Rechenkraft.net e.V.

So a fellow cruncher named Khalim helped me by uploading the code to github, but it is currently private. The plan was to make this public at some point. Once I finish my latest "improvements" and the code is in a better state, I will make it public. Khalim also helped with some testing scripts that will allow users to fine tune parameters for their specific GPU, and then these parameters can be put in a lookup table to benefit users with the same GPU.

I just added support for Intel GPUs. There are 2 versions - 64 bit linux and 64 bit windows, both require openCL 1.1 or higher.

I don't have an Intel GPU, so I can't test them. But it's the same openCL code that works on other GPUs, so in theory they should work. For the linux version, it was just a matter of downloading the Intel openCL SDK and then linking against Intel's include files and libraries. For the windows version, I cross compiled using mingw64 as I do with AMD/Nvidia cards.

Since they are new and untested, I made them beta apps.

We are taking a break from subfield 3 and resuming the search over subfield 6.

The main reason for this is we have not found anything new in about 6 months. It's hard to put a percentage on it, but I am 99.99% confident that this search over sf3 is complete. It seems resources would be better spent on a search that will actually find new fields.

We can always finish sf3 at a later time, if for no other reason than to say it is complete with 100% confidence.

To help increase interest in the project, I am creating a new badge based on fields counts, and tuned especially towards subfield 7. If this works well, I will also create separate badges for the other subfields.

I already put the hooks in to keep tract of the field counts for sf7. Now it's just a matter of creating the badge images, etc. Hopefully that should be done in the next several days.

Happy crunching!

I've been procrastinating in sharing some news and I finally got around to doing it.

My old thesis advisor who has been backing this project retired in May. I don't actually work for the university, so this means the project has lost is primary benefactor.

The good news is that the university has allowed the project to continue. The bad news is that they will not be supporting any more hardware upgrades. This means when the current hardware fails the project will come to an end.

I'm hoping the current hardware can last several more years. One of the most critical parts is the hard drive, and we just got a new one about 1.5 years ago. Given that the previous hard drive lasted over 4 years, this is a positive.

This news has played into my reasoning on the order of the searches. Given that sf3 is practically guaranteed to be complete, I though it was prudent to use our finite time to first concentrate on sf7. The short term goal is to get sf7 to the same state that sf3 is currently in, which should take us into early next year. At that point, we can either spend the time to finish off sf3 and sf7, or continue on with sf6. Doing sf6 will allow us to find more fields in the finite time we have left, but finishing off sf3 and sf7 will allow us to say with 100% certainty that they are indeed complete. I am leaning towards finishing off sf3 and sf7, but that may change as time goes on.