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What does 1 credit equal?

Message boards : Number crunching : What does 1 credit equal?
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GreekScorpion

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Message 2076 - Posted: 18 Apr 2023, 23:09:18 UTC

I would like to know my statistics in computing hours.
What does 1 credit equal? 1 hour? 1 day?

Thank you in advance
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Jean-David Beyer

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Message 2077 - Posted: 18 Apr 2023, 23:41:26 UTC - in response to Message 2076.  

I do not know. The number of credits per successfully-completed tasks varies enormously depending on the project.

For example MilkyWay and Universe give out so much credit per work unit that it is embarrassing tp show them. I have generated more credits in a few months of these two than by WCG since 2 Oct 2007. or Rosetta since 2 Nov 2005.

I think it would be better if the number of credits were proportional to the amount of CPU cycles executed per task, or something like that. But that does not seem to be how it is done.
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GreekScorpion

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Message 2078 - Posted: 18 Apr 2023, 23:50:52 UTC - in response to Message 2077.  

Thank you for the quick response.

If I can't measure my contribution by a unit of measure that is universal and understandable then I am blindly donating my compute power.
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Profile Jesús Carro
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Message 2079 - Posted: 19 Apr 2023, 9:31:07 UTC - in response to Message 2078.  

Hi GreekScorpion,
The credits you get from a valid results is related to the mean time used to compute it. It depends on the time you spend and in the time the other user spents. It is a mechanism designed to encourage volunteers with low computing capacity not to fall out of the projects.

You can read more about the systems in https://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/CreditOptions (we use the default one), and a longer explanation in https://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/CreditNew

Best,
Jesús.
Jesús Carro
Universidad San Jorge
@InSilicoHeart
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Peter Ingham

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Message 2083 - Posted: 24 Apr 2023, 23:16:57 UTC - in response to Message 2076.  

The intention of the Boinc developers is that "1 unit of credit = 1/200 day runtime on a CPU whose Whetstone benchmark is 1 GFLOPS."

Variations will occur due to coding differences, machine architecture and usage differences, and deliberate gaming of the system (e.g. Projects that grant more credits to entice people to contribute to them rather than to others). Gaming the system can also occur where users deliberately cheat (e.g. by over-reporting runtime; or by "Cherry-Picking").

The original post by Jesus contained links to definitive statements of how the points system works and how it attempts to address unintended variations (such as coding/hardware differences) and intended variations (Gaming/Cheating).
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Message boards : Number crunching : What does 1 credit equal?