Past main M.D. loop

Dragstk

The last 2 WU's I finished have this at the end:

[02:42:01] writing final coordinates
[02:42:01] Past main M.D. loop

I got credit for the WU's and I've gotten the next project.
But what does "Past main M.D. loop" mean?

Is the work not being finished in the time allotted?
Thanks;
Dragstk

mmonnin

Well if you look at the log file it will give you 100 'frames' with so many steps. Each step or 'frame' (dont remember which one) is basically a loop in calculations. The same basic calculations are performed for each step for frame. Thus its a loop. Once its done so many loops its done. When the if/while/etc statement is done and it compares the steps with how many it needs to do and its past how many it needs to do it will print out its "Past main M.D. loop."

Did you understand that? Basically means its done.

Straight_Man

Exactly-- think of how a computer reads a file:

Either it has an input file that says where its end is, with an EOF code, or it does not. Better if it does, faster to tell when read of input file is done, but if not it finds that the next byte on HD has nothing to do with that file, so it says it is "reading past end of file" and that triggers a work stop, or in this case the CORE stops, the client does what it needs to do with the result, and then gets a new WU and then unarchives it into RAM, and then starts up the stopped CORE that does the loop calcs mmonnin is talking about for next WU.

At a guess, CORE hits EOF(part of what the sent WU data file has is variable data concerning what to calc in some detail for each bunch of steps), hands off to client, client is saying "core told me it has doen all it can do with this file," then client does its thing.

Gromacs, the new ones are ignoring the idea of frame as far as reporting in logs, they use percentage of total WU work these days. But, steps are calc units that in a group make a frame that can be displayed or worked into a display by an analyzing server or workstation-- one static picture on a TV is a frame, it has start and stop boundaries as signals and pauses, TV knows not to show the edges(unless it is malfunctioning). Monitor of CRT type also knows this. Most LCDs use a variant on this framing idea, but cannot literally have the gun paint the thing offscreen if signals are mistimed like TVs and CRT monitors can-- LCDs paint cell by cell in the LCD matrix.

I think what folding meant by frame is a set of steps that make for a displayable or "visibily emulable" part or full screen of data. Successive frames on a display, when they are shown rapidly one after the other, make a movie in essence on a monitor or a TV. What folding wanted to say got skewed by term already being used, so they went to percentage of completion with Gromacs in the newer kinds of Gromacs(I would say all Gromacs, but have not been folding long enough to know if Gromacs ever used frames for reporting in logs). Tinkers almost always used 400 frames per WU, and varied the steps needed per frame, while Gromacs uses bunches of steps per percent to report in logs and does not speak of frames. Frame is group of steps, percentage is how much of whole WU is done, easier for most of us to see how much how fast is being done of each whole WU, so frame as far as logging was dropped.

John D.

Dragstk

Thanks guys, for making your explanations easily understandable for the beginners. I do follow what you are telling me.
This is one of those cases where the more I learn, I discover there is so much more to learn.
Thank you for your help;
Dragstk