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Whatsnew
Whatsnew
exe
------------------------------------------1) For rare cases where the program cannot figure out the number of cores and h
yperthreading,
the NumPhysicalCores option may help. See undoc.txt.
2) Faster FFT implementations are now selected for Core 2 CPUs with 1MB L2 cach
e or less
(marketed under the Celeron and Pentium label).
3) New, slightly higher, trial factoring breakeven points.
New features in Version 26.5 of prime95.exe
------------------------------------------1) Minor bug fixes.
2) Starting in build 2, P-1 work will display the chance of finding a factor.
The worktodo.txt line must include how_far_factored using the new syntax:
Pminus1=k,b,n,c,B1,B2[,how_far_factored][,B2_start][,"factors"]
3) Starting with build 3, at startup the program tries to determine which
hyperthreaded logical CPUs comprise one physical CPU. If this isn't working
properly, see the AffinityScramble2 setting in undoc.txt. The previous
version's AffinityScramble setting is no longer supported!
New features in Version 26.4 of prime95.exe
------------------------------------------1) The 64-bit version supports 64 threads (up from 32).
2) Each on-screen window can now scroll back 1000 lines of output.
3) ECM time estimates improved. ECM may be a smidge faster.
New features in Version 26.3 of prime95.exe
------------------------------------------1) A few crash bugs were fixed that affected only some CPU architectures and so
me
FFT lengths. Other minor bugs were fixed.
New features in Version 26.2 of prime95.exe
------------------------------------------1) Faster FFTs for most SSE2-capable CPU architectures.
2) More FFT lengths supported.
3) Some of the new, faster FFTs don't let us do as much error checking on each
iteration.
If you don't want to lose this error checking, choose "SUM(INPUTS) error che
cking" from
the Options menu. This will slow down your tests by about 2-5%.
4) When a possible hardware error occurs during a test, the error message would
likely scroll off the screen unnoticed. Now, all future progress updates to
the screen will be followed by a message containing a count of the errors th
at
have occurred during the test.
5) Worker Windows now stagger their starts. This improves timings for some
CPUs and operating systems. See undoc.txt to control this feature.
New features in Version 25.11 of prime95.exe
-------------------------------------------1) PRP of k*b^n+c where b > 2 will be faster in many cases.
2) Zero-padded FFTs are about 3-4% faster. These FFTs are used in projects
like SeventeenOrBust.
New features in Version 25.10 of prime95.exe
-------------------------------------------1) A bug that caused pfactor save file names to begin with the letter p
was fixed. It now uses m like all other P-1 efforts. Old save file
names are automatically upgraded.
2) Prime95 now recovers gracefully from more out-of-memory conditions
when doing ECM or P-1.
3) We now do P-1 factoring one bit level before the trial factoring limit.
The previous version started P-1 two bit levels before the trial
factoring limit.
New features in Version 25.9 of prime95.exe
------------------------------------------1) Performance increases for the 64-bit version by taking advantage of the
eight extra SSE2 registers. The 32-bit version may also be a bit faster
by taking advantage of the Core 2 architecture. The FFT code was
originally optimized for the Pentium 4 where instructions like
"movapd reg,reg" take 6 clocks and should be avoided, whereas on Core 2
the same instruction uses just 1 clock cycle and improves scheduling.
The 32-bit version may be slightly faster or slower on the Pentium 4, but
not enough to worry about. Preliminary benchmarks indicate:
32-bit Pentium 4:
between 2% slower and 1% faster
32-bit Core 2:
between 2% and 6% faster
64-bit Pentium 4:
between 2% and 4% faster
64-bit Core 2:
between 10% and 13% faster
64-bit Core i7:
between 7% and 12% faster
64-bit Phenom:
between 10% and 13% faster
AMD64:
between 1% slower and 1% faster
2) Intermediate save files were overhauled. Trial factoring, P-1, and
ECM now support multiple save files. The backup save file uses a .bu
extension. While a new save file is being written a .write extension
is used and renamed when successfully written (thus, briefly there are
3 save files). NOTE #1: LL save files no longer use an initial letter
of q and r. The program will automatically use these obsolete files if
necessary and delete them when no longer needed. NOTE #2: ECM and P-1
save files on k*2^n+1 no longer use file names beginning with d and l.
The -An command line argument no longer appends an extension to save
file names. NOTE #3: The client now supports keeping three save files.
3) Miscellaneous minor bug fixes.
New features in Version 25.8 of prime95.exe
------------------------------------------1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
7)
8)
do not support the CMOV instruction was fixed. On these same CPUs
a bug was fixed when factors smaller than 2^60 was found.
New features in Version 25.7 of prime95.exe
------------------------------------------1) Time= in ini files no longer supported. A during/else syntax can be
unsed instead for some ini file options.
2) PauseWhileRunning enhanced to pause any number of workers.
3) LowMemWhileRunning added.
4) Ability to stop and start individual workers added.
5) DayMemory and NightMemory in local.txt replaced with a single Memory
setting.
6) Memory can be set for each worker thread.
7) Scheme to distribute available memory among workers needing a lot of
memory has been completely revamped.
8) MaxHighMemWorkers replaces delayStage2Workers option.
9) The executable now defaults to talking to the PrimeNet v5 server. To
use the executable with the old v4 server, add "UseV4=1" to the top
of prime.txt.
New features in Version 25.5 of prime95.exe
------------------------------------------1) Multiple LL tests can be run within a single prime95 instance. There is
no longer a need to run multiple instances of prime95 on multi-cpu
machines.
2) Uses a new version of the Primenet server. Features include user IDs that
are different than team IDs. New work types. Ability to set some client
options using web-based forms.
3) Communication with the server runs in a separate thread.
4) The CURL library is used for communication with the server. Hopefully
this will support a wider variety of client networking configurations.
5) Supports using multiple logical or physical CPUs on a single LL test.
Except for some hyperthreaded CPUs and only on some FFT sizes, this is
not recommended as you will get more throughput by giving each CPU
its own number to test.
6) ECM and P-1 now support B1 and B2 values above 4.29 billion. ECM now
pays attention to the memory settings in the Options/CPU dialog box.
7) Several files have been renamed so that they are not changed by Windows
save/restore. Prime.ini is now prime.txt. Local.ini is now local.txt.
Worktodo.ini is now worktodo.txt. The primenet.ini file has been
deleted - it is now a section within the prime.txt file.
8) It is now legal to put comment lines in the prime.txt, local.txt, and
worktodo.txt files.
9) In older versions, editing the worktodo.ini file while prime95 was running
sometimes had the desired effect. That is no longer the case. You can
create a worktodo.add file to add work to a running prime95.
10) WARNINGS: Previous versions of prime95 will not be able to read save files
generated by this version. This version will not be able to continue from
P-1 save files generated by the previous version in the middle of stage 2.
This version cannot read a prime.spl file generated by a previous version.
11) Program can now do PRP tests of (k*b^n+c)/f. Add a line worktodo.txt that
looks like this:
PRP=k,b,n,c[,how_far_factored,tests_saved][,known_factors]
The optional how_far_factored (in bits) and tests_saved values are used
to determine if P-1 factoring prior to the PRP test would be beneficial.
The optional known_factors list is a quoted comma separated list of
known factors of k*b^n+c.
12) The program no longer does a one-hour self-test before testing an exponent
2) Stage 2 of P-1 factoring has been recoded for more speed. WARNING: when
continuing from a save file created in stage 2 by a previous prime95
version, this version will restart stage 2 from the beginning. ALSO:
the stage 2 P-1 save file format has changed - in dual boot scenarios
you must upgrade mprime and prime95 at the same time.
New features in Version 23.2 of prime95.exe
------------------------------------------1) Further performance improvements in the SSE2 code. You can expect about
a 5% improvement in LL tests on a P4.
New features in Version 23.1 of prime95.exe
------------------------------------------1) Big SSE2 FFTs now take the L2 cache size into account. P4 Celeron (128KB
L2 cache) is faster for FFTs between 512K and 2M. P4 Northwood (512KB
L2 cache) is faster for FFTs larger than 1M.
2) Benchmark no longer times 256K and 320K FFTs, but does time 2048K FFT.
3) Support for torture testing FFT sizes from 1280K to 4096K added.
4) A 900 MHz P-III is now required to get first time LL tests by default.
5) Slightly faster SSE2 FFTs for lengths of 5*2^N and 7*2^N (e.g. 640K, 896K).
New features in Version 22.13 of prime95.exe
-------------------------------------------1) A P-1 and ECM QA suite was implemented. A bug in ECM for exponents
below 172,700 and near the limit of an FFT size and using SSE2 code
was fixed.
New features in Version 22.12 of prime95.exe
-------------------------------------------1) A bug was fixed that caused some factors to be missed in stage 2 of P-1
when the available memory did not let the program allocate 12 temporary
variables. If testing a number in the 16 millions using an FFT size of
768K, then each temporary takes 768K * 8 bytes or 6MB. If your memory
setting was less than 72MB (6MB * 12 temporaries) then you were affected
by the bug. Actual the program allocates some fixed tables so anything
less than about 75MB triggered the bug.
New features in Version 22.11 of prime95.exe
-------------------------------------------1) A bug that caused factors to be missed in the last stage of P-1 and ECM
factoring was fixed. The bug was introduced in executables built after
Sept. 28, 2002.
New features in Version 22.10 of prime95.exe
-------------------------------------------1) When running a double-check assignment the preferred trial factoring
depth is reduced one bit. This is done because finding a factor will
save one LL test instead of the usual two LL tests.
2) On a Windows NT/2000/XP system, if prime95 is run by a user without
administrator privileges then prime95 cannot install itself as a service.
Thus, the Start at Bootup option will set prime95 to run at login time
rather than bootup time.
3) A crash bug when selecting "Start at Bootup" on Windows NT3 and Windows NT4
systems was fixed.
3) When Tray Icon or Hide Icon is set, the "X" in the upper right corner
no longer closes prime95 rather it minimizes it. Also right clicking
the tray icon now brings up a popup menu.
4) Changed the way prime95 shuts down. Logoff in WinXP used to hang.
New features in Version 22.4 of prime95.exe
------------------------------------------1) A little more tweaking of the FFT crossovers.
2) A GCD hang bug was fixed in case where there were a large number of
entries in the lowm.txt file. Another GCD bug affecting ECM on F18
was fixed.
New features in Version 22.3 of prime95.exe
------------------------------------------1) Given more data, the roundoff error checking is now done on every
iteration for exponents within 0.5% of the maximum that can be tested
by the current FFT length. If a roundoff error above 0.4 occurs,
then the iteration is now repeated without any change to the shift count.
It now takes a roundoff error greater than 0.6 to corrupt the results.
2) Many of the FFT ranges have changed. Version 21 was too aggressive
in choosing FFT sizes for the P4. The new handling of roundoff
errors above 0.4 lets us be more aggressive with the non-P4 code.
3) Result lines are now WYn rather than WXn.
4) A crash bug affecting P-1 and ECM using the 2^N+1 option for large N was
fixed.
5) A rare memory corruption and possible crash bug in the GCD code was
fixed.
6) The -t command line argument will run the torture test.
7) To reduce wild fluctuations in the RollingAverage, it will be updated
roughly twice per day.
New features in Version 22.2 of prime95.exe
------------------------------------------1) Factoring assignments go to machines slower than a 233 MHz Pentium.
Double-checks are assigned machines slower than a 500 MHz P-III.
2) The speed of the GCD has been improved.
3) Some of the P4 FFT ranges have changed. Version 21 was too aggresive
in choosing FFT sizes for the P4.
4) Roundoff error checking is now done on every iteration for exponents
within 2% of the maximum that can be tested by the current FFT length.
See undoc.txt for ways to disable this new feature.
5) The previous version would get into an infinite loop if a repeatable
roundoff error larger than 0.48 was discovered. Now if a repeatable
roundoff error greater than 0.45 is found, then the iteration is
repeated after shifting the FFT data.
New features in Version 22.1 of prime95.exe
------------------------------------------1) Some bugs in error handling when communicating with the server have
been fixed.
2) Communicating with the server by RPC is no longer supported. The
HTTPNET.DLL and RPCNET.DLL have been deleted. Only "Basic" Proxy server
authentication is supported. Version 21 may have supported MS Proxy
Server 2.0's NTLM (NT Lan Manager) challenge/response authentication.
3) The program now uses a high resolution timer rather than the RDTSC
instruction to time events. This should help the program display accurate
timings on laptops with SpeedStep or desktops that can hibernate. You can
force the program to use the old RDTSC timing method with the RdtscTiming
option described in undoc.txt.
4) The program uses a updated algorithm to automatically detect CPU type and
speed. The Options/CPU dialog box no longer let's you set this
information. Instead, the Options/CPU dialog displays the detected
CPU type and speed. This new feature helps prevent incorrect settings
when users upgrade or try several overclocking speeds. If the new
algorithm fails, you can overide the settings as described in undoc.txt.
5) Benchmark now writes the program version, timing methodology, cpu type
and speed, L1 and L2 cache information to results.txt. It will refuse to
benchmark if rdtsctiming is 10.
New features in Version 21.4 of prime95.exe
------------------------------------------1) Exiting the Torture Test now prints out how long it ran.
2) P4 error checking was relaxed slightly to reduce false alarms.
New features in Version 21.3 of prime95.exe
------------------------------------------1) The program will now skip the P-1 factoring stage if another user has
already performed this step.
2) The Advanced/Quit GIMPS menu choice now lets you quit after current
work completes or quit immediately.
3) A bug was fixed in the error recovery code. After getting a "Disregard
last error" message, the user was treated to a new error on every
iteration. The end result was incorrect. The bug only affected the
error recovery of the new P4 FFT introduced in the beta version 21.2.
New features in Version 21.2 of prime95.exe
------------------------------------------1) The program now uses the SSE2 instructions introduced on the Pentium 4 CPU.
This version is about 3 times faster than the previous version on a P4.
2) The program now uses the prefetch instructions on the Celeron 2, Pentium 3,
and all Athlon CPUs. This results in about a 20% performance boost on
these machines.
3) Process priority is now set to idle. Microsoft documentation says that
an idle thread priority overrides process priority. The program's
priority scheme has always worked well. However, several Win2K users
have reported that the program works better if the process priority is
also set to idle.
4) The program now delays calculations until 90 seconds after bootup. This
lets your machine boot up as fast as possible. This can be changed, see
undoc.txt.
5) The default crossover between double-check assignments and first-time
tests has been increased to a 400 MHz PII.
6) After 5 1/2 years, a help file now exists! It is HTML Help which may
have problems on older Windows machines. If so, try downloading
hhupd.exe from Microsoft's web site.
7) The program used to do factoring and P-1 testing on new exponents before
completing LL tests on older exponents. This was confusing to many.
The program now processes the worktodo.ini file in sequential order.
See undoc.txt on how to restore the old behavior.
8) Error messages such as ILLEGAL SUMOUT, SUMINP != SUMOUT, etc. are no
longer sent to the server since the final result contains a count of how
many errors occured during the LL test.
9) Some of the FFT crossover points have changed slightly.
10) Test/Status now outputs the day of the week each work item will complete.
11) Interim output lines have changed - hopefully, so they are more useful
especially to newbies. By default, output lines no longer contain the
clocks count. Lines now contain a timestamp. Benchmark timings are now
output in milliseconds. These defaults can be changed using options
in undoc.txt.
12) A new welcome screen for new users will encourage stress testers
to use the program without reserving exponents.
13) There is now a menu choice that lets you unreserve a specific exponent.
This is for knowledgable users only. You might do this if the server
assigned a small exponent and you'd rather be testing larger ones. Or
the prime95 you set up on another machine had a hard drive failure.
14) The Windows 9x Service menu choice has been replaced by the more general
Start at Bootup menu choice. This choice now sets registry entries to
autostart prime95 on any Windows machine. WARNING: Using this option
will delete any StartUp menu shortcuts so the registry entry and startup
menu do not both try to start prime95.
15) Prime95 will now ask for confirmation if you enter a CPU speed that
differs from the computed CPU speed by more than 4%.
16) The self-test menu choice was deleted - use the torture test instead.
17) A benchmark menu choice has been added.
18) The torture test code now includes more FFT lengths including smaller
ones that run completely in the L2 cache which may increase CPU
temperatures. Each FFT size is tested for 15 minutes by default.
There are now several options in the undoc.txt for fine tuning the
torture test's behavior.
New features in Version 20.6 of prime95.exe
------------------------------------------1) A crash bug was fixed. If you did P-1 factoring followed by trial
factoring, then if you found a factor unallocated memory was accessed
usually resulting in a crash.
New features in Version 20.5 of prime95.exe
------------------------------------------1) A rare error was fixed. When the memory settings changed during the
GCD step in P-1 or ECM factoring, then a spurious "ERROR: Factor
does not divide N!" error was raised.
New features in Version 20.4 of prime95.exe
------------------------------------------1) If stage 2 of P-1 was postponed because of insufficient memory, the
program did not restart stage 2 when nighttime started. This bug was
fixed.
2) By default, PII-300's and faster get first-time LL tests, P-90 and faster
get double-checking work, and all slower machines get factoring work.
3) An ECM bug during stage 2 init on huge exponents caused false ILLEGAL
SUMOUT errors. This bug was fixed.
New features in Version 20.3 of prime95.exe
------------------------------------------1) Another fairly uncommon ECM bug was fixed. The
not divide N!" errors.
2) A couple of minor bugs in computing the optimal
to a Lucas-Lehmer test were fixed. The program
estimating the memory required in P-1 stage 2.
stage 2 working set size is unchanged, the program allocates less memory
in stage 2.
3) Prime95 no longer searches for a smaller factor when trial factoring
discovers a factor. The reasons are two-fold. 1) Version 19 had a
bug where stopping and restarting the program bypassed the search for
smaller factors. Thus, my database may already be missing smaller
factors. 2) As we factor larger exponents to a deeper depth it may
no longer be a quick job to determine if there are smaller factors.
Note, that version 20 will still look for smaller factors if you are
looking for factors below 2^60 with the FactorOverride option in undoc.txt.
4) The undocumented AMPM feature controls how times are formatted in the
Options/CPU dialog box.
New features in Version 20.2 of prime95.exe
------------------------------------------1) If P-1 stage 1 completed and there was not enough memory to start
stage 2 immediately, then an incorrect save file was generated. This
bug was introduced in version 20.1. Upon restart of the P-1 factoring
job a crash or other unpredictable behavior was possible. This bug was
fixed and this version has special code to properly read these
incorrect save files.
2) P-1 will restart any time the memory settings change. This is done
so that the optimal P-1 bounds can be computed with the new memory
settings.
3) A bug in ECM testing was fixed.
New features in Version 20.1 of prime95.exe
------------------------------------------1) A bug in the new GCD code was fixed.
2) Timings in the P-1 stage are no longer cumulative. There is a new
feature in undoc.txt for those that prefer cumulative timings.
3) Messages are now output prior to beginning the lengthy GCD.
4) The FactorOverride undocumented feature (not for use with PrimeNet) now
supports factoring to a deeper level than prime95 would ordinarily factor.
5) A bug where the worktodo.ini entry was not removed if P-1 found a factor
was fixed.
6) If P-1 finds a factor it now deletes any Lucas-Lehmer intermediate files.
7) A crash bug when continuing from a P-1 stage 2 save files with
different available memory parameters was fixed.
8) Resuming an LL test now outputs a line to the screen,
9) The Test/Status display now correctly calculates the estimated completion
time for an LL test when P-1 factoring is in progress.
10) Advanced/Factor menu choice was deleted.
11) A bug in computing P-1 stage 2 percentage complete was fixed.
New features in Version 20.0 of prime95.exe
------------------------------------------1) The program now does some P-1 factoring prior to running first time
and double-checking Lucas-Lehmer tests. This will increase overall
GIMPS throughput. If you install version 20 in the middle of an LL test
the program will run the P-1 step if the LL test is less than 50%
complete.
2) The Options/CPU dialog box now asks how much memory the program can
use during the P-1 factoring. See the "Setting Available Memory"
section in the readme.txt file.
3) Stage 1 of P-1 factoring is now faster.
4) The GCD used in P-1 and ECM factoring is now faster.
assignments.
3) The total number of errors that occur during the Lucas-Lehmer test
are now output in results.txt.
New features in Version 16.5 of prime95.exe
------------------------------------------1) A new httpnet.dll can provide Scott Kurowski with debugging information.
Simply create a primenet.ini file with these lines:
[Debug]
PacketLog=1
Output file is pnHttp.txt.
2) The old network retry time has been replaced by two settings.
The modem retry time (default 2 minutes) controls how often prime95
polls your modem to see if you are connected to the Internet.
The network retry time (default 60 minutes) controls how long prime95
waits after a failed attempt to contact the server.
3) A timestamp and program version number is written to the prime.log file.
4) You can now switch between HTTP-based and RPC-based PrimeNet protocols
from the Test/Primenet dialog box.
New features in Version 16.4 of prime95.exe
------------------------------------------1) Lucas-Lehmer testing output now shows percent complete.
2) Windows NT users can now set processor affinity on multi-CPU systems.
3) ECM factoring is available for small exponents. See
http://www.mersenne.org/ecm.htm for a list of exponents that
need factoring.
4) A bug that prevented 486 & Cyrix machines from factoring above 2^62
has been fixed.
5) The LockUserInfo feature no longer sends user info every time prime95
starts up.
6) A bug in setting minimized or maximized window in a shortcut to prime95
is fixed.
7) Test/Status now shows expected completion dates.
New features in Version 16.3 of prime95.exe
------------------------------------------1) The LockUserInfo=1 setting is now sent to the server so that no
member of a team can accidentally transfer the credit for work
previously performed by the team.
New features in Version 16.2 of prime95.exe
------------------------------------------1) Bug in calculating estimated time to factor a number has been fixed.
New features in Version 16.1 of prime95.exe
------------------------------------------1) Prime95 can now test exponents up to 20.5 million.
2) Prime95 can now find factors up to 2^64.
3) The program now reports to the PrimeNet server new completion dates
every 28 days (actually user adjustable from 1 to 60 days). This will
improve the reclaiming of exponents that are not being actively tested.
4) The program now reports the current iteration number to the server
for more informative status reports.
1) Command line arguments are now available to help you run the program
on your co-worker's machines!
New features in Version 12 of prime95.exe
----------------------------------------1) The program is faster! Expect to see improvements of 8 to 15%.
The faster your CPU, the more improvement you should notice.
The program also uses less memory.
2) There are now 5 separate hour-long self tests - one for each
possible FFT length. You will run one of the new one-hour
self tests even if you passed the self test in the previous version.
3) The program can now test exponents as high as 2,630,000!
4) The user interface has changed.
a) You no longer enter a 3 or 4 digit range. Rather you enter
an explicit starting and stopping point. For example, in
the previous version you would enter 1234 for the range.
In this version you enter a starting point of 1234000 and
an ending point of 1234999.
This makes it much easier to "check out" just part of a range.
It also makes it easier to split a range among two or more
machines.
b) The "Only Find Factors" checkbox has been replaced. Use
the Range / Factor menu choice instead.
c) The Range / Double Check menu choice has been added for those
of you who are double checking previously checked exponents.
d) The Advanced / Password menu choice is now used to activate
the rest of the Advanced menu.
5) The program now performs two new error checks every iteration! These
will help guard against memory errors or "cosmic ray" errors.
These new checks will not catch all such problems but should catch the
vast majority.
New features in Version 10 of prime95.exe
----------------------------------------1) The program will now undergo an hour long self-test before
running any Lucas-Lehmer tests in your selected range.
This self-test is also available from the menus. You might
want to run this when you install new hardware or device
drivers.
2) You can now get a status report on your range. Choose Range
Status from the menus to get a report on the number of Mersenne
numbers left to test, expected time to completion, etc. This
information is also displayed whenever you choose a new range
with Range Start or Range Next.
3) The File menu has been renamed Range - it seems clearer to beginners.
4) The Advanced menu has been disabled. You must read the readme.txt
file to learn how to activate it. This is designed to keep novice
users out of trouble. There is no reason, other than curiosity, for
you to use any of the Advanced menu choices.
5) A bug in stopping and continuing when factoring in Version 8 has
been fixed.
New features in Version 8 of prime95.exe
----------------------------------------
1) Factoring speed has been doubled for Pentiums. 486 machines will
notice a 15% improvement when factoring.
2) The program will now automatically determine your CPU type and speed.
This information is used in choosing the optimal factoring algorithm.