documentation for > AMD-processors is no so clear as for Intel's. > I took the trouble to look up the AMD site. There is a document dated September 2000 which is an optimization guide for the Athlon which appears to be fully the equal of anything equivalent for Pentium published by Intel. (Obviously I can't vouch for its accuracy!) Look for 22007.pdf (3163 KB) Regards Brian Beesley _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 20:56:12 -0000 From: "Brian J. Beesley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Mersenne: prime95 - v21 progress On 7 Mar 2001, at 14:24, George Woltman wrote: > I've received many other minor suggestions which I dutifully write down and > implement the easiest and/or most useful. The P4 optimization is obviously the "biggy". However was there not once something about changes being neccessary (to the server as well as to the client) to incorporate P-1 factoring as a seperate assignment type? I think we're reaching the point where we may need a new release of v20. The point is that we now have fairly extensive overlapping of double-checking with first runs which may have been done with v20, in which case the double-check job is wasting its time running P-1. People running LL tests may also be needlessly repeating the P-1 factoring stage; a fair percentage of assignments are abandoned & recycled with P-1 having been finished and reported to the server. A quick "kludge" would be to have the client check a local copy of the pminus1 database file, even though the user would have to download the file & unzip it manually. (Proceed as at present if the pminus1 file is missing.) > > >Hey, how about calling it primeXP? I laughed myself senseless at this obviously tongue-in-cheek suggestion!!! Nice one, Robert! > > Several versions ago, I thought about renaming prime95 to prime98. However, > the upgrade issues are enormous. I can just imagine hundreds of users > running both prime95 and primeXP on their machine - then a flood of email > questions and hand-holding. Yeah, don't fix what ain't broke. Defect to linux & forget about fashion fads affecting program names ;-) But, if you must change the name, go for PriMe. > I'm betting this is a rather significant penalty! You have to use the wall > clock > to time your iterations / minute. Prime95 will report the same time, but it is > only measuring the time to do an iteration, not the additional time to write to > the display. Still, the CPU time required to write one line to the display is considerably less than that required to execute one iteration of an LL test on a large exponent. Regards Brian Beesley _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 07 Mar 2001 21:38:27 -0500 From: "Joshua Zelinsky" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Mersenne: prime95 - v21 progress > > > I'm betting this is a rather significant penalty! You have to use the >wall > > clock > > to time your iterations / minute. Prime95 will report the same time, >but it is > > only measuring the time to do an iteration, not the additional time to >write to > > the display. > >Still, the CPU time required to write one line to the display is >considerably less than that required to execute one iteration of an >LL test on a large exponent. I just did a test as George suggested. The average ratio for the with results at every 1 iteration came out to be .540 per for .487 every 100 iterations. I'm running a PIII 600 megahertz and I didn't realize that I had my webbrowser open when I ran the test which seriously invalidates the results. I might run a test again later when I get a chance but right now it looks like George is right. Sincerely, Joshua Zelinsky [EMAIL PROTECTED] _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 13:32:26 +0100 From: "Robert van der Peijl" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Mersenne: prime95 - v21 progress Joshua Zelinsky wrote on Thursday, March 08, 2001 3:38 AM > > > I'm betting this is a rather significant penalty! You have to use the > > > wall clock to time your iterations / minute. Prime95 will report the > > > same time, but it is only measuring the time to do an iteration, > > > not the additional time to write to the display. > > > >Still, the CPU time required to write one line to the display is > >considerably less than that required to execute one iteration of an > >LL test on a large exponent. > > I just did a test as George suggested. Thanx, I never get around to actually testing things. I had been wondering myself about the performance penalty. > The average ratio for the with results at every 1 iteration came out > to be .540 per for .487 every 100 iterations. I'm running a > PIII 600 megahertz and I didn't realize that I had my webbrowser > open when I ran the test which seriously invalidates the results. That much difference -- 10 PERCENT! That's too rich for my blood. I'll have to shtick with the standard setting. > I might run a test again later when I get a chance... Let us know what you come up with; I own a P3-600 myself. By the way, I think Joshua's suggestion from Feb 12 2001 for Prime95 to have an option for disk writes to occur based on the number of iterations, rather than the time passed, is a sound idea. I hope it will make it into Prime95 v21. Brian Beesley wrote on Wed, 7 Mar 2001 20:56:12 -0000 > Don't fix what ain't broke. Right on. > If you must change the name [Prime95]... Yes, if someone successfully challenges our rights to that name. Has anyone of us bothered to register the name Prime95 as a trademark? I sure haven't. >..., go for PriMe. That looks like a very modern name to Me. By the way, a release of v21 in more than 6 months would suit me just fine. And, George, hand-holding can be rewarding too, it just takes up sooooo much time. I think most people wouldn't mind the slight file size increase with the optional screensaver part. George's efforts to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the P4 architecture could present an opportunity for the engineers at Intel to pitch in. It may be in the chip manufacturer's interest! Also, on Feb 3 2001 Joshua Zelinski wrote: >Recently people have been discussing that the long times it takes to finish a batch of work makes GIMPS less appealing than other distributed computing systems. What if we gave out factoring in small bunches... Yeah, I like that idea! Giving peoply bite-sized chuncks would make them come back, craving for more. It would make GIMPS less appalling, that is, more appealing to the novice. Even a factoring assignment from 2^n to 2^(n+1) could theoretically be cut up into up to 16 little snack-sized appetizers. (All this talk is starting to wet my appetite) I'm off to lunch now, cheers. Robert. _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 09 Mar 2001 00:45:10 +0100 From: Henk Stokhorst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Mersenne: prime95 - v21 progress L.S., Maybe it would be a good idea to have a special version of prime95 that has an option to request exponents that have expired after having been reserved for a long time without any progress being on the work for that exponent. The server should issue those exponents only to people who have that option. That version should only be available to people who have fast (700 MHz or more) machines running most of the day. That would help prevent exponents expiring multiple times. YotN, Henk Stokhorst _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ End of Mersenne Digest V1 #824 ******************************
