I have 25GB RAM free and 5 cores free, why is Boinc telling me it can't fit in another 2GB task?

I have:
24 cores (19 are running QuChemPedia tasks)
40GB RAM (15GB used)

These numbers add up to it thinking each task uses 2GB, instead of looking at what it's actually using. Could something be tweaked on the server perhaps?

Hey Peter. I can't help you with your VM as I have given up trying to deal with them. That virtualization stuff is pretty complex and very ressource demanding. On my two Ryzen 9's I installed one Mint and one Ubuntu Linux on fast USB sticks. When I support projects that run better under Linux I just boot those PC's from the USB sticks and run BOINC from there, too. Works nicely. You could propably run 24 tasks at once without problem if your CPU has sufficient level 3 cache as I just learned the other day. My Ryzen 9 3900X have 64 mb which is sufficient. Other projects which run better under Linux are Universe and TNGrid. Possibly also others.

Hey Peter. I can't help you with your VM as I have given up trying to deal with them. That virtualization stuff is pretty complex and very ressource demanding. On my two Ryzen 9's I installed one Mint and one Ubuntu Linux on fast USB sticks. When I support projects that run better under Linux I just boot those PC's from the USB sticks and run BOINC from there, too. Works nicely. You could propably run 24 tasks at once without problem if your CPU has sufficient level 3 cache as I just learned the other day. My Ryzen 9 3900X have 64 mb which is sufficient. Other projects which run better under Linux are Universe and TNGrid. Possibly also others.

I've had a go at Linux twice, I'm just not geeky enough to understand it. A million steps just to install one program, and constantly bombarded with security on my own bloody machine. Forget it, I shall always be a Windows user, logged in as root!!! Amazing, I looked up how to do that on Linux and the answers were "don't" and "you can't". I give up. I couldn't even edit a config file for Boinc because I wasn't allowed!

For some reason this forum didn't email me when you replied. I'm subscribed to the thread, and I've set it to email me immediately, just like every other project. Do you get notifications by email?

No I do not. But I never asked for them either.

When it comes to Linux, which distro did you try, Ubuntu? I know Linux can be pain in the butt. As a Windows user you are used to how certain things are done. To type in any system change via the Terminal is somewhat 1980′s. What makes it less complicated is that once you have set it up it works. My favourite distro is Mint which resembles Windows in a lot of ways. When you install it choose "Mate" which doesn¹t install a lot of programs which you won′t use anyway. One advantage over Ubuntu is that you can edit the app_config.xml and propably also all other files of BOINC without having to edit permissions. Meanwhile BOINC manager is already included in the software library where you can install it from without any typing. There is also a BOINC meta package for cuda or AMD OpenCL-savvy available which should set up your GPU for optimum use. I havent tried those yet but I am sure they work.

If you need a tool to limit your Intel′s CPU frequency to keep the temperature down use "cpupower-gui" which is also available in the library, "cpu-x" shows you all your hardware information like temp, ram usage and so fourth. Nvidia drivers are found under driver settings. Make sure the open source xorg driver is not selected and choose nvidia driver 470 instead which is known to run stable.

And than you are good to go... I suggest you install it on a USB 3.x stick (16 gb or bigger is enough) or external SSD so it doesn¹t interfere with your Windows installation in any way.