[lycaon]

Thought I'd start a topic for SETI@Home tweaks that could be kept for only Team MacNN.

Found a nice little process utility called Peek-a-Boo that let's you assign CPU time priorities to your processes (saw it in the MacFixIt Software Library). Keeps SETI@Home chugging along nicely, even while in the background. Especially useful when you're browsing the web. I like the CPU% History windows.

And, yes, I paid the $20US ('cause I'm honest).

[wlonh]

well my friend, that is a well-known tweakaroo, and i myself posted it months ago in that big seti thread in the third-party softw forum...

nice work though

[lycaon]

Does it help any to put the client on the RAM disk?

[wlonh]

not the client, but the Seti@home data folder should be put there... it can be found in the Application Support folder in your System Folder...

make a RAM disk about 1M, copy the Seti@home data folder to it, make an alias of the folder, place the alias in the Applications support folder after removing the original Seti@home data folder

zoom zoom (well a bit more, anyway)

[lycaon]

Thanks, I already had the data folder on my RAM disk. I was just wondering if having the client on the RAM disk would help the screensaver option load faster. But from reading the documentation, that doesn't seem to apply either. Looks like that aspect gets preloaded with the other INIT's. So it's already in RAM. Oh well. Will have to search harder for more tweaks. BTW, using Reaper doesn't seem to affect the client; looks like it doesn't move beyond using a certain amount of RAM anyways. And, yes, I'm doing the windowshade and 256 colours too.

[wlonh]

well it seems you have it tweaked as far as it will go

but hey, it is nice to have our own forum, somewhat separate from the other fora... kinda makes it seem more clubby, don;t you think?

[lycaon]

Actually, I used my Script Editor to quit the Finder as well. Then I hid the editor (need it later to activate the Finder).

So all I had running was the hidden Script Editor, Peek-a-boo, and SETI@Home in front and window-shaded. That seemed to flatten and max the CPU%.

That's all I can do, short of upgrading (when are those SMP G4's coming out?).

I'll have to try letting it run an entire W/U on that setup tomorrow when I'm at work and see what kind of time I can get.

p.s. now what do I call this? An addiction? Maybe obssession� perhaps I'll just call it my SETI fetish.

[wlonh]

i think you will do better if you run seti in screensaver mode and set to go to blank screen after one minute, rather than windowshaded and as app in background


btw, my name at MacFixit fora is nycdewd, but i don't post there much... just when i want to start trouble

[lycaon]

Just when you want to cause trouble? Then I'm surprised that you don't post there all the time!

Regarding the screensaver, I can see that that would improve the W/U processing time, but it doesn't do much for my catching up to everyone else.

[wlonh]

yeah that's true... you need to buy more Macs

c'mon, be a sport and catch up

[lycaon]

Buy more Macs?! I wish I could.

Just helped a good friend buy her first computer (it's a 350mhz iMac) and that's got me so far into debt, I don't know if I'll ever see the other side (I know, I'm being overly-dramatic ). But she's pretty sharp and should go pretty far. As soon as she's up to speed and comfortable with her iMac, I'll try to get her to join Team MacNN.

Anyways, my wallet was just saying to me the other day, "What's going on?!!! My belly's empty. I could sure do with a nice meal of $20's to fill me up". And I says, "Well, dear friend, I'm afraid that you'll have to do without for a while". So I'm gonna have to do the best that I can with this here Mac. Luckily, I don't work with any other CPU intensive programs, so SETI should get most of it. And now that I can control the amount of time that my browser gets�

But don't worry, if I can get my hands on more Macs, I'll slap Team MacNN stickers on 'em all!

[DocWest]

I usually just run SETI overnight, so before I go to bed, I change color depth to 256, launch peek a boo and SETI, kill every process except SETI@Home (including Finder and Peek a boo last), make it go to screensaver and blank after 1 min.
I have the energy settings control panel kill the hard drive after 30 mins, so it's really quiet. (I use a RAM disk so it doesn't need the hard drive)
The unit is usually finished when I wake up.
This way I get units done in approx 10.5 hours on my iMac DV. If anyone can get units done any faster on an iMac DV, tell me please.

[lycaon]

Hello Doc,

After careful observation, I'd have to agree with wlonh that the plain old screensaver mode set to blank after the minute is the speediest. Killing the Finder and Peek-a-Boo doesn't seem necessary. And if you're using the blank screensaver overnight, I don't think that the colour depth should make any difference. The window-shade and 256 colour tricks should only matter when the display is up and running.

Try this to see what I mean:
With Peek-a-Boo, open up a CPU% History window for SETI.
Then switch to the screensaver for a bit (maybe 2 minutes)
Then bring the screen to life and check SETI's CPU% History.
You should see that the CPU time for SETI is pretty much maxed out.

Those are my results, even with all other apps still up. I DO have SETI's priority set to high, with various other medium to low settings for the other apps (Finder set to normal).

This is on my G4 400MHZ PCI, which MHZ-wise is the same as yours, so should provide similar results.

Do you have Norton Utilities on your iMac? If so, then you should change some settings in your FileSaver control panel. I disabled the "After xx minutes idle" options in the Scan and Update Schedule tabs. Otherwise, FileSaver will run periodically while you're asleep, thus taking precious CPU time away from your SETI. It would also make your HD spin up.

Also watch out for other similar scheduled processes like Sherlock's Update Index options. They could be stealing away CPU time as you lay peacefully in dreamland.

That's all I've got for now. Hope these observations help you out.

[wlonh]

now that was a good post

[lycaon]

wlonh,

That's 'cause my "let's get serious" hat goes on when I'm trying to help other people (as opposed to the clown's hat that I put on when I'm the one asking questions).

[Arty50]

When the RAM disk tweak was mentioned earlier, it was said the Data folder should be in the Application Support Folder. I just installed SETI a couple of days ago and my Data folder is in my Pref's folder. Should I move it to the AppSup folder, or place the alias in the Pref's folder?

[wlonh]

that info is valid if you have MacOS 9.x.x on your Mac, the location for the SETI@home data is in the Application Support folder... if no OS 9, then no worries about where the data folder is

i just assume that at this point anyone who can run OS 9 is running it

[slboett]

Yes, just use the blank screensaver option and your times will be about as good as is possible...
Before Lon had ot go and recruit new members, I used to hold the lowest time/unit honors -

Scott

[Arty50]

Thanks wlonh. No OS9 yet. I'm a recent college grad (aka jobless). I should land a position soon and then make the upgrade.

My first work unit is done. Yeah! The second should finish in the next couple of hours. The tweaks went in to my rev.A iMac 1/3 of the way into it. Should be better than 20 hours for my first. Geez. The third will be the true test.

Thank you all for this team. Let's kick some PC a**. Now, if I could just get my hands on a quad G4. Heh. Heh. Heh.

[lycaon]

97 members???
Wasn't Team MacNN up to 100 before? Hmmm� and just as the team was approaching 20,000 W/U's.

btw, wlonh, thanks for the performance tweaks. I'm getting pretty decent W/U times.

p.s. hey Doc, I'm catching up to you!

p.p.s. Scott, you're so sloooow.

[This message has been edited by lycaon (edited 06-29-2000).]