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coolmacdude · May 22, 2003, 09:57 PM

It seems to me that SETI could improve its results tremendously by adding support for Altivec and SSE/other things on x86 processors. Yet they continue to refuse to do this. I know they have the bandwidth issue, but their languishing software is continually driving more people away from SETI because they feel their CPU time can be better utilized by other projects. Will they ever come around and provide better clients?

mikkyo · May 22, 2003, 10:10 PM

Originally posted by coolmacdude:
Will they ever come around and provide better clients?

No.
They would crunch through all their data in weeks and then have to sit idle for months while the new stuff came in.
Switch to F@H.

coolmacdude · May 23, 2003, 02:19 AM

I for one, am definitely not switching. I was just looking for some more insight and discussion into the situation.

Shaktai · May 23, 2003, 04:35 AM

Originally posted by coolmacdude:
I for one, am definitely not switching. I was just looking for some more insight and discussion into the situation.

The current SETI is not likely to ever be optimized further. Most of their resources are going into the development of BOINC as a core platform for Astropulse and Southern Hemisphere (SETI 2).

Now because BOINC is open source, it is difficult to know how it will evolve. There is always the possibility that BOINC or certain projects running on it, might be optimized, but at this point no one knows. The current SETI will almost certainly never be.

bracken · 09:09 PM

Originally posted by coolmacdude:
It seems to me that SETI could improve its results tremendously by adding support for Altivec and SSE/other things on x86 processors. Yet they continue to refuse to do this. I know they have the bandwidth issue, but their languishing software is continually driving more people away from SETI because they feel their CPU time can be better utilized by other projects. Will they ever come around and provide better clients?

It's not in their best interest to optimize it. Then they'd run out of data for people to crunch and their sponsors are out the door.

SETI is a scam run by scamartists. Once E.T. is found I'll admit I'm wrong and apologize profusely.

jcarr · May 23, 2003, 02:03 PM

I have not looked at SETI in a while, but was thinking about running the command line version on my dual 867MHz G4.

Do I still need to run two clients (one for each processor), or has it (Darwin client v3.03) been optimized for SMP?

Just curous...

reader50 · May 23, 2003, 03:31 PM

Two clients.

Capt Shane · May 23, 2003, 07:01 PM

I think they would just have people repeat the data files again. AThey would never "run out".

Microns · May 24, 2003, 07:53 PM

Originally posted by coolmacdude:
It seems to me that SETI could improve its results tremendously by adding support for Altivec and SSE/other things on x86 processors. Yet they continue to refuse to do this. I know they have the bandwidth issue, but their languishing software is continually driving more people away from SETI because they feel their CPU time can be better utilized by other projects. Will they ever come around and provide better clients?

Expect the IBM970 CPU to be altivec hardware.

Expect new Macs to have the IBM970 CPU.

Expect an altivec version of the new BOINC seti client.

Expect to crunch many WUs/day.

Shaktai · May 24, 2003, 08:47 PM

Originally posted by Microns:
Expect an altivec version of the new BOINC seti client.

Now that would be nice. BOINC with altivec, especially if there 970s to run it on. Only time will tell, though I am hoping.