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Avenir · May 30, 2001, 04:10 AM

While I am not a newbie to MacNN, I just signed up for SETI tonight (and joined the MacNN team, of course) and I have some questions. Mainly, what's the best way to run SETI? Meaning, if I have it hidden, or in the background, does it run as fast as if I have it in the forefront or the screen saver on? I have a G4 PB 500 and enough RAM to leave it running 24/7 pretty much, but I'm wondering if it is making any progress at all in the background. Sorry for such basic questions, but I want to help the best I can.

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avenir@mac.com | 3932806 | Avenirx
http://www.avenirex.com

zac4mac · May 30, 2001, 09:10 AM

The best settings seem to be:
screensaver, blank screen in one minute.
set screen to 640x480/256 colors.

It is so slow now, those really don't have much impact anymore.

Scotttheking · May 30, 2001, 09:58 AM

But that renders the comp useless.
Just leave it on what you have now.
But set the screensaver for 5 or 10 mins, blank at 10 mins, and run it is an application.

stephend · May 30, 2001, 11:12 AM

If you have enough RAM copy the data to a RAM disk in 9.1.

Open the System Folder:Application Support folder
Make an alias of the Seti folder
Copy the actual folder to the RAM disk (you will need one sized to 500-600K)
Delete the old copy in the system folder so there is just the alias
start the application.

This will improve times about 20%

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-- It's not the heat, it's the humidity --

reader50 · May 30, 2001, 09:19 PM

Beware running it in the background when you are away from your computer, it only grabs about 5% of the CPU and hardly does anything. You can avoid this by always leaving it in the foreground (windowshaded), or by using it as a screensaver.

Personally, I run it all the time as a windowshaded application. When I'm using my G4, it still does crunch a little in the background. When I leave the G4, I bring SETI to the foreground to speed things up.

Oh, and when I forget to bring SETI to the foreground, and find it some hours later, that is when the neighbors complain about the screaming & furniture busting taking place over here.

ddiokno · May 30, 2001, 10:11 PM

Hi Avenir,
Welcome to Team MacNN!

You've got a lot of great suggestions here! I personally leave all of my machines on 24/7 so they can crunch when I am not around. I also have it running in the background when I am working ( in the windowshade mode, most naturally).
In your energy saver control panel, you'll also want to make sure that you have your hard drive set to never spin down (I have my screen set to turn off). I also set a sleep corner, so if I know that I am leaving my desk, I can move the cursor over to the corner and have seti screensaver start up. I have the screen set to go blank after one minute (the less time it is displaying graphics, the better --- I only wish it had a setting on the PC to blank the screen after zero minutes ***immediately***).
again, WELCOME!!!

dave

imacaholic · Jun 3, 2001, 12:05 PM

I always use a RAM disk. If you don't, all the reading and writing of data to the actual hard disk can cause more wear and tear than needed on the platters. Create a RAM Disk of about 1 MB in the Memory control panel. Make sure that you enable the "Save on shutdown" option. Copy your "SETI@home Data" folder from your application support folder in your system folder to your brand new RAM disk. Once it's copied, rename the data folder in your prefs folder "Old SETI@home Data." Make an alias of the folder on your RAM Disk and copy it to your application support folder. Make sure it's still called "SETI@home Data." You're all set. One word of caution: The only time that your RAM disk is backed up is when you shut down or restart. So, if your machine freezes, all of the work you will have completed will be lost, and you'll have to start over. If your machine is not stable, don't try this. Otherwise, give it a shot and see if it speeds you up a little. Another shareware program called RAMBunctious can do the same thing, but it is easily customized to save at specific intervals so you won't lose data if your system crashes. Hope this helps. Cheers.

Scotttheking · Jun 3, 2001, 05:10 PM

Where does one get this RAMBunctious?
I could use it, as long as it stays out of my way.
SUM doesn't work well for ram backups, as it is too slow doing it, and you can't use the comp while it is done.

imacaholic · Jun 3, 2001, 07:47 PM

I think it will work with SUM. SUM is pretty RAM disk savvy. RAMBunctious is an application, so it will have to be allowed to run in the background. Here is the URL, see what you think. Cheers.
http://www.clarkwoodsoftware.com/rambunctious/

krove · Jun 5, 2001, 12:40 AM

Yes, do make sure that you set your screen to go blank after a specified time as the processor time to make the graphs on the monitor do eat away at possible seti unit crunching.

Bockie · Jun 5, 2001, 10:04 AM

The best technique that I have found is to run SETI on a RAM disk. I run it as a windowshaded-application with monitor settings at 640x480 / 256 Grays. Also, have it set as your screensaver, set it to go to blank screen after 1 min. Whenever you leave your computer, use the hot keys to change the windowshaded application to screensaver mode. I've found SUM unnecessary if you have a dedicated Internet connection.