[QUOTE=chalsall;396378]Sigh... Read the language...

Up to 240 days.[/QUOTE]

You misunderstand. I get that the assignment is recycled once "Moved into Cat1" and "240 Days Old" are met. That's what I mean when I say that they get the promised 240 days regardless of everything else.

Here's an example of what I meant.

Imagine throughput is so impressive that a Cat3 assignment moves into Cat1 in 1 day. That's an issue because the exponent WOULD be assigned to someone who can complete it quickly but it must be given the promised 240 days to complete, so there is a holdup. That's what we're trying to avoid by increasing the Cat3 bound.

However, if the throughput is such that a Cat3 assignment moves into Cat1 after 180 days, it's not an issue because it must complete within the remaining 60 days, and that is NOT a holdup because the Cat1 time limit is 60 days anyway.

240 - 180 = 60.

[QUOTE=TheMawn;396383]You misunderstand. I get that the assignment is recycled once "Moved into Cat1" and "240 Days Old" are met. That's what I mean when I say that they get the promised 240 days regardless of everything else.[/QUOTE]

I don't think I misunderstood. But, as always, I am happy to be proven wrong. :smile:

[QUOTE=TheMawn;396383]However, if the throughput is such that a Cat3 assignment moves into Cat1 after 180 days, it's not an issue because it must complete within the remaining 60 days, and that is NOT a holdup because the Cat1 time limit is 60 days anyway.[/QUOTE]

What if a Cat 3 moves into Cat 1 after less than 180 (or 240) days?

This is my fundamental point.

[QUOTE=chalsall;396384]What if a Cat 3 moves into Cat 1 after less than 180 (or 240) days?

This is my fundamental point.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=TheMawn;396371] As long as this takes no less than 180 days to occur, we're golden. .[/QUOTE]

That is my point, too. Your suggestion is that we increase the Cat3 bound so that Cat3's don't move into Cat1 too quickly, and I agree with it. I was simply suggesting what the Cat3 bound ought to be.

[QUOTE=TheMawn;396392]That is my point, too.[/QUOTE]

Sorry. I misunderstood.

[QUOTE=TheMawn;396383]240 - 180 = 60.[/QUOTE]

I understand your math -- and that was my first inclination. You basically are pointing out that a 180-day cat 3 sliding into cat 1 would have the same 60 days to expire as a brand new cat 1 assignment. The difference is that a poacher looking at the active assignments would see a small exponent that is 180+ days old and might be tempted to poach it.

[QUOTE=ATH;396345]240 days for Cat 3 seems ok but why: "Must be started within 180 days". Why are they allowed 180 days before they even have to start? Wouldn't 60 or 90 days be more than enough?[/QUOTE]

Maybe. I don't remember my rationale for the 180 day number.

One reason might be user machines going offline for a while. I recently left 2 machines running at our Summer home for 100 days of unattended operation without an internet connection. I had to manually extend the expiration dates, so even this case might be handled some other way.

The server knows which assignments were made manually, so we can always give those assignments the full time period.

Perhaps we should monitor how frequently this occurs or perhaps we shouldn't worry about it as there are generally plenty of cat 3 assignments and they aren't holding up milestones and are unattractive poaching candidates.

[QUOTE=chalsall;396384]...
What if a Cat 3 moves into Cat 1 after less than 180 (or 240) days?
...[/QUOTE]

This reminds me of the Robert Heinlein book "Time For the Stars".

At the risk of spoiler alerts...

In a nutshell (heavy summation), a group travels to a distant planet at sub-light speed. Of course in the time it takes them to complete a long voyage like that, the folks back on Earth develop faster-than-light travel. Taking into account relativistic effects, for the folks on Earth the first ship left decades ago, but the new FTL ship arrives at the same location in under a month.

What I'm getting at is that we have all of these current systems that may bite off a particularly juicy exponent that it will take years to complete, but it would just figure that by the time it's almost done, the latest silicon can probably complete the same thing in a few days. :)

It's things like that that personally make me hesitant to bother with any 100M exponents currently (although I wonder how long a 20-core machine would take to do one of those...) I'd rather focus on work that today's silicon can complete in a few months rather than a few years.

Just for myself anyway I wouldn't bother setting any of my computers to work on something that took more than 12 months tops, and more like 1-2 months max (if we're talking about a single threaded test). But that's me.

FYI: As of the time of this post there are 856 / 2860 / 31008 cat1/2/3 DCs available.
And 4114 / 5571 / 52531 cat1/2/3 first LLs available.

These numbers are likely somewhat misleading as some of the recycle rules don't apply until an exponent falls into the cat 1 category.

[QUOTE=Madpoo;396399]It's things like that that personally make me hesitant to bother with any 100M exponents currently (although I wonder how long a 20-core machine would take to do one of those...)[/QUOTE]

[URL="http://www.mersenneforum.org/showthread.php?t=20006"]http://www.mersenneforum.org/showthread.php?t=20006[/URL]

[QUOTE=aurashift;396211]-I *think* the 24 core blades will finish a single 100,000,000 digit exponent in 60 days. Is that good? I can't remember if that was with 12 threads, 23, or heck, maybe I was running it on the 40.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=ATH;396401][URL="http://www.mersenneforum.org/showthread.php?t=20006"]http://www.mersenneforum.org/showthread.php?t=20006[/URL][/QUOTE]

I'm actually installing a couple of new 20-core machines tomorrow (the ones I was burning in the last couple weeks). If possible I may see if I can get a good enough estimate of the timeframe for such an exponent before I put it into production use. I have about 24 hours onsite for a final burn-in which should be enough to get a good estimate.

EDIT: I just ran a test on my existing machine for the basic timings... posted in that thread.

[QUOTE=chalsall;396382]I actually read those graphs differently.

To me they clearly show that the DC parameters are short, and the LL parameters are long.

Ideally all lines should approximately follow each other with a constant gap. Clearly they don't.[/QUOTE]

The first time LL frontline had more debris from the old rules than DC. Given enough time, things will stabilize. When it has stabilized we can judge what the rolling averages for each Cat will be and whether or not they need to be adjusted.