It doesn't matter whether you run it as an application or as a screen saver when it comes to processor usage. When it's run as an application, it doesn't take any more CPU power to run as it does with a blank screen screen saver unless you have it maximized and displaying graphics. So, as long as it's minimized, you might as well just run it at all times. On your PC systems, though, I'd recommend running the command-line client if you aren't already. It's a bit more efficient than the graphical client, and you can use SETISpy or some similar program to take it off your taskbar if you don't want it on there. If you've already put on the 10.1 patch for Mac OS X, I don't really know what else to suggest except booting up to OS 9 when you plan to leave your system for a while to run SETI@home. It's a pain, but until they either optimize the client better or make more performance fixes for OS X, I don't see how it's going to get any faster. Compaq might not have wanted to use the K6-III in laptops that much because it was more expensive than the K6-2 and, perhaps more importantly for laptops, needed somewhat more power and a lot more cooling due to its on-die L2 cache.
Evan At 03:06 PM 12/25/2001 -0500, you wrote: >I stand corrected on the Athlon issue--force of habit when thinking about >AMD, inattention to detail, etc. The 380 MHz CPU chip is indeed a K6, >actually a -III, which I think was a rarely used chip that Compaq, maker of >my Win laptop, seemed not to want to pursue despite its putative advantages >over the -II. > >The slowdown is essentially identical under OS X v.10 and v.10.1, which I >just installed, discovered to be just as slow as v.10, and was prompted to >write about. > >Thanks to all who have responded. I had been letting seti@home run as a >screensaver because my computers are idle most of the time and the one >minute the program spends running the graphics before screen-blanking is a >tiny fraction of the typical duty cycle, and because I had thought >(incorrectly?) that if it runs as an app, it won't blank the screen (though >the screen goes dark due to Windows' own conservation measures, I've been >under the impression that a running app doesn't know this and continues to >produce a graphics output, thus slowing down its pure computational >function. Not so?) I'll have to look into this. I'll run a unit or two on >each machine as an app and see what happens. > >Thanks again, > >--howard (1822 work units and counting) > >----- Original Message ----- >From: Evan T. Kaiser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Sent: Tuesday, December 25, 2001 11:56 AM >Subject: Re: S-L-O-W MacOS X performance! > > > > > > Did you patch it to version 10.1 (or whatever the newest iteration of OS X > > is) yet? I know the original release of OS X had pretty miserable > > performance with a lot of stuff, native OS X applications I believe, but > > read that the newer revisions fixed at least some of those early problems. > > If you've already patched it all the way up, I don't know what else to say > > except to echo t-pot's suggestion that you should just run SETI@home all > > the time rather than just as a screen saver. You mentioned already that > > you're running a blank screen saver instead of displaying the SETI@home > > progress, which is good, because using the actual SETI@home screen saver > > sucks up a lot of CPU just displaying the graphics. > > By the way, I doubt heavily that your 380MHz AMD machine is an Athlon, but > > is probably a K6-2. > > > > Evan > > >== >Unsubscribe instructions: http://www.talkspace.net/mlists/setiathome.html >This list sponsored by talkspace.net: building space communities online. >Mailing list services provided by klx.communications -- www.klx.com == Unsubscribe instructions: http://www.talkspace.net/mlists/setiathome.html This list sponsored by talkspace.net: building space communities online. Mailing list services provided by klx.communications -- www.klx.com
