Please follow these step-by-step instructions, which will guide you through the process of downloading and running model simluations on your computer, using the BOINC* interface:
- Firstly download the 'BOINC' interface that will control the running of your simulation and communication with our project server, from here; this will take you to the BOINC download page as illustrated in the figure below. From here, download the latest version of BOINC for Windows (we strongly recommend using at least version 5.2.6) by clicking the appropriate Download link and saving the resulting executable to your computer.
- Once saved, double click this executable to begin installing BOINC. You will then be guided through the installation process. Having accepted the terms in the License Agreement, and specified the Destination Folder, you are asked to select the Setup Type as shown in the figure below:
- We recommend selecting the Single-User Installation option.
- The Shared Installation option will currently only work for other users who intend to log in and run simulations if they too have Administrator Access (this option will hopefully be enhanced in future releases of BOINC to allow Restricted and Power Users under Windows to run simulations also).
- Select the Service Installation option only if you are happy not to have any facility for visualizing the model simulations (for example, if you are installing the model on a computer which is rarely used by anyone, such as a server, or where the user is not concerned with actively participating in the project but is happy to let the simulation run on their computer).
- Next, set your Installation Configuration options as shown in the figure below. These are the defaults. The latter option will ensure that BOINC will launch when you log on and assess, according to your preferences (which will be set in the coming steps) if it is allowed to run any model simulations at that time.
If you selected a Service Installation in the previous step, then you will also be asked for the administrator account password.
- Next, confirm that you wish to install BOINC. If the installation was successful, you will see a window like this:
Select Finish to complete the installation process and launch BOINC.
- The BOINC Manager for managing and running your simulations will now launch. After a few moments a window prompting you to Attach to Project will appear as shown in the figure below. This will guide you through attaching a model simulation from our Seasonal Attribution project server into your BOINC Manager for you to run.
- Next, you are prompted for the URL of our project. This is where simulations are attached from. Enter the URL http://attribution.cpdn.org as shown in the figure below:
- Next, BOINC will communicate with our server and you will be asked for your Account information. Here you can create an account by selecting Create new account and providing an email address and password. Alternatively if you had already created an account, then select Use existing account and enter the details for that account.
- If your details were accepted, then you will see a window like this:
Select Finish to complete the attachment process. A Finish account setup webpage will then appear like the one shown below. Enter your details, and select OK.
- A Your account webpage will then appear from where you can set several very useful preferences for the project, as shown below.
In particular, following the View or edit general preferences link within this page will allow you to set the simulation to run only after your computer has been idle for a number of minutes (do this by setting the Do work while computer is in use? preference to no), and to only run only between specified times of the day. The current default is for the simulation to run continuously.
Once finished, close this webpage or return to the project main page (by, e.g., following the link at the bottom of this webpage). To set preferences at any later stage, follow the Your account link at the left of the project main page.
- BOINC should now be managing a simulation on your computer. Depending on the preferences you have just set, the simulation may or may not be currently running.
You can check from the Messages tab in the BOINC Manager as to the status of you simulation, and the Work tab will show the progress. From the left hand panel in the Work tab, the Show graphics button will launch a visualization of your simulation and display the its status (model date, number of timesteps completed etc.), as shown below. In the visulization window, press H for a list of options.
- You can now leave BOINC to manage your simulation whilst you continue with your usual computer activities. Simply click the Close button on the BOINC Manager, and BOINC will then appear as an icon in your system tray as shown:
To launch the BOINC Manager again simply double-click on the icon.
To completely exit BOINC (and so stop simulations from being managed and run) select Exit from the File menu in the BOINC Manager. If you do this, you can re-start BOINC at a later time by re-launching the BOINC Manager. Do this this either from the Windows Start Menu (Start->All Programs->BOINC->BOINC Manager) or from the location where the BOINC Manager executable was installed (the default loaction is C:\Program Files\BOINC\boincmgr.exe). The simulation will then re-start from its last checkpoint (checkpoints are every at 144 timesteps of a simulation, beginning at timestep 0).
That's it!. A single simulation run continuously takes approximately 3-4 weeks on a computer with a Pentium 4 processor (see system rquirements for more details). Once completed, BOINC will communicate with our server to upload the results (around a 25MB upload) back to us via the internet, but you do not need to be continuously connected to the internet whilst the simulation is in progress otherwise. You will also be able to see a summary of your results on this web site.
If you have any problems or issues with your participation then please post on our Questions and answers pages and see our Message boards. You may also like to visit the How BOINC works and BOINC Wiki pages which contain a wealth of further information about BOINC and the features of the BOINC manager.
*click here for an overview of BOINC
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