Search Results for: attempt+access+my+computer
Why did my firewall just log an attempt to access my device right after I visited the World Community Grid website?
Some users have noticed, via their software firewall, that trace-route scans occur after communicating with the World Community Grid server. These are in fact normal and not someone trying to break into your machine. These are used to measure which of several paths through the Internet give the best communication performance to your machine. The servers are located in a massive hosting center, which regularly optimizes traffic between users and the servers by shifting communications among several Internet providers, depending on the destination and trace-route measurements.
How will my computer make a difference on this project?
While your computer is powered on, much of the time the processor inside your computer is just waiting for something to do, such as processing your next keystroke or mouse click. These idle times add up to a very large amount of processor time, when multiplied across millions of computers, that could be tapped and used for productive purposes such as this project. This can accelerate the research dramatically. Some of these projects would take hundreds or thousands of years to accomplish with the normal resources available to the scientists, and thus are likely not to even be attempted. World Community Grid and your contributions make projects such as these possible for the first time.
My World Community Grid Software won't autodial with Windows 2000/XP.
Autodial does not work properly with any application outside of IE unless a service called "Remote Access Auto Connection Manager" running. By default this service is set to ""manual start"" and unless you change it to ""automatic start"" at boot or start it manually, autodial for other applications will not work. To check or change the setting for this service, select "Start", select "Settings", and then click ""Control Panel."" Double click "Administrative Tools" and then click "Computer Management." In the computer management console expand the "services and applications" section, click on "Services." In the services detail pane scroll down in the list till you get to "Remote Access Auto Connection Manager," double click on it. Change the startup type to "Automatic" if you want the service to start when you start your computer. Save your changes and exit. Now World Community Grid should auto dial when it needs a connection. You can find info about these steps if you press F1 with the desktop active. Then type "autodial, configuring" and select the topic.
I have the same device listed more than once on my device list. Why is that?
When a device first contacts the server, the server creates a database record for the device. This record stores details like Operating System, available memory and how many times the device has communicated with the server. Each time the device communicates with the server, it compares various details about the device with its record on the server in an attempt to identify if it is the same device contacting the server. If anything appears different, the system will create a new record for the device and treat it as a new device. This prevents issues that can arise in different installation scenarious (such as in computer labs where each computer is setup identically and gets an identical installation image). Sometimes this leads to multiple entries for the same device in the website device list, but it ensures the proper functioning of the overall system.
In situations where a new device listing is created, the previous device listing will no longer act as a contributing device (even though it is showing up in your device list). The Device Manager page and the Device Statistics page shows, by default, all of your devices that were registered within the past 7 days or that have returned a result within the past 14 days. Unused devices do not appear on this page when these time periods have passed.
I know that my device has returned several results. Where can I check the status of those results?
You may check your World Community Grid results by logging into our website using your existing member name. On the left hand menu on your "My Contribution" page, select "Results Status". You may access this page here. A detailed description of the various statistics may be found here.
How is World Community Grid helping with this effort?
While effective, protein folding simulations are resource-intensive and often require more computational power than scientists typically have access to. The Microbiome Immunity Project research team is therefore enlisting the help of World Community Grid volunteers, each of whom runs these simulations on their computers. Each of these simulations is a virtual experiment to predict the structure of a protein.
The massive amount of aggregated computation power World Community Grid brings to this project will greatly advance and accelerate this new area of health research.
This sounds too good to be true. Am I missing something?
Everything benefits! Members who volunteer their unused processing power benefit by not only making their devices more productive, but also by helping make scientific inroads on humanitarian problems. Research organizations benefit by having access to huge amounts of computing power at no cost, enabling them to make more effective use of critical funds. The scientific community benefits because the project results are shared and made available in the public domain. The world benefits because humanitarian research is advanced.
What will the results of this project be?
The researchers will publish an open-access database of the protein sequence comparisons computed on World Community Grid.
We expect that this information will help scientists discover new enzymatic functions, find how organisms interact with each other and the environment, document the current baseline microbial diversity, and better understand and model complex microbial systems.
What will the results of this project be?
The researchers will publish an open-access database of the protein sequence comparisons computed on World Community Grid.
We expect that this information will help scientists discover new enzymatic functions, find how organisms interact with each other and the environment, document the current baseline microbial diversity, and better understand and model complex microbial systems.
I tried to recover my password via email but did not receive it. What is wrong?
The most common reason for this happening is that the email address in your profile is not correct. When registering, you were asked to provide an email address and you may have mistyped your email address, or your email address may have changed since then. If the email address is incorrect, and you no longer have access to the old email address, please use the Contact Us form to receive additional assistance.
The software installer keeps giving me an error and asks me to check my Proxy settings.
You need to be connected to the Internet at the start to have the agent connect to the server to get work. Check to see if you can get to some web page with your browser. If your Internet connection is working, it might be that you have a software firewall which is blocking access to the www.worldcommunitygrid.org site. If you have one, try turning it off temporarily and see what happens. If it starts working, then add the www.worldcommunitygrid.org address as a trusted site to your firewall.
How are points calculated?
Points are calculated in a two-step process which attempts to give a consistent number of points for similar amounts of research computation. First, the computational power/speed of the computer is determined by periodically running a benchmark calculation. Then, based on the central processing unit (CPU) time spent computing the research result for a work unit, the benchmark result is used to convert the time spent on a work unit into points. This adjusts the point value so that a slow computer or a fast computer would produce about the same number of points for calculating the research result for the same work unit. This value is the number of point credits "claimed" by the client. More information about that formula is available here.
Second, research results returned to the servers are validated in a manner which depends on the research project. Then the claimed points for valid results are examined for anomalous (excessively high or low compared to other machines computing the same or equivalent work unit) values and adjusted accordingly. The servers assign the resulting adjusted point values to the member (and team) for each of the returned work units. This process eliminates the ability for malicious users to tamper with results and artificially claim higher points for their work.
Is there a vaccine for Leishmaniasis?
Although there have been attempts to develop a vaccine against Leishmaniasis, there is currently no vaccine available.
What happens if I check the box labeled 'Remember Me' when I sign into World Community Grid?
If you check the 'Remember Me' box when you sign into World Community Grid then you will be automatically signed into the website the next time that you visit from the same device. This means that you will not have to sign in again in order to access your My Contribution pages or post in the forums. You can have World Community Grid 'Remember' you on as many devices as you wish. If you wish World Community Grid to stop remembering you, then all you need to do is click on 'sign out' at the top right of our pages.
As a security precaution World Community Grid will not automatically sign you into the website if you have not accessed the website from a device for more than two weeks. Additionally, if you change your password, then World Community Grid will continue to remember you only on the device where you changed your password. However, next time you visit World Community Grid you can then check the 'Remember Me' box and World Community Grid will continue to remember you from that device.
Is there an API to get a list of in-progress and recently returned results for a member?
Yes. The URL for the API to access a members results is:
https://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/api/members/{member name}/results?code={verification code}
member name is the member name of the member whose results data you wish to access
verification code is found on the My Profile page of the member whose results data you wish to access
The default format is JSON.
You must set your data sharing preferences to "Display my data" for this API to return data for your account.
Optional parameters are (can be combined):
- limit: Defines the number of results returned. Default is 25. Max is 250.
- offset: Defines how many results are skipped before the API returns any data. Default is 0.
- sortBy: Defines the sorting order of the results. Options are: DeviceId, SentTime, ReportDeadline, ReceivedTime or CpuTime. Default is SentTime.
- format: The format of the data. Options are XML or JSON. Default is JSON.
- modTime: Return results which were last modified on or after this time. This value is a Unixtimestamp (number of seconds since midnight Jan 1 1970).
- serverState: Return results based on whether they are currently in progress or have already been reported back to World Community Grid. 4 would return in-progress results, 5 would return results which have already been reported back to the server.
- outcome: Return results based on the outcome of their processing. 1 means success, 3 means error, 4 means no reply, 6 means validation error, 7 means abandoned./
- validateState: Return results based on the validation status. 0 means pending validation, 1 means valid, 2 means invalid, 4 means pending verification, 5 means results failed to validate within given deadline.
- fileDeleteState: Return results based on their file delete state. 0 means not deleted. 1 means ready to delete. 2 means deleted.
How does ultrafiltration work?
Ultrafiltration refers to the process of reducing or eliminating very small particles from water by passing water under very high pressure through a membrane containing very fine pores. The unwanted particles have a harder time getting through the membrane than the water molecules, so fewer of them appear on the other side. The high pressure needed for ultrafiltration requires expensive equipment and much energy.
Any way to reduce the pressure needed in ultrafiltration can make water purification a cheaper and more accessible process. This is precisely what the Computing for Clean Water Project is ultimately aiming to achieve, by first studying in detail how the water molecules flow through filters.
How might the data generated on this project be useful to Zika researchers?
World Community Grid volunteers’ computers and Android devices will complete virtual screenings of chemical compounds that may be effective against the Zika virus. These virtual screenings will generate data about the potential effectiveness of chemical compounds that could be used as antiviral medicines. Once the virtual screenings are complete, researchers will use the data to test promising compounds in laboratories.
In compliance with World Community Grid policy, the researchers will make their data openly accessible, thereby allowing other scientists to apply their own methods and approaches to further study promising compounds. The open data component of this project (and all other World Community Grid projects) means that the likelihood of finding effective drug treatments for Zika may be higher than if the researchers worked in isolation.
How does a molecular dynamics simulation work?
Newton wrote down simple equations of motion to describe how balls fly through the air or apples fall. The world of atoms and molecules is subject to quantum mechanics, which is a good deal more complex than classical Newtonian mechanics. Yet it turns out that by making certain approximations and simplifications, it is possible to simulate the molecular world by letting large numbers of atoms or molecules interact according to Newton’s laws.
So the idea of a molecular dynamics simulation is to let things evolve using a computer program which can track every detail of what happens to each molecule over time as it is buffeted by all the surrounding ones. But to get a statistically meaningful picture from such simulations it usually requires repeating the simulations thousands or even millions of times with slightly different starting conditions. It is this computational challenge that this project addresses, by getting volunteers to provide more than a thousand times the computing power that a typical research group would have access.
How much hard drive space does the software take on my computer?
The software itself will take less than 50 MB of hard drive space or your computer. The different projects that run on the World Community Grid, however, have different system requirements for running on your computer. To find out if your computer meets those requirements, go here.
How do I set my preferences so that World Community Grid will use my GPU while I am actively using my computer?
Once you have allowed World Community Grid to use your GPU, we only use your GPU while you are not actively using your computer.
If you want World Community Grid to use your GPU at all times, you must manually enable this option by going to the Device Profile page under the Custom Options section. This option is labeled "Do work on my graphics card while computer is in use?". You may select either "Yes" or "No."
How do I set the software to close the internet connection after downloading a work unit?
The software does not attempt to control your Internet connection. Establishing and closing the connection is done by the operating system.
What if my computer stutters while World Community Grid is using my GPU?
Due to the nature of running research applications, it is possible that running World Community Grid on your GPU while you are using your computer could interfere with the normal use of the device. If you encounter this, then we suggest that you try the option to only allow World Community Grid to use your GPU when you are not actively using your computer. This option is available on the Device Profile page under the custom options section. This option is labeled "Do work on my graphics card while computer is in use?". Select "No" and save.
Has this kind of research been attempted before? If so, how is this different?
It is only now that, for the first time, scientists can bring progress in next generation sequencing and their knowledge and understanding of microbes, together with massive computational power and newer algorithms to accurately predict structures and functions of hundreds of thousands (or more) of proteins!
For decades, scientists have studied both proteins and their structures, as well as microbes and how they impact human health. However, those studies were greatly limited in terms of their scale (e.g. by studying one microbe at a time) and scope. Similarly, structures of individual proteins have been experimentally determined since 1958 and computational investigations of protein structures began in early 1970s.
A turning point came in the early 2000s with the introduction of next generation sequencing, due to progress in computing power and the development of new algorithms. Thanks to next generation sequencing, obtaining DNA sequences encoding genes became much cheaper and quicker.
Around the same time new tools, such as Rosetta (which is being used for this project), were being developed to computationally predict protein structure and were, in fact, used for the Human Proteome Folding project on World Community Grid.
Since then, these tools have been refined and enhanced. Combined with the massive computational resources of World Community Grid, a project of this scale has only now become possible.
Right now, this project is looking for potential treatments for COVID-19. Will there be future phases of the project?
There's a good possibility that OpenPandemics may have additional phases. From what scientists have learned from past outbreaks, they expect pandemics caused by newly emerging pathogens to become more and more common. That's why the project is being designed to be rapidly deployed to fight future diseases–ideally before they reach a critical stage.
In order to help address future pandemics, researchers need access to swift and effective tools which can be deployed very early, as soon as a threatening disease is identified. Using the knowledge and data from looking for potential COVID-19 treatments, the researchers plan to create a software infrastructure to streamline the computational research process of finding potential treatments for other diseases. And, in keeping with World Community Grid's open data policy, they'll make their findings and these tools freely available to the scientific community.
Will running the World Community Grid Software affect my regular use of my device?
No. Configured correctly, the software will never interfere with your ability to use your own device. Most devices never use all of their resources and it is estimated that up to 90% of the processing power of an individual device can go unused. The World Community Grid distributed computing model is based on the ability to utilize this "idle" capacity from individual devices.
If I have more than one GPU on my computer, how do I let World Community Grid run on all of my GPUs?
In order to do this, you have to use the <use_all_gpus> tag in the cc_config.xml file. Instructions to do this are available here.
Will my computing time only help the FightAIDS@Home project?
Your device will contribute to whatever projects you choose; however, only certain projects will be available for mobile devices. You can select from the projects currently active at World Community Grid by visiting the My Projects page. There you can view all available projects, and choose those in which you want to participate.
How do I make World Community Grid run while my computer is on batteries?
You may change your preferences to allow World Community Grid to run while you are on battery power as follows:
- To change your preferences for all computers under your member name, sign on to our website and go to your “Settings" page. Select “Device Manager”, then “Device Profiles" from the left hand Navigation. Click the Profile Name that you want to alter and select “Custom Profile”. Under “Processor Usage” change your setting to reflect: “Do work while computer is running on batteries: Yes” and select “save”. The new settings will take effect when the agent software next communicates with the servers.
- To change the preferences for a particular computer under your member name. Double left click on the World Community Grid, or BOINC, icon in the system tray of the appropriate computer. Select Preferences from Simple View. Then check “I want to customize my preferences for this computer only” and then click “Do work while on battery” and “save”. The setting changes made here take effect immediately and override those in the device profile above.
How do I find out what type of GPU is installed in my computer?
To see which GPUs BOINC recognizes on your computer, please view the top lines of your Event Log by following these instructions:
- Open the World Community Grid/BOINC Manager software application.
- From the top main menu, select Tools and then Event Log and scroll to the top.
If your computer has been on for a long time, restarting it will allow you to view the top of the event log more easily.
How do I set up my system so that the windows agent starts for several or all of the users that log in?
You can place the World Community Grid icon into each of the user's startup folders (in Start Menu->Programs->Startup), which will make the agent start whenever those particular users log on. You can also place it in the startup folder for "All users" which should make it run for everyone. One way to get to these folders is via: My Computer -> Local disk C: -> Documents and Settings -> All Users -> Start Menu -> Programs -> Startup, for example.
How do I calculate my FLOPS (Floating Point Operations Per Second) based off my World Community Grid points?
BOINC provides a reference about credit and its relation to FLOPS here. However, you should know that seven (7) World Community Grid points are equal to one (1) BOINC credit.
Therefore, your total World Community Grid points divided by 700 gives you the number of GigaFLOPs and your World Community Grid points divided by 700,000 gives you the number of TeraFLOPs.
Will my device only be working on the GO Fight Against Malaria project?
You get to decide which project or projects your computing time will help advance; however, only some projects are available for mobile devices. You can select from the active projects that are being performed on World Community Grid by visiting the My Projects page. Follow that link, and you can view all the available projects and choose those in which you want to participate.
HPF1 vs. HPF2: Scoring different structures at higher resolutions
Balancing resolution with computational efficiency:
Protein structure prediction procedure must strike a delicate balance between the computational efficiency of the procedure and the level of physical detail used to model protein structure within the procedure. Low-resolution models can be used to predict protein topology/folds and sometimes suggest function (Bonneau et al. 2001b). Low-resolution models have also been remarkably successful at predicting features of the folding process such as folding rates and phi values (Alm and Baker 1999a; Alm and Baker 1999b). It is clear, however, that modeling proteins (and possibly bound water and other cofactors) at atomic detail, and scoring these higher resolution models with physically derived, detailed, potentials is a needed development if higher resolution structure prediction is to be achieved.
Recent progress has focused on the use of low-resolution approaches for finding the fold followed by a refinement step where atomic detail is added (side chains added to the backbone) and physical scoring functions are used to select and/or generate higher resolution structures. Several recent studies have illustrated the usefulness of using de novo structure prediction methods as part of a two stage process in which low-resolution methods are used for fragment assembly and the resulting models are refined using a more physical potential and atomic detail (e.g. rotamers) to represent side chains (Bradley et al. 2003; Misura and Baker 2005; Tsai et al. 2003). In the first step Rosetta is used to search the space of possible backbone conformations with all side chains represented as centroids. This process is well described and has well characterized error rates and behavior. High confidence or low scoring models are then refined using potentials that account for atomic detail such as hydrogen bonding, van der Waals forces and electrostatics.
One major challenge that faces methods attempting to refine de novo methods is that the addition of side-chain degrees of freedom combined with the reduced length scale (reduced radius of convergence) of the potentials employed require the sampling of a much larger space of possible conformations. Thus, one has to correctly determine roughly twice the number of bond angles to a higher tolerance if one hopes to succeed.
I am running SETI@home on my computer? Will I be able to run both SETI@home and World Community Grid?
Yes and no. Any non-grid.org agent, such as SETI@home, will be able to continue to run on your computer after you download and install the World Community Grid agent. However, while you can run both clients at the same time, SETI@home runs at a higher priority than the World Community Grid agent, so SETI@home will receive all the extra available CPU cycles and will starve the World Community Grid agent. Because of this, you should only run one or the other at any given time.
Why is my computer not getting as many work units for the Africa Rainfall Project as I want?
Due to the large file sizes of the input and output for this project, the number of tasks sent out per day will be much less than typical projects. For launch, we started out slow, and while the total number of tasks sent out per day may increase some as we get further in to the project, at this point we anticipate those increases to be minimal.
What is protein folding?
Proteins are chemical compounds consisting of a chain of smaller compounds called amino acids. There are 20 different kinds of amino acids. A gene specifies the order in which the kinds of amino acids are to be linked in the chain to form the protein. As the protein chain emerges from the assembly machinery, it starts to fold or tangle up into a very specific shape. Some amino acids have electrical charge patterns on their surface which make some attract to each other and some repel. These patterns of charges could be thought of as weak little bar magnets. This makes various parts of the chain of amino acids prefer to stick to certain others, and thus form a very specific structure. In the cell, there are other proteins which sometimes help guide the folding process so that the proteins do not fold into incorrect shapes.
Given that some proteins can be so large as to contain thousands of amino acids, it can be very difficult to figure out the final shape of the folded chain of amino acids, and from there to determine the shape or structure of the protein. Knowing the shape is important because this determines the function or role of the protein. One way of finding the shape is to get many of the same protein molecules and try to make them crystalize into a regular shape (as salt might turn into cubic crystals from a brine solution). Then, x-rays are shown through the crystal. As the x-rays pass the atoms in the proteins, they deflect (diffract) in a very particular pattern which can be deciphered using mathematical techniques to finally know the positions of the atoms and the structure of the protein. However, it can be difficult, if not impossible, to get the proteins to crystalize.
Scientists have turned to computers as an alternate way of discovering the structures of proteins. They use software programs such as Rosetta (originally developed by David Baker's lab at the University of Washington and now with collaborators from other academic institutions including New York University) to simulate the protein folding process. The software attempts to fold the amino acid sequence many different ways, trying to find the lowest energy configuration, which should represent the actual structure of the folded protein. For very large proteins, they use methods which work on portions of the protein at a time and then assemble the portions.
The software keeps writing "Deferring communication with project for W days, X hours, Y minutes, and Z seconds". What does this mean and how do I get it to connect now?
This message appears when the software has experienced a problem connecting to the server. This may be because of some problem on your local device or because World Community Grid's servers are temporarily unavailable due to maintenance or updates.
The software will delay the attempt to reconnect because during the time that the servers are unavailable, more and more volunteers' devices will try to connect to the servers. Once the servers became available the servers could become overwhelmed if all of the local devices attempted to contact them at once. This delay mechanism reduces the chances of the servers being overwhelmed.
How can I help reduce the energy usage associated with my computer?
The World Community Grid software and the workstation power management software may work in a complementary fashion. A World Community Grid participating computer may be set so that when it is in active use, the World Community Grid software harvests the unused CPU time. When a computer is not in active use for more than ten minutes, then power management software may be activated in accordance with the user's setting to enable energy saving. This may be enabled by going to your Device Profiles and selecting your 'Default' (or appropriate) profile and then selecting the 'Power Saving' option. There's plenty of computing power in the majority of our member's computers – enough to do their job, be productive, contribute to humanitarian research and still conserve energy at the end of the day.
By utilizing the Power–Saving Capability, we can all actively work towards reducing our energy use. And if you also participate in World Community Grid, you will be contributing to valuable humanitarian research.
Which Android devices are supported?
The BOINC application for Android is supported on most, but not all, devices running Android 4.1 and higher (Android Jelly Bean or more recent versions). If BOINC is not able to run on your Android device, you will see a message that states your device is not compatible when you attempt to install the BOINC app from the Google Play store.
How do I get the software to use 100% of the available CPU?
The software has a default setting of 60%. You may change the CPU utilization setting to 100% CPU utilization, we certainly welcome the additional contribution this setting brings to our projects.
- To change your preferences for all computers under your member name, sign on to our website and go to your “Settings” page. Select “Device Manager”, then “Device Profiles from the left hand Navigation. Click the Profile Name that you want to alter and select “Custom Profile”. Under “Disk Usage” change your setting to reflect: “Use no more than: 100% of total disk space” and select “save”. The new settings will take effect when the agent software next communicates with the servers.
- To change the preferences for a particular computer under your member name. Double left click on the World Community Grid, or BOINC, icon in the system tray of the appropriate computer. Select Preferences from Simple View. Then check “I want to customize my preferences for this computer only” and the information panel should reflect “Use no more than 100% of the processor” and “save”. The setting changes made here take effect immediately and override those in the device profile above.
Why are my work units failing with exit code 233 “ERROR: Kernel execution time estimate too high, exiting”?
At the beginning of each work unit run on your graphics card, a small portion of the workload is run to estimate the execution time of a single kernel execution on the graphics card. If this estimate is too high, the application will exit to reduce the risk of Windows restarting the display driver due to the Timeout Detection and Recovery feature of Windows. If this occurs, the above error message will be written to the stderr log. If this occurs multiple times, it is likely the graphics card is not capable of running the project. Please refer to the "What graphics cards are not able to participate in the Help Conquer Cancer research project?"FAQ for a list of graphics cards which are not supported.
If it occurs occasionally but not on every execution, it could be that other graphics intensive work is interfering. We recommend that you set your preferences to not allow World Community Grid to run while you are actively utilizing your computer. This option is available on the Device Profile page under the custom options section. This option is labeled "Do work on my graphics card while computer is in use?". Select "no" and save.
My computer seems to be running slow since I installed the World Community Grid agent?
If your computer seems to run slower when running the agent, then you may have relatively little memory in your system. Using 100% CPU alone will not slow things down because the agent runs at lowest priority so that it yields to any other work. Otherwise, it consumes the unused CPU which makes the total go to 100%. However, if your system has relatively little real memory (usually about 512 meg or less) and you are running other memory hungry applications, then there might be disk paging delays. To solve the problem, you could set your agent to run in screen saver mode only. Then, while you are actively using the machine, the agent will stay out of the way.
How can I change the screensaver resource limits on my computer?
You will need to modify your Device Profile on the website. On your Settings page, select Device Manager, and then Device Profiles. Under Profile Name, select which Profile you would like to change (Default, School, Home, etc.). Then select the Custom Profile radio button. Under Advanced Options, scroll down to the Graphics section. The defaults are set to 7 frames per second and 5% cpu usage. If you would like the screensavers to refresh quicker, change the frames per second to 30. If the screensavers are taking up too much CPU power, decrease the percentage from 5% down to 2% to keep the screen saver usage to a minimum. Click Save at the bottom of the page to save your changes. The next time your computer communicates with our website, the preferences will be updated.
What are the advantages of running World Community Grid on a computer's GPU?
GPUs can perform certain types of computations significantly faster than the central processing units (CPUs) that power computers. When the manufacturers of GPUs realized this, they extended the capabilities of some GPUs so that they could run tasks that were written in a specialized development language. As a result, applications that are modified to use this specialized development language–and can leverage GPUs' specialized capabilities appropriately–can potentially run many times faster on GPU than on the CPU.
If you run a World Community Grid project that is modified to use GPU power on a device that has a GPU, and you adjust your settings accordingly, that device can complete work units more quickly than a device using just a CPU.
However, GPU processing is different than CPU processing on World Community Grid. Specifically, GPUs don't have operating system capabilities that allow us to ensure that running work units doesn't interfere with your use of your computer. Many GPUs can run World Community Grid without any interference; however, some will cause your computer to be slow in responding to you. GPU usage for World Community Grid is therefore opt-in only; by default, World Community Grid will not use GPUs. You can opt in through the Device Profiles page - please refer to "How do I configure my settings so that World Community Grid uses my device's GPU?" for details.
My team page contains the words "BOINC Team ID." What does that mean?
World Community Grid has members who participate through BOINC. On BOINC, these members have a layer of team statistics as they are able to participate in multiple distributed computing projects. BOINC Team ID" refers to an identifier found on the BOINC site for this purpose (http://www.boincstats.com/). For more information about BOINC, please go to the Help facility and search on BOINC.
Why does the World Community Grid software only use 60% of my CPU time?
When World Community Grid was started in 2004, we heard isolated reports of computer instability while running the software at 100%. Because of this we changed the default setting to only run at 60% of the unused processor time. Members are able to modify the cpu time from 10% to 100% to suit their own needs by making a change to their device profile. However, anyone making the change to more than 60% should monitor their device to ensure that the change has not had an adverse impact. If it does then they should revert back to the default settings.
Could running the software cause my computer to overheat?
A few machines have not been designed with sufficient cooling, fins sometimes fill with dust, and some fans run slower with age. This could be a problem whether you are running our software or not. However, we have found that some recently designed machines deal with the slight increase in CPU temperature from running at higher utilization percentages, by slowing the system clock rather than speeding up the cooling fan as needed. This could cause everything to run slower on such a machine. To keep this from happening, the software’s default CPU throttle is set to around 60%.
Why do I lose my work and have to download a new work unit if Windows crashes?
This occurrence is not unique to the software, though it is visible because of the way that the software works. When the Operating System completely freezes and power to the computer must be cut (a forceful/hard boot is performed) open files are mishandled and often corrupted. This occurs in virtually all operating systems, and can lead to corruption of open program files, or even of the operating system itself. The software performs a check of its files when it is started and if they have been damaged, for example during a hard reboot, then it will discard them and download a new work unit.
How do I configure my settings so that World Community Grid uses my device's GPU?
By default, World Community Grid will not use your device's GPUs. To allow World Community Grid to use your GPUs:
- Go to Device Profiles and select the relevant profile. (If you're not sure which profile relates to the device on which you want to run GPU work, refer to your Device Manager list).
- Ensure that the selected device profile is a Custom Profile.
- Scroll through the Advanced Options to the 'Graphics Card Usage' section.
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In order to get GPU work, select "Yes" for the type of GPU card (AMD/ATI, Intel or NVIDIA) you wish World Community Grid to use. You can set all three types (AMD/ATI, Intel, NVIDIA) as "Yes" if you do not know what card you have or wish to run GPU work on all cards available in a computer.
Another option is "Do work on my graphics card while computer is in use?". This is an advanced option and is set to "No" by default, as in some cases choosing "Yes" can cause the device performance to appear sluggish while the GPU is used for mouse movements and other system operations.
How do I participate and donate my Android device's computing time?
Simply register for a World Community Grid account - during the registration process, you will be prompted to install the BOINC software on your Android device from the Google Play Store. Make sure to select 'World Community Grid' from the list of BOINC projects when you start the application.
If you're already a World Community Grid member, login to your account and go to the Download page instead.
How do I know if my computer is running the 64-bit research application?
On a Windows machine, you can use the Windows task manager to view the process name. 64-bit research applications will end with "windows_intelx86_64", while 32-bit applications will end with "windows_intelx86"
On a Linux machine, you can find the PID of the research application (which will start with the name "wcg") and then execute the command "file -L /proc/PID/exe"
On OS X we only support 64 bit applications, therefore all World Community Grid tasks will be running a 64 bit application.
How is my computing time helping fight schistosomiasis?
There are many approaches that can help combat not only schistosomiasis, but many infectious diseases, whose genome is sequenced and proteins annotated. Using computational methods or bioinformatics, it is possible to predict or identify molecules that are essential to the survival of these organisms, so they can be then evaluated as drug targets or vaccines. Furthermore, it is also possible to identify whether a drug could interact and inhibit an essential protein of the parasite, in order to kill it or to stop its multiplication. For the design of new drugs, it is very useful to identify molecular targets in microorganisms, and then based on these targets, to design new drugs or evaluate some previously synthesized and used for other purposes. The availability of the complete genome of Schistosoma (http://www.sanger.ac.uk/resources/downloads/helminths/schistosoma-mansoni.html) will facilitate prediction of critical or important gene products, such as those involved in pathways or metabolic essential processes for the Schistosoma parasite.
What are Project and Recruitment Badges?
Project badges recognize the contribution that a member has made to a research project running on World Community Grid, and recruitment badges recognize the member's contribution to introducing new volunteers to World Community Grid. All available project badges may be viewed here and all available recruitment badges may be viewed here.
Badges appear on a member's My Contribution page and next to their name in the forums.
Project Badges: There are 11 levels of badges awarded based upon how much computing time a member has contributed to each project:
Recruitment Badges: There are 5 levels of badges awarded based on how many new people a member has recruited to World Community Grid:
Members receive credit towards recruitment badges when someone signs up for World Community Grid using that member's unique recruitment URL and begins contributing computing power. You can get your recruitment URL and see which members you've recruited on your My Contribution page.
Recruitment badges are different from project badges in that they must be maintained. Recruited members must actively contribute computing power (return a result at least every 30 days) to count towards a member's recruitment badge. If an inactive recruited member becomes active again, they will once again count towards the recruitment total of the member who introduced them to World Community Grid.
Why does my device show high CPU use?
The CPU in computers and other computing devices is actually highly utilized no matter what is going on, except when it is powered off, or stopped. There is a hidden "idle" task running in the background that runs at lower priority than everything else in the device, even lower than the World Community Grid software. The idle task counts up the percentage of the time it runs and calls this "idle time" and reduces the reported CPU utilization figure accordingly. Neither the World Community Software software nor the idle task will run if your device has other work to do. However, since our software runs at a slightly higher priority than the idle task, the idle task won't run at all and thus report that your computer will be 100% utilized*. Having our software run in the background along with other applications is usually not a problem unless you have a system with relatively little memory. For such systems you may want to change your preferences to meet your requirements.
An overview of the various performance settings may be found here.
* Note: If you set the throttle in the BOINC agent (called: Use no more than: % of processor time) to 60%, the agent will run at 100% for three seconds, and then at 0% for two seconds.
How do I install the Linux application on Ubuntu or other Debian-based distributions?
In order to install the Linux application on Debian-based Linux distribution such as Ubuntu Linux, you will need to run the following commands:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install boinc-client boinc-manager
The application will be configured to automatically run when you restart your computer.
You will also need to attach your application to World Community Grid by running the following command:
sudo -u boinc boinccmd --project_attach http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org <Account Key>
Your <Account Key> can be found on your My Profile page.
My Internet Service Provider charges me based on the amount of bandwidth I use. How can I control how much bandwidth is used for World Community Grid?
The most recent version of the World Community Grid/BOINC Software allows you to control how much data is transferred between your computer and our servers. You can set this by doing the following:
You can use this to say that you only want World Community Grid to use at most 500MBytes of bandwidth every 7 days (which would then limit you to 2GBytes/month). Or you could put 1024MBytes every 31 days which would limit you to 1GB per month.
I have received the error message "Suspending computation - CPU usage is too high" in my Message Log. What action can be taken to fix this?
This message means that other applications on your device are using your processor to do work. In order to allow those applications to run as fast as possible, the World Community Grid software is suspending the research until your device is once again idle.
If you wish to change the level of processor use that is required before World Community Grid stops running the research application, then please take the following steps:
If I change my username, will I lose my points?
No, changing your member name will not affect your points or any other contribution that you've made to World Community Grid.
What ports do I have to open on my firewall to let the software connect to the server?
Open ports 80, 443 and 31416 outbound.
How may I change my team name, description, or URL?
Team name, description, and URL may only be changed by the team captain. To change this information, sign in to My Contribution, select My Team from the left menu. From the My Team page, select Edit. On the Edit Your Team page, make the changes and select Save.