The official Y-Cruncher Beta Competition Discussion

[Mysticial]

I think I must be missing something obvious, what's the data file we have to upload to take part in the competition?

 

You can't submit the datafile directly. You need to submit through the app itself.

 

Once you submit it to HWBOT, the app will open up a browser that lets you finish the submission. Somewhere during that process, there will be an option that lets you enter the score into the competition.

[GeorgeStorm]

Thanks I was expecting to see an option on the submission screen, didn't think about submitting it first.

[Strong Island]

Regarding the "coefficient too large failure" - it seems to be a stability issue for stages 1 and 2 (I only have 32GB so could not test stage 3). I got the same error with HPET on or off however, lowering the core clock one multi with all other settings the same, it passes. Load seems similar to p95 and current draw is very high on an 8 core. Is there something I'm missing?

 

Different question:

 

Stage 1 needs at least 195MB of ram, Stage 2 needs at least 4.8GB RAM... then stage 3 jumps to 46GB (so 64GB min with all channels populated the same on most platforms)? Bypassing the more common 32GB configuration? Very limiting for Stage 3 entries, no?

 

ya stage 3 is tough, Especially with a soc champion.

[jpmboy]

yeeah... 16GB sticks. :-0

[Spiedie]

I done my 10b run on sandy G470 single core with 4GB ram. works fine, just costs a couple HDDs...

 

Is swap mode going to be allowed in the future?

[websmile]

Not sure yet, I guess Mysticial will have an answer for this when he (and hwbot) evaluate beta results - glad you help at doing this by providing an unusual setup´s result

[Taloken]

I did it with swap mode, performances are so bad, it needs a lot of patience.

[Mysticial]

I done my 10b run on sandy G470 single core with 4GB ram. works fine, just costs a couple HDDs...

 

Is swap mode going to be allowed in the future?

 

Not sure yet, I guess Mysticial will have an answer for this when he (and hwbot) evaluate beta results - glad you help at doing this by providing an unusual setup´s result

 

The new rules that I think I'm going to apply after the beta competition ends will be:

• Swap mode is allowed. But only if it was done in a contiguous run. So anything that used checkpoint restart will not be allowed. Checkpoint restart is a feature to facilitate extremely long running computations when the computer goes down due to power outage or a planned backup session. For competitive benchmarking it allows you to cheat by changing the hardware in the middle of the run.
  
• When running on Windows 8/8.1/10, the reference clock must be set to either HPET or ACPI.
  
• The digits need to actually be correct. Right now, y-cruncher will tell you whether or not they are correct. But it will output a validation file even if the digits are wrong. And the submitter will let you submit it regardless of whether the digits are right or wrong. This isn't a big problem right now because most errors will halt the program. So if it manages to finish at all, there's a high probability that the digits will be correct.
  

These new rules will apply starting from y-cruncher v0.7.1. And the submitter will enforce them.

 

Technically, the validations files produced by v0.6.9 have enough information in them for the submitter to enforce all of these except the HPET/ACPI. But that's extra work, so I'm just gonna defer it to v0.7.1 which makes the information more explicit in the validation file.

 

I'm in the process of feature-freezing v0.7.1 so that it will hopefully be ready for public release around the end of the beta competition.

 

I did it with swap mode, performances are so bad, it needs a lot of patience.

 

Swap mode can be run efficiently. But you'll need a very specialized setup such as this:

 

[Strong Island]

played around with the benches last night. The wrapper is nice, thanks. But I did get a ton of the coefficient too large errors. It made a big difference by restarting after every error. I kept trying to run again after error and would get it again unless I massively downclocked but if I restarted and worked my way up slowly I kept the errors away. But had trouble doing more than 5.2ghz on stage 2 and 5.6 on stage 1. Will try swap mode later with different setup.

 

http://hwbot.org/submission/3188092_strong_island_y_cruncher_pi_25m_core_i7_5960x_0sec_776ms

[Mysticial]

played around with the benches last night. The wrapper is nice, thanks. But I did get a ton of the coefficient too large errors. It made a big difference by restarting after every error. I kept trying to run again after error and would get it again unless I massively downclocked but if I restarted and worked my way up slowly I kept the errors away. But had trouble doing more than 5.2ghz on stage 2 and 5.6 on stage 1. Will try swap mode later with different setup.

 

http://hwbot.org/submission/3188092_strong_island_y_cruncher_pi_25m_core_i7_5960x_0sec_776ms

 

That's interesting. It's almost as if the AVX unit can get "stuck" in some way that can only be cleared up by power cycling it. I don't know if drastically changing the overclock can actually power cycle the AVX execution units. But it's worth a guess since it is known that they turn off when unused (among other circumstances).

 

I can't say I've ever been able to push a Haswell that far. Both of my Haswell boxes are heat-limited to about 4 GHz. My 4770K will hit 90C under AVX2. And I'm not equipped (nor am I gutsy enough) to delid it. Given that I use these machines to develop this program, I'm basically "stuck" at these lame overclocks.

 

Btw, how much LN2 is the benchmark churning through? The 5960X draws a lot of current under AVX-intensive loads. I'm guessing it isn't so bad for the 25m and 1b runs since they are short.

[Strong Island]

That's interesting. It's almost as if the AVX unit can get "stuck" in some way that can only be cleared up by power cycling it. I don't know if drastically changing the overclock can actually power cycle the AVX execution units. But it's worth a guess since it is known that they turn off when unused (among other circumstances).

 

I can't say I've ever been able to push a Haswell that far. Both of my Haswell boxes are heat-limited to about 4 GHz. My 4770K will hit 90C under AVX2. And I'm not equipped (nor am I gutsy enough) to delid it. Given that I use these machines to develop this program, I'm basically "stuck" at these lame overclocks.

 

Btw, how much LN2 is the benchmark churning through? The 5960X draws a lot of current under AVX-intensive loads. I'm guessing it isn't so bad for the 25m and 1b runs since they are short.

 

The 1b really swung my pot a lot at first load, it was tough because I was right up against cold bug so I would pour a lot to get thru the initial load but if it crashes the temps swing back up and hit cold bug.

 

But ya it's amazing to see a chip like this under that much load.

[Sandalo]

I managed to lower 1 sec. on my own, without turning off after an error...however it is a bench really hard core!!!!

[websmile]

So the competition ended today and we had great participation - I checked top 10 to 20 results of each stage but we have no rules... Grats to the winners, if we want to make this a permanent benchmark (even at beta) I would appreciate feedback and proposal for verification - my guess would be result window and cpuz mem and cpu tab at least

Thanks for participating to all contestants and good bye with matching meme to this contest - Y

Edited May 15, 2016 by websmile

[Mysticial]

I commented on this a couple days ago.

 

I also think that a screenshot with the result window and CPUz (CPU + mem) is sufficient. It is not necessary to have the submitter in the screenshot. With v0.7.1 (which I'm ready to release at anytime), there should be no reason to put any OS restrictions.

 

I also want to make it clear that you are free (and encouraged) to change the computation settings. The default settings that you get when running from the submitter are not always the best. And from my experience, they are rarely optimal when you have 32+ cores.

 

Everything is allowed (swap mode, using a different binary) as long as you are computing Pi to the right number of digits and it finishes correctly.

 

I'll keep the submitter app updated to enforce any necessary new restrictions (such as the reference clock stuff).

[Mysticial]

I've gone ahead and released v0.7.1 to the public. Let me know how the version turns out.

Here's the first submission for the new version: http://hwbot.org/submission/3216573_mysticial_y_cruncher_pi_1b_core_i7_4770k_1min_59sec_918ms

 

Download links for the new version are both on my website and the other thread.

 

And here's a 100b run just because I feel like adding an image to this post.