Tour de Primes 2019

Welcome to the 11th annual Tour de Primes. 2 is the first prime number...and the only even one. This makes it unique among prime numbers. Therefore, February is declared Prime month...being the 2nd month of the year. :) And there's no better way to pay homage to a prime number than to go out and find one. :) More precisely, a Top 5000 prime.

For the month of February, an informal competition is offered. There are no challenge points to be gained... just a simple rare jersey at the end of the month to add to your badge list. No pressure or stress other than what you put on yourself. :)

For 2019, we're bringing back the badges introduced in 2018:

• Red Jersey -- discoverer of largest prime
  
• Yellow Jersey -- prime count leader (tiebreaker will be prime score)
  
• Green Jersey -- points (prime score) leader
  
• Polk-a-dot Jersey -- on the 19th of February we'll have a "Mountain Stage" and award the Polk-a-dot Jersey to the one who finds the most primes on that day (tiebreaker will be prime score for that day).
  
• Prime badge -- awarded to everyone who finds an eligible prime during the month of February. This is a counter badge, so if you find more than one prime it will show how many you've found, up to 99.
  
• Mega prime badge -- awarded to everyone who finds a mega prime during February. This is a counter badge.
  
• Mountain Stage prime badge -- awarded to everyone who finds an eligible prime during the Mountain Stage. This is a counter badge.
  
• Mountain Stage mega prime badge -- awarded to everyone who finds a mega prime during the Mountain Stage. This is a counter badge.
  

Results will be available at http://www.primegrid.com/challenge/tdp_2019.php.

As with the last few years, for all primes (BOINC and PRPNet) we're using the new reporting system whereby the prime's date of discovery determines whether it's eligible for the Tour de Primes. Prior to 2014, the date of verification for BOINC primes was used while the discovery date was used for PRPNet primes. The current system is more intuitive and fairer.

Note that SGS-LLR and GFN-15 are too small to be reported to the Top 5000 primes list and are therefore not eligible for the 2019 Tour de Primes.

Currently, the fastest opportunities to find Top 5000 primes is with the PPSE (LLR), and GFN-16 (65536) projects. Of course, should someone find a prime in the mega-prime searches, this would certainly give them a good shot at the green jersey. Not a guarantee, however, as in 2018 there were several mega primes found in the Tour de Primes. Overall, in 2018 we averaged close to two mega primes per week for the entire year, so you might need more than "merely" a mega prime to take home green. In 2018 there were 16 mega primes found during Tour de Primes.

All ports in PRPNet are available for the competition.

To participate in BOINC PPSE (LLR), GFN-16, or any other eligible LLR or Genefer project, all you have to do is select it in your PrimeGrid preferences. AP27 sequences are not reportable at T5K, so are not eligible for Tour de Primes.

Good Luck, have fun, and enjoy! :D

Previous Winners

- Robish
- [AF>Amis des Lapins] dthonon
- [AF>Amis des Lapins] dthonon
- tng*

- wdethomas
- tng*
- wdethomas
- tng*

- boss
- Scott Brown
- boss
- Orange_1050

- Scott Brown
- Randall J. Scalise
- vmc

- [DPC]x-RaY99_the_one_man_team
- [DPC]x-RaY99_the_one_man_team
- Lonnie Christensen

- [DPC]x-RaY99_the_one_man_team
- [DPC]x-RaY99_the_one_man_team
- PBT_marian_boss

- Scott Brown
- Usucapio Libertatis
- Scott Brown

- shanky123
- [BOINCstats] LostBoy
- Snf*

- lennart
- lennart
- [SG]marodeur6

- lennart
- s-yama
- lennart

Full rankings can be seen here: 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018

Totals by Year

2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 Total Primes found 212 309 766 646 238 254 254 346 246 256 Total Score 457.30 2663.27 21803.72 20727.04 15614.83 20982.77 30268.46 43656.50 40201.94 55393.50

Tips and Strategies:

Tip #1: He (or she) who finds the prime FIRST is the discover of the prime. It's a competition between you and your wingman. While having a fast computer helps, your computer is only useful when it's running a task. If you have a cache of tasks sitting on your computer waiting to run, chances are your wingman will return the task before you've even started it. Setting both BOINC cache settings to "0 days" is strongly recommended. People with slow computers find primes all the time because their wingman downloaded the task yesterday but won't start running it until tomorrow. Set your cache to 0 days!

If you're going to ignore tip #1, don't even bother reading the rest. Seriously.

Tips for LLR:

• Your mileage may vary. What works for me may not work for you. Before TdP starts, take some time and experiment and see what works best on your computer.
  
• If you have an Intel CPU with hyperthreading, either turn off the hyperthreading in the BIOS, or set BOINC to use 50% of the processors. (But see below for exceptions.)
  
  
  
  • If you're using a GPU for other tasks, it may be beneficial to leave hyperthreading on in the BIOS and instead tell BOINC to use 50% of the CPU's. This will allow one of the hyperthreads to service the GPU.

  
  

• Use LLR's multithreaded mode. It requires a little bit of setup, but it's worth the effort. Follow these steps:
  
  
  
  • Create an app_config.xml file in the directory C:\ProgramData\BOINC\projects\www.primegrid.com\ (or wherever your BOINC data directory is located). For a quad core CPU, the file should contain the following contents. Change the two occurrences of "4" to the number of actual cores your computer has. The example below is for PPSE. Change the app name (2 places) to whatever LLR app you're running. The app names are listed on your task selection page.
    
    
    <app_config> <app> <name>llrPPSE</name> <fraction_done_exact/> <report_results_immediately/> </app> <app_version> <app_name>llrPPSE</app_name> <cmdline>-t 4</cmdline> <avg_ncpus>4</avg_ncpus> </app_version> </app_config>
    
    
  • After creating the file, click on "Options/Read config files" or restart BOINC or reboot.
    
  • The first time BOINC downloads (in this example) a PPSE-LLR task, it may act a little strange and download 4 tasks instead of 1. The run times on this first set of tasks may look a bit strange too. This is normal. This will also occur anytime BOINC downloads more than one task at a time. This can be avoided by setting "Use at most [ 1 ] % of the CPUs" before you download PPSE tasks. After one task was downloaded, increase the percentage.
    
  • Some people have observed that when using multithreaded LLR, hyperthreading is actually beneficial. I don't use hyperthreading myself, but I encourage you to experiment and see what works best for you.
    

Tips for GFN:

• Only run GFN on a GPU. Use your CPU for LLR tasks where it will be much more efficient.
  
• Unless you have a really slow GPU and a really fast CPU, leave a CPU core free to service the GPU. You'll want the more powerful GPU running at full speed, even if it slows down the CPU somewhat. A hyperthread should be sufficient if your CPU supports hyperthreading. For example, on a 4 core CPU (without hyperthreading), you could set BOINC to "use 75% of the CPUs" to reserve one core for the GPU.
  

____________
My lucky number is 75898⁵²⁴²⁸⁸+1

The link for the results of 2018 goes to the site of 2017.

read config file and got: "app_config.xml refers to an unknown application 'llrPPSE'...?

I'm getting all fired up for TdP.

Summary Tue Jan 29, 19 at 4:00 PM CST Tonight Clear. Local blowing snow in open areas early this evening. Wind north 30 km/h becoming light this evening. Low minus 39. Wind chill minus 48 in the evening and minus 53 overnight. Hazardous frostbite conditions. Wednesday Sunny. Wind up to 15 km/h. High minus 30. Wind chill minus 49 in the morning and minus 39 in the afternoon. Frostbite in minutes. UV index 1 or low. Wednesday night Clear. Becoming partly cloudy before morning. Wind up to 15 km/h. Low minus 35. Wind chill near minus 43. Frostbite in minutes.

It's not quite as cold here, but I revved my machines up a couple days early, too:

Overnight
Scattered flurries with isolated snow showers before 5am, then scattered flurries after 5am. Areas of blowing snow. Mostly cloudy, with a low around -23. Wind chill values as low as -45. Breezy, with a west wind 15 to 20 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%.

Wednesday
Areas of blowing snow before 4pm. Mostly sunny and cold, with a high near -14. Wind chill values as low as -52. Breezy, with a west wind 15 to 20 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph.

Wednesday Night
Mostly clear, with a low around -24. Wind chill values as low as -40. West southwest wind 5 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 20 mph.

Thursday
A 20 percent chance of snow after noon. Increasing clouds and cold, with a high near 0. Wind chill values as low as -40. West southwest wind 5 to 10 mph becoming south in the afternoon.

Thursday Night
Snow likely, mainly before midnight. Cloudy, with a low around -1. East southeast wind around 5 mph, with gusts as high as 10 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%.

<name>llrSGS</name>

will Sophie Germain run multithreaded?

I tried:

<app>
<name>llrSGS</name>
<fraction_done_exact/>
<report_results_immediately/>
</app>
<app_version>
<app_name>llrSGS</app_name>
<cmdline>-t 6</cmdline>
<avg_ncpus>6</avg_ncpus>
</app_version>

and it's not working (PPSE is working fine, so maybe I just don't have the app name right?)

GFN-15 I knew; I must have missed Sophie Germain. Thanks for the reminder!

Note that SGS-LLR and GFN-15 are too small to be reported to the Top 5000 primes list and are therefore not eligible for the 2019 Tour de Primes.

GFN-15 I knew; I must have missed Sophie Germain. Thanks for the reminder!

Do you have any suggestion as to how I can make this more noticeable?

Michael Goetz wrote:

Note that SGS-LLR and GFN-15 are too small to be reported to the Top 5000 primes list and are therefore not eligible for the 2019 Tour de Primes.

(That's a serious question. I'm always trying to find ways of improving communications.)

LOL. I don't think the problem is with your communication skills; you just need to attract users that actually pay attention to things written in enlarged, emboldened red font...

For anyone running Windows 10 Pro, Enterprise, or other non-Home versions:
You have the ability to pause updates for 30 days. So if you do Windows update between now and the start of TdP then you can pause updates after today's updates are done and not be interrupted until after TdP concludes.

Good luck and lets beat last February's mega prime count!
____________
My Primes
Badge Score: 2*1 + 3*1 + 4*2 + 6*4 + 7*9 + 9*1 + 10*2 = 129

Gotcha! We need an entrance exam!

In my defense, I may scan things on the internet rather than read them (as, according to several studies, the majority of people do), and I may have gone into the humanities rather than the sciences, but I am not completely mathematically useless. When we were doing systems in Algebra I, I thought to myself there has to be a better way of doing this, and went about figuring out just such a way. Being rather impressed with myself, I showed my teacher only to be informed that I had replicated work done two centuries earlier - but I bet Gabriel Kramer wasn't 13 when he did it.

The "Prime Rank" of PPSE LLR currently = 0 on PrimeGrid's main page. Is this normal ?
Thank You

With the start of the 2019 Tour de primes only minutes away, it's time for a...

* * * PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT * * *

Since TdP is all about finding primes, it's a good idea to set up your prime reporting preferences now, if you haven't already done so.

To set up your prime reporting preferences, click on Your account, located on the left side menu under "Returning Participants". Then click on PrimeGrid preferences, under "Preferences". Scroll down a little bit, and click on "Primary (default) preferences: Edit PrimeGrid preferences".

Now fill in the section under "Reporting primes to the Prime Pages". Click both check boxes, and enter your REAL first and last names. They're required. Entering Daffy Duck or John Q. Public will only delay getting your primes reported. Finally, scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and click the "Update preferences" button.

Alternatively, if you wish to remain anonymous, you can write "report anonymously" in the name field, or "give to DCer" and we'll report the prime in the name of the double checker.
____________
My lucky number is 75898⁵²⁴²⁸⁸+1

* * * PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT #2 * * *

Remember, SGS, GFN-15, AP27, GCW-Sieve and PPS-Sieve are not eligible for Tour de Primes.
____________
My lucky number is 75898⁵²⁴²⁸⁸+1

With the start of the 2018 Tour de primes only minutes away, it's time for a...

I was reminded that last year there was a double checker page -- all for laughs. So, here it is for 2019:

http://www.primegrid.com/challenge/tdp_2019_dc.php

Bookmark that page if you want to reference it.

Also, for anyone not around for the 2018 TdP: The competition was fierce and kind of blown out of proportion. Before going crazy worrying about being 1st vs. being the double checker, I suggest reading last year's TdP forum thread in it's entirety.
____________
My lucky number is 75898⁵²⁴²⁸⁸+1

With the start of the 2018 Tour de primes only minutes away, it's time for a...

Copy/paste is a great thing sometimes. :)

Do Proth Prime Search (LLR) and Proth Prime Search Extended (LLR) count for this challenge?

Do Proth Prime Search (LLR) and Proth Prime Search Extended (LLR) count for this challenge?

Do Proth Prime Search (LLR) and Proth Prime Search Extended (LLR) count for this challenge?

Would it be possible to add some extra information on the task view under a person's account. At the top it shows In Progress, Pending, Inconclusive, Valid and so on. It also shows the projects with the number of tasks. If you click on a project the information changes to reflect just that project.

So here's my request. If I click on any project and get the following at the top

State: All 2364 | In progress 11 | Pending 467 | Inconclusive | Valid 1884 | Aborted | Invalid | Error 2

could we see the number of 1sts by the valid?

State: All 2364 | In progress 11 | Pending 467 | Inconclusive | Valid 1884 (firsts) | Aborted | Invalid | Error 2

This would allow us to see at a glace how many tasks we were first on. Now, I don't want to open a can of worms and am just asking. It seems like it might be a very intensive addition or maybe even not possible.

Cheers

10 minutes to go, best of luck everyone!

Let the crunching begin! :)
____________
My lucky numbers 1059094^1048576+1 and 224584605939537911+81292139*23#*n for n=0..26

10 minutes to go, best of luck everyone!

Let the crunching begin! :)

Congratulations to Grebuloner for finding the first prime of TdP 2019!!!

PPSE, returned at 00:06:01 UTC.

Gratz!

(If we can find a prime every 6 minutes, we'll find 6720 primes this month! Poor Jim!)
____________
My lucky number is 75898⁵²⁴²⁸⁸+1

10 minutes to go, best of luck everyone!

Let the crunching begin! :)

Robish I wish you a luck!

Good luck everyone!
____________
My lucky number is 75898⁵²⁴²⁸⁸+1

Are the odds any better if you multi-core work units to get them done faster or single core WU's to get more crunching at once? Or does it all even out?

Congratulations to Grebuloner for finding the first prime of TdP 2019!!!

PPSE, returned at 00:06:01 UTC.

Gratz!

(If we can find a prime every 6 minutes, we'll find 6720 primes this month! Poor Jim!)

89 percent of my llr tasks that have validated so far have come back as 1sts... now if the server will only send me one that's prime!

wow. none overnight! I thought I'd wake up to 10 or more.

Maybe there's a few in the pipe.

Edit: .....and then he checks newly reported primes and yes there certainly are! :)
____________
My lucky numbers 1059094^1048576+1 and 224584605939537911+81292139*23#*n for n=0..26

wow. none overnight! I thought I'd wake up to 10 or more.

Maybe there's a few in the pipe.

Edit: .....and then he checks newly reported primes and yes there certainly are! :)

wow. none overnight! I thought I'd wake up to 10 or more.

Maybe there's a few in the pipe.

Edit: .....and then he checks newly reported primes and yes there certainly are! :)

I dont see it. It is only one reported, and one badge

wow. none overnight! I thought I'd wake up to 10 or more.

Maybe there's a few in the pipe.

Edit: .....and then he checks newly reported primes and yes there certainly are! :)

I dont see it. It is only one reported, and one badge

Newly reported primes , on the front page.

114953634^32768+1 (RickyAwesome); 5199*2^1512771+1 (Honza); 4272883102455*2^1290000-1 (jubdo); 47911922^65536+1 (Eric Nietering); 114948618^32768+1 (Johny); 4278508326057*2^1290000-1 (compalex); 8853*2^1512850+1 (Grebuloner)

Obviously not the SGS's

wow. none overnight! I thought I'd wake up to 10 or more.

Maybe there's a few in the pipe.

Edit: .....and then he checks newly reported primes and yes there certainly are! :)

I dont see it. It is only one reported, and one badge

Newly reported primes , on the front page.

114953634^32768+1 (RickyAwesome); 5199*2^1512771+1 (Honza); 4272883102455*2^1290000-1 (jubdo); 47911922^65536+1 (Eric Nietering); 114948618^32768+1 (Johny); 4278508326057*2^1290000-1 (compalex); 8853*2^1512850+1 (Grebuloner)

Obviously not the SGS's

wow. none overnight! I thought I'd wake up to 10 or more.

Maybe there's a few in the pipe.

Edit: .....and then he checks newly reported primes and yes there certainly are! :)

I dont see it. It is only one reported, and one badge

Newly reported primes , on the front page.

114953634^32768+1 (RickyAwesome); 5199*2^1512771+1 (Honza); 4272883102455*2^1290000-1 (jubdo); 47911922^65536+1 (Eric Nietering); 114948618^32768+1 (Johny); 4278508326057*2^1290000-1 (compalex); 8853*2^1512850+1 (Grebuloner)

Obviously not the SGS's

Other than Grebuloner, none of the top 5k ones are Feb. reports. But there ARE other ones in the pipeline.

wow. none overnight! I thought I'd wake up to 10 or more.

Maybe there's a few in the pipe.

Edit: .....and then he checks newly reported primes and yes there certainly are! :)

I dont see it. It is only one reported, and one badge

Newly reported primes , on the front page.

114953634^32768+1 (RickyAwesome); 5199*2^1512771+1 (Honza); 4272883102455*2^1290000-1 (jubdo); 47911922^65536+1 (Eric Nietering); 114948618^32768+1 (Johny); 4278508326057*2^1290000-1 (compalex); 8853*2^1512850+1 (Grebuloner)

Obviously not the SGS's

Other than Grebuloner, none of the top 5k ones are Feb. reports. But there ARE other ones in the pipeline.

Other than Grebuloner, none of the top 5k ones are Feb. reports. But there ARE other ones in the pipeline.

Starting to see a time of up to 8 minutes of a delay on my rigs to report and get new tasks.
I am having to touch each host and manually clicking update to complete the report of completed tasks and get new ones, this is where I see the count down from as high as 8 minutes.
Is PG having Server on Network issues?

Could I just be awarded a consolation prize for not finding anything right away, so we are done with it and I can go on to crunch something, where my slow and obsolete hardware will not cause me so much stress and aggravation? :-) :-) Perhaps a grey, or invisible jersey could serve the purpose well... :-)

Starting to see a time of up to 8 minutes of a delay on my rigs to report and get new tasks.
I am having to touch each host and manually clicking update to complete the report of completed tasks and get new ones, this is where I see the count down from as high as 8 minutes.
Is PG having Server on Network issues?

I see that I am up to two double-checks today. Probably more than 75% of my work is 1st returned.... just my lucky day I guess.

Maybe next year a badge can be given for top double-checker?

I see that I am up to two double-checks today. Probably more than 75% of my work is 1st returned.... just my lucky day I guess.

Maybe next year a badge can be given for top double-checker?

I see that I am up to two double-checks today. Probably more than 75% of my work is 1st returned.... just my lucky day I guess.

Maybe next year a badge can be given for top double-checker?

Hey, now there's an idea! Could we get a badge for Mega Doublechecker in general? I wanna be able to say I earned my MD. ;)

We are already up to 8 primes showing for TDP with about 5 hours left in the first day (and a few more not yet showing). If you are curious how we are doing compared to last year, we found 11 primes on the first day of the 2018 TDP (and those primes were generally just a bit smaller than these).