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Enhanced Optimized (Page 10)
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Knightrider
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Aug 16, 2006, 11:36 AM
 
Originally Posted by alexkan
Soooo...is anyone thinking of getting a Mac Pro anytime in the near future?
If anyone is, they might want to check this out.

K.
     
owlsoup
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Aug 17, 2006, 01:15 PM
 
One of my machines has stopped grabbing units from SETI and Einstein. The only other project I'm running is SIMAP, which is assigned half time, but for the past three days it's the only project running in BOINC manager. Same behavior after quitting app and restarting machine. Any ideas why only one of my machines would do this?
     
halimedia
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Aug 17, 2006, 01:40 PM
 
What exact values have you assigned as resource shares for each of the projects? What are the affected machine's prefs for 'Switch between applications every...'? Are all your machines crunching all three projects? SETI working fine here; can't comment about Einstein.
     
owlsoup
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Aug 17, 2006, 01:53 PM
 
I have two machines, each with resource shares of SETI:100, Einstein:100 and SIMAP:50. They've both been crunching all three projects, but my G4 suddenly stopped grabbing work units for SETI and Einstein. Preferences are default for both machines... "switch between apps every 60 min."
     
Knightrider
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Aug 17, 2006, 02:10 PM
 
Originally Posted by owlsoup
One of my machines has stopped grabbing units from SETI and Einstein.
Try resetting each of the projects.

K.
     
halimedia
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Aug 17, 2006, 02:28 PM
 
Originally Posted by Knightrider
Try resetting each of the projects.
I agree, resetting looks like your best option. Seems like all your settings are OK...

I just had a weird SETI-experience myself: on a DP G5, I had one WU crunch for over 600 (!) hours before I noticed it and re-started BOINC. Interestingly, the WU completed fine and quickly thereafter, showing a normal WU CPU-time. All the while (i.e. during those 600+ hours), the other active thread kept crunching properly. Strange...
     
Knightrider
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Aug 17, 2006, 03:00 PM
 
Originally Posted by halimedia
I had one WU crunch for over 600 (!) hours
And mega credits ?

K.
     
gorbag
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Aug 18, 2006, 09:50 AM
 
Originally Posted by halimedia
I just had a weird SETI-experience myself: on a DP G5, I had one WU crunch for over 600 (!) hours before I noticed it and re-started BOINC. Interestingly, the WU completed fine and quickly thereafter, showing a normal WU CPU-time. All the while (i.e. during those 600+ hours), the other active thread kept crunching properly. Strange...
I've seen this too (DP 2.5 G5); occasionally a unit will keep crunching forever but make no progress. Suspending and restarting the unit clears it. (or killing the seti worker - it automatically restarts). They've all been recent - within the last 2-3 weeks, maybe a total of 4 times now. Becuase this also increases the interval at which a machine reports units back to HQ, I've taken to checking my machines on the seti accounts page daily to see which haven't reported for 48 hours or more, this seems to indicate the problem has occured on that machine.
     
owlsoup
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Aug 18, 2006, 10:49 AM
 
Resetting doesn't help. The messages say "resetting project, rescheduling CPU-exit tasks" -- but it's not downloading any new work units for SETI or Einstein.
     
Knightrider
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Aug 18, 2006, 12:12 PM
 
Originally Posted by owlsoup
Resetting doesn't help. The messages say "resetting project, rescheduling CPU-exit tasks" -- but it's not downloading any new work units for SETI or Einstein.
Did you check the settings in the 'Activity' dropdown menu ?

K.
     
Gecko_r7
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Aug 18, 2006, 09:41 PM
 
Originally Posted by alexkan
On a related note, I've heard the line on the main SETI forums about GPUs not being accurate enough for SETI computation to want to plug GPUFFTW into SETI just to prove them wrong. The only problem is that the authors don't explicitly mention OS X support, and if I thought remotely testing/debugging Intel binaries was hard, getting this working can't be any easier. Also, not everyone is going to have the kinds of graphics cards that will actually be useful for this.
The GPU possibilities indeed are exciting, but call me a die-hard and the eternal optimist, but I really believe the rumors of the death of PPC are grossly exaggerated...at least in the context of S@H crunching (reminds of the scene in MP's, The Holy Grail)

I was just checking for some recent updates/articles re: compilers for CBE (Cell broadband engine).

Came across this:
Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.
linuxoncell-GNU

If S@H can be run on PS3 (or any CBE server blade/PCI-E board (Cell Broadband Engine (BE) Processor Solutions) , it may be the crunch-box of all crunch boxes to beat.
At @ $600.00, there are probably quite a few of us who'd "pony-up". Heck, I might even play a game or two finally.

GPUs are exciting, but THIS could really be a coup d' etat over X86......and by PPC.
Can you imagine the stir this would generate the first time a CBE cruncher appeared on the Seti computer list.
Oh my!

Alex: Is this just a fantasy or is there enough software already available for this to be possible?
( Last edited by Gecko_r7; Aug 18, 2006 at 11:28 PM. )
     
owlsoup
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Aug 19, 2006, 01:57 PM
 
Activity drop menu has run and network activity based on preferences. All my project prefs are set to the defaults. I haven't changed anything on either machine, I'm not sure why one is behaving differently. Could it be that SIMAP is racking up too many WUs so when SETI and Einstein check in, they don't have any room to schedule.
     
Knightrider
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Aug 19, 2006, 03:01 PM
 
Originally Posted by owlsoup
Activity drop menu has run and network activity based on preferences. All my project prefs are set to the defaults. I haven't changed anything on either machine, I'm not sure why one is behaving differently. Could it be that SIMAP is racking up too many WUs so when SETI and Einstein check in, they don't have any room to schedule.
Set the activity to 'run always' and 'network activity always available'. Just highlite it and clik your mouse so a tick appear next to it. See if that makes a difference or not.

K.
     
Karl Schimanek
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Aug 20, 2006, 12:43 PM
 
Originally Posted by Gecko_r7
The GPU possibilities indeed are exciting, but call me a die-hard and the eternal optimist, but I really believe the rumors of the death of PPC are grossly exaggerated...at least in the context of S@H crunching (reminds of the scene in MP's, The Holy Grail)

I was just checking for some recent updates/articles re: compilers for CBE (Cell broadband engine).

Came across this:
Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.
linuxoncell-GNU

If S@H can be run on PS3 (or any CBE server blade/PCI-E board (Cell Broadband Engine (BE) Processor Solutions) , it may be the crunch-box of all crunch boxes to beat.
At @ $600.00, there are probably quite a few of us who'd "pony-up". Heck, I might even play a game or two finally.

GPUs are exciting, but THIS could really be a coup d' etat over X86......and by PPC.
Can you imagine the stir this would generate the first time a CBE cruncher appeared on the Seti computer list.
Oh my!

Alex: Is this just a fantasy or is there enough software already available for this to be possible?
Mac OS X on CELL will rock, too
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lr-R4bUZIQw
     
Gecko_r7
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Aug 20, 2006, 01:04 PM
 
Originally Posted by Karl Schimanek
Mac OS X on CELL will rock, too
YouTube - Video of Cell rendering raytracing
Hi Karl.
VERY interesting. The interviewer was rather lame, but the comments made by Cell's Proj. Mgr. about "running Linux and other STANDARD OSs...was revealing. While the monitor used in the rendering demo was a Mac display, I'd assume the demo was running on Linux. Do you think same? I also read a couple of days ago that Yellow Dog will offer a Cell-compat Linux distro.

Cheers!
     
Karl Schimanek
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Aug 20, 2006, 02:16 PM
 
I can see the Apple at the left top of the display/desktop and saw the Finder icon in the dock
Yellow Dog and CELL: Cell-based coprocessor card runs Linux
Download-Link for the youtube-vid: http://youtube.com/get_video?video_i...hr4za0jrfjNyeL

Regards
Karl

P.S. New docs about the PPC970MP and CPC945 Bridge and Memory Controller:
PPCNUX - F�rderverein f�r PowerPC und Unix-Derivate - IBM ver�ffentlicht PPC 970MP und CPC945 Dokumentation (german only, at the bottom are the links
     
owlsoup
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Aug 20, 2006, 02:57 PM
 
Originally Posted by Knightrider
Set the activity to 'run always' and 'network activity always available'. Just highlite it and clik your mouse so a tick appear next to it. See if that makes a difference or not.

K.
Didn't help. Should I try to delete my .plist or something?
     
halimedia
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Aug 20, 2006, 05:03 PM
 
Originally Posted by Karl Schimanek
Mac OS X on CELL will rock, too
YouTube - Video of Cell rendering raytracing
Thanks for sharing this, Karl! Can you imagine SETI @ 40x G5 performance? That would make one hell of an upgrade card
     
Knightrider
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Aug 20, 2006, 05:05 PM
 
Originally Posted by owlsoup
Didn't help. Should I try to delete my .plist or something?
Last try, is to make sure your prefs are set not to high - not to low viz memory and disk space etc. If you uninstall, get it all, use spotlight to find the files, then start over again with a fresh install of the latest version.

K.


.
     
Knightrider
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Aug 20, 2006, 05:10 PM
 
Originally Posted by Karl Schimanek
I can see the Apple at the left top of the display/desktop and saw the Finder icon in the dock
I saw the Mac dock on the screen. Think I will put the MacPro on hold.


K.
     
Karl Schimanek
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Aug 20, 2006, 05:23 PM
 
owlsoup, have you tried to repair permissions?

And about CELL, nothing new:
http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2005/8/4/878

Regards
Karl
     
alexkan
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Aug 21, 2006, 03:18 AM
 
It looks like I'm going to have to shelve GPUFFTW for now, at least until ATI_draw_buffers/ARB_draw_buffers is supported in OS X.

Originally Posted by Gecko_r7
The GPU possibilities indeed are exciting, but call me a die-hard and the eternal optimist, but I really believe the rumors of the death of PPC are grossly exaggerated...at least in the context of S@H crunching (reminds of the scene in MP's, The Holy Grail)

I was just checking for some recent updates/articles re: compilers for CBE (Cell broadband engine).

Came across this:
Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.
linuxoncell-GNU

If S@H can be run on PS3 (or any CBE server blade/PCI-E board (Cell Broadband Engine (BE) Processor Solutions) , it may be the crunch-box of all crunch boxes to beat.
At @ $600.00, there are probably quite a few of us who'd "pony-up". Heck, I might even play a game or two finally.

GPUs are exciting, but THIS could really be a coup d' etat over X86......and by PPC.
Can you imagine the stir this would generate the first time a CBE cruncher appeared on the Seti computer list.
Oh my!

Alex: Is this just a fantasy or is there enough software already available for this to be possible?
Well, there is software available, but what I've done for SETI so far is nowhere near what it would take to get SETI to scale across 8 SPEs. Note, for example, that no one has tried to multithread SETI or replace its FFTs with anything that they've written themselves. Perhaps François Piednoel will finish his SSE4 structure-of-structure FFT if he ever comes back to the main SETI boards, but the fact remains that SETI, especially Enhanced, is about a lot more than large FFTs--90+ GFLOPS for that case is great, but what about the other 75% of WU processing?

Compounding the problem is the fact that I can't program for machines that I can't test on. The fact that you have Intel crunchers at all is due to the generosity of halimedia, who's given me remote access to one of his machines. If one of you feels like buying a CBE blade server for real-world testing, then I might take a look, but even then there's no guarantee that I'd be up to the task.

In summary, the possibility is there, but I wouldn't get my hopes up.
     
halimedia
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Aug 21, 2006, 08:12 AM
 
Originally Posted by alexkan
Well, there is software available, but what I've done for SETI so far is nowhere near what it would take to get SETI to scale across 8 SPEs. Note, for example, that no one has tried to multithread SETI or replace its FFTs with anything that they've written themselves.
Would it really be required to spin-off multiple threads from one calculation, or could you simply run 8 (or even 9) parallel calculations managed by the boinc client? Or does the PPE simply act as the dispatcher and the CBE as a whole does not advertise itself to the OS as a multi-core hardware platform?

One way or another, it will be interesting to see what the PS3s will allow you to run. Hope it won't be anything like Xbox 360. Does anyone have current info about PS3 ship dates?
     
Gecko_r7
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Aug 21, 2006, 12:04 PM
 
Originally Posted by alexkan
Well, there is software available, but what I've done for SETI so far is nowhere near what it would take to get SETI to scale across 8 SPEs.
Compounding the problem is the fact that I can't program for machines that I can't test on. If one of you feels like buying a CBE blade server for real-world testing, then I might take a look, but even then there's no guarantee that I'd be up to the task.
Thanks Alex! That blade is certainly out of my budget as well. I'd have to get by w/ a lowly PS3. This assumes that it could even have/"be granted" the ability to run OSX or a linux distro that you could work with. Hardware & OS aside however, it sounds like you'd basically have to hand-write an entire S@H program to work w/CBE. I think for that kind of effort, at the very least, we'd have to make certain you had access to the hardware you'd need if it's ever shown to be possible.

Don't worry, hopes aren't dashed...just in better perspective. Thanks!

Halimedia: Latest update I saw was Nov 17th at $499.00 20GB HD & $599.00 60GB HD
I hope PS3 will somehow permit a std OS to run on it. Such a shame to see all that power and potential used just to play games, right?
( Last edited by Gecko_r7; Aug 21, 2006 at 12:13 PM. )
     
Karl Schimanek
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Aug 21, 2006, 01:15 PM
 
I have Pre-Ordered one. I hobe I will get one at 17th November
Launch date in Japan is the 11th.
And btw, I know someone how has a CELL-system for quite a while Cell could offer dramatic boost for scientific computing - Topic Powered by eve community

BA is also a AltiVec guru

EDIT: More CELL docs; Power.org - Cell Developer Corner
( Last edited by Karl Schimanek; Aug 21, 2006 at 04:42 PM. )
     
halimedia
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Aug 22, 2006, 08:16 AM
 
I just found a non-anonymous Mac Pro in the top-1000 list. I wrote to the owner and alerted him to the existence of Alex' workers. Let's see if he joins us here...
     
beadman
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Aug 22, 2006, 11:12 AM
 
I was just looking at the top computers also, and found the top MacBookPro was #152 with a RAC of 1135.31. My current MBP RAC is 579.53 for SETI and 533.62 for Einstein on a 100/100 share basis. I should probably make my share ration 99/1 and then I could be in the top 200 computers with a laptop!

beadman
     
Tomohisa
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Aug 23, 2006, 02:07 PM
 
Hi beadman,
As I see no others around, I guess it's my MBP(15'/2.16GHz/2GB), which is running S@H 100 %.
With great help with Alexkan's worker, It got #97 last weekend, but its position is getting dropped as I needs to make it offline for a few hours each day now.
     
beadman
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Aug 23, 2006, 03:24 PM
 
Tomohisa:

My ~ 1100 (half SETI, half Einstein) is a result of using my computer for work 8 hours per day and 5 days per week. I usually have MS Word, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint, Safari, Eudora, iCal, Preview all active most of the day. When I look at Activity Monitor, the biggest users of CPU time are Eudora and Safari. I could switch to 100% SETI, but I think I'll stay as I am for a bit. Einstein just released a new version MacOS Intel Beta Test App 4.28 available for the Intel-based Mac that is supposed to be 10% faster than the previous version. I'm glad to see your MacBookPro doing so well in the top computer list.

Claude
     
zombie67
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Aug 23, 2006, 04:11 PM
 
Originally Posted by beadman
Tomohisa:

My ~ 1100 (half SETI, half Einstein) is a result of using my computer for work 8 hours per day and 5 days per week. I usually have MS Word, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint, Safari, Eudora, iCal, Preview all active most of the day. When I look at Activity Monitor, the biggest users of CPU time are Eudora and Safari. I could switch to 100% SETI, but I think I'll stay as I am for a bit.
Do you have BOINC set to run always, or do you have it set to not do work while computer is active? FWIW, my daily machine is a G5 Quad, and I have it set to run always since BOINC runs at a low priority compared to all the other processes. Same with my MacBook Pro, that I use when working in the office. I don't notice any performance hit for my usage.
     
tomsax
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Aug 23, 2006, 07:17 PM
 
I understand there is some interest is seeing what sort of numbers come out of a Mac Pro running the optimized S@H client.

I've been running S@H on a default Mac Pro (2.66 GHz, 1 GB) for about a week. I had a configuration setting that was limiting it to using two of the four cores. (Thanks to halimedia for helping me figure that one out.) Also, I was running the stock software, although I that was an alpha version of BOINC, 5.5.13.

I have just gone back to the release CLI version of BOINC, 5.4.9, and slid in alexkan's optimized "seti_enhanced-i386-v6.1-nographics.zip".

If you want to check out the results as they start rolling in:

Computers belonging to Tom Saxton

Results posted after 23 Aug 2006 20:27:42 UTC will be with the optimized client.
     
beadman
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Aug 23, 2006, 07:49 PM
 
Originally Posted by zombie67
Do you have BOINC set to run always, or do you have it set to not do work while computer is active? FWIW, my daily machine is a G5 Quad, and I have it set to run always since BOINC runs at a low priority compared to all the other processes. Same with my MacBook Pro, that I use when working in the office. I don't notice any performance hit for my usage.

Run always, both processors. I haven't noticed any performance hits either...even when email locks up, the other apps work fine.

beadman
     
Gecko_r7
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Aug 23, 2006, 11:49 PM
 
Originally Posted by Karl Schimanek
I have Pre-Ordered one. I hobe I will get one at 17th November
Launch date in Japan is the 11th.
And btw, I know someone how has a CELL-system for quite a while Cell could offer dramatic boost for scientific computing - Topic Powered by eve community
Well, This is certainly an interesting announcement:

"8/23/2006 PS3 client announced today. Today in Germany, Sony demoed their Folding@Home client for the PS3."

News
PS3 FAQ

Credit to Scotttheking on this forum & RAdZer0 post on the main S@H forum for the heads-up. I just dug a little further for additional info. This doesn't specify anything re: Boinc, and ability to port other distributed projects, but it certainly is a step in the right direction.
( Last edited by Gecko_r7; Aug 24, 2006 at 12:56 AM. )
     
halimedia
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Aug 24, 2006, 06:56 AM
 
Originally Posted by tomsax
If you want to check out the results as they start rolling in:

Computers belonging to Tom Saxton

Results posted after 23 Aug 2006 20:27:42 UTC will be with the optimized client.
Welcome to the community and thanks for posting this here, Tom! Interesting: your fastest 62-credit WU as of this writing took 7600s - that's about 10 minutes slower than on a quad. A few questions came to my mind:

- On the Mac Pro, are there any options for tuning processor performance in the Energy Saver pref-pane?
- Am I assuming correctly that you have two 512 MB RAM modules installed (i.e. you're using only two of the four available RAM data channels)?

Curiously,

Ron
( Last edited by halimedia; Aug 24, 2006 at 07:25 AM. )
     
halimedia
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Aug 24, 2006, 07:22 AM
 
Originally Posted by Gecko_r7
Well, This is certainly an interesting announcement:
"8/23/2006 PS3 client announced today. Today in Germany, Sony demoed their Folding@Home client for the PS3."
...
This doesn't specify anything re: Boinc, and ability to port other distributed projects, but it certainly is a step in the right direction.
Very interesting indeed! I wonder what exactly this means:
With software from Sony, the PlayStation 3 will now be able to contribute to the Folding@Home project, pushing Folding@Home a major step forward.
Doesn't sound like any more-or-less standard Linux distro running it, but rather the PS3 OS - whatever that actually is. Sure sounds like Cell will shake up the industry at least somewhat
     
tomsax
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Aug 24, 2006, 01:30 PM
 
Originally Posted by halimedia
Welcome to the community and thanks for posting this here, Tom! Interesting: your fastest 62-credit WU as of this writing took 7600s - that's about 10 minutes slower than on a quad. A few questions came to my mind:

- On the Mac Pro, are there any options for tuning processor performance in the Energy Saver pref-pane?
- Am I assuming correctly that you have two 512 MB RAM modules installed (i.e. you're using only two of the four available RAM data channels)?
Interesting that the Quad G5 is faster. Alex did say he expects more speed in v7 of his enhanced client, so maybe there's some more speed to wring out of the Core processors.

The Energy Saver CP has no performance options on the Mac Pro.

You are correct about the RAM, I'm using 2 of the 4 slots on one of the riser cards. I'm going to upgrade, but I want to wait a month to see if prices go down a bit.

In the late 80's, I was excited to get a deal on 4 MB of RAM for a Mac II for $1000. Now I'm balking about spending $1100 for 4 GB!
     
Gecko_r7
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Aug 24, 2006, 08:30 PM
 
Originally Posted by halimedia
Very interesting indeed! I wonder what exactly this means:

"With software from Sony, the PlayStation 3 will now be able to contribute to the Folding@Home project, pushing Folding@Home a major step forward."

Doesn't sound like any more-or-less standard Linux distro running it, but rather the PS3 OS - whatever that actually is.
I wonder if this references customized software they created "in house" w/ their Cell SDK?
Easy for Sony to do, may still not be possible for us if they lock the PS3 like MS has w/ the Xbox360.

We still won't know if it helps us until it's determined a workable OS can be installed.
This whole thing w/ Cell reminds me of a little tease I knew in high school......

News keeps pouring in...
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=33905

Ok...now I'm getting jealous!
( Last edited by Gecko_r7; Aug 24, 2006 at 11:02 PM. )
     
halimedia
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Aug 25, 2006, 12:50 PM
 
Originally Posted by tomsax
Interesting that the Quad G5 is faster. Alex did say he expects more speed in v7 of his enhanced client, so maybe there's some more speed to wring out of the Core processors.
Seems like the first few 62-credit WUs crunched by your Mac Pro were statistical outliers. Most of the more recent ones hover around 7000s, some quite a bit below that mark. That's definitely faster than Quad G5 performance.
The Energy Saver CP has no performance options on the Mac Pro.
Thought so. Same situation as with the Intel minis...
You are correct about the RAM, I'm using 2 of the 4 slots on one of the riser cards. I'm going to upgrade, but I want to wait a month to see if prices go down a bit.

In the late 80's, I was excited to get a deal on 4 MB of RAM for a Mac II for $1000. Now I'm balking about spending $1100 for 4 GB!
Yeah, my first upgrade was 16 MB for a PowerBook 520. Cost over 600 bucks back in 1995. It's a bit of a shame that these FB-DIMMs are so much more expensive than even ECC DDR2...

Edit: Oh, and another thing I was wondering - how hot/noisily does your Mac Pro run when crunching? My Quad makes for a very capable space heater when doing so. I recently popped by the local Apple dealership, and stressed out the 2.66 GHz Mac Pro on display there by doing a number or CPU-intensive tasks in parallel (iMovie HD-export to H.264, iDVD encoding to .dmg, QT HD playback). Even after about 15 minutes into this exercise, there wasn't much fan activity/heat/noise noticable. But then again this took place in a fairly noisy store environment...

Curiously,

Ron
( Last edited by halimedia; Aug 25, 2006 at 12:58 PM. )
     
Todd Madson
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Aug 25, 2006, 03:30 PM
 
I saw that today my G5 2.5 DP dropped to 200 in the world - yipes.
Things really are a changing.

But, I have an idea I'm going to implement tonight to try and take
care of some of these slowdowns.

My wife's G4 also got repaired finally (replaced ram and hard drive, ouch)
so that's back in my farm for the first time in months.

I still can't seem to break 2K rac, I'm currently hovering around 1700
and it stays just over or just under.

I need more horsepower!

I also found something to try on the linux box this evening - it's been
running a stock client since around the time of conversion to enhanced
and even running at 2.2 ghz it fares comparably with a G4/400 running
Alex's nographics G4 client - a 400 mhz machine working nearly as
well as a 2.2 ghz one! Heh. Alex definetely knows how to wring
all the power out of a chip I think.

I'd like one of those MacPros - it's not so much the lack of heat and
electrical consumption but the fact that it's a quad. Or a quad G5.
Any kind of quad would be good for my farm. Rambling, I know.
     
halimedia
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Aug 25, 2006, 04:16 PM
 
Todd, FWIW, Mac minis make great little crunchers and are quite affordable. Going the CoreSolo route now and upgrading to a fast CoreDuo once Merom is firmly entrenched and Yonah chips have become cheap commodity will give you a box as fast as your G5 for half the cost or less.

Beyond the crunching aspect, the Intel minis are incredibly powerful machines suitable for all sorts of purposes. IMO, the mini is the greatest product Apple has brought to market in many years. If you work with FCP a lot, they make great Qmaster render nodes, they make a perfect car PC, a suitable media center for the living room, a full-fleged webserver, router and/or firewall or the command central for your home automation system. The list goes on... Lots of possible angles for convincing a sceptical wife

HTH,

Ron
     
tomsax
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Aug 25, 2006, 04:46 PM
 
Originally Posted by halimedia
Edit: Oh, and another thing I was wondering - how hot/noisily does your Mac Pro run when crunching? My Quad makes for a very capable space heater when doing so. I recently popped by the local Apple dealership, and stressed out the 2.66 GHz Mac Pro on display there by doing a number or CPU-intensive tasks in parallel (iMovie HD-export to H.264, iDVD encoding to .dmg, QT HD playback). Even after about 15 minutes into this exercise, there wasn't much fan activity/heat/noise noticable. But then again this took place in a fairly noisy store environment...
The Mac Pro is awesome! My previous machine was a 2 GHz Dual G5. That thing produced a ton of noise and heat, totally embarrassing compared to my wife's Dell in an otherwise very quiet room.

In comparison, the Mac Pro is nearly silent. Even with all four cores at 100% continuously crunching SETI data, I can hear fan noise from her machine and there's no longer a noticeable temperature difference across the room. The most noticeable noise coming out of the Mac Pro is the hard drive when it is seeking, a pleasant sound compared to the G5's fan noise. There is just a bit of fan noise coming out of the Mac Pro, but it's very quiet.

The Mac Pro is the most satisfying upgrade I've done in 21 years of Mac ownership.
     
halimedia
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Aug 25, 2006, 04:54 PM
 
Originally Posted by tomsax
The Mac Pro is the most satisfying upgrade I've done in 21 years of Mac ownership.
Then I might have to revise my judgement of the Mac mini presented above. But I'll wait with that until Kentsfield comes to pass and eight cores find their way into the Mac Pro. Exciting times!

Edit: I guess Kentsfield is not the correct 4-core successor to Woodcrest in Mac Pros. Kentsfield will be the successor to Conroe, and as such will only be usable in single-processor configurations. Much rather, we're likely to find Tigerton, the MP-capable 4-core successor to Woodcrest, in future versions of the Mac Pro. Wikipedia has more:

Intel Core Microarchitecture - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
( Last edited by halimedia; Aug 27, 2006 at 08:10 AM. )
     
Todd Madson
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Aug 29, 2006, 10:57 AM
 
I actually use my G5 for music apps a lot - lots of virtual synthesizer apps running
simultaneously with lots of multiply recorded audio tracks simultaneously.

I'd love a Mac Pro down the line but since I'm at 2.5 x 2 I want to at least
see 4-5 ghz before I move away from that box.

Well, I found out why my G4 400 mhz machine performs equally as well as my
2.2 ghz Athlon machine and it's a shocking reason - the K7S5A motherboard I
use in that machine apparently has a ROM revision sufficiently old that the SSE
functionality in the Athlon 2400 chip I have isn't allowed to work!

I can flash the board and re-enable SSE and I'll get a lot better performance
but it's amazing - the G4/400 with Alex's mods gets about 8-12 hours per WU
and the Athlon box gets about 13-14 hours per work unit despite the fact that
it is 1800 mhz faster than the G4! Amazing.
     
gulliver
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Aug 30, 2006, 05:20 PM
 
alexkan,

your worker v6 is based on (and reports as) 5.13, right? Is this compatible with the 5.17 WUs?
     
amigoivo
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Sep 1, 2006, 02:56 PM
 
Originally Posted by bobpalmer
Anybody else seen their Quad shutting down due to overheating while running SAH? :
Hello,

the CPUs, Logicboard and the water cooling system of my Quad had also been replaced.

In my case the temperature of the cpu was at ca. 65ºC (when the Quad was new) then after a half year the temps. grow over 85ºC and the Quad freezes recently.

Now i am again at 65ºC and low vent. rpms.

My coolsystem was changed from a two pump to a one pump system.

But now, back to topic.

V6 runs fine!

CU Ivo
Seti@home + Einstein@home + climateprediction.net
PowerMac QUAD G5 2,5GHz / 3GB RAM / 250GB HD
     
Karl Schimanek
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Sep 2, 2006, 08:24 AM
 
Originally Posted by amigoivo
Hello,

the CPUs, Logicboard and the water cooling system of my Quad had also been replaced.

In my case the temperature of the cpu was at ca. 65ºC (when the Quad was new) then after a half year the temps. grow over 85ºC and the Quad freezes recently.

Now i am again at 65ºC and low vent. rpms.

My coolsystem was changed from a two pump to a one pump system.

But now, back to topic.

V6 runs fine!

CU Ivo
Exactly the same here!
But I have to say that the one pump system is as a little bit louder as before.
     
bobpalmer
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Sep 5, 2006, 11:14 PM
 
How did all those Windoze boxes get in the top 10
Currently 5 of the top 10 are running Windoze, the other 5 are PowerMac's.
The 4 boxes running XP are 4 processor machines, the box running Longhorn has 8 processors.
     
halimedia
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Sep 6, 2006, 01:55 AM
 
Originally Posted by bobpalmer
How did all those Windoze boxes get in the top 10
One word: Woodcrest. Time doesn't stop...
     
alexkan
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Sep 6, 2006, 03:16 AM
 
Originally Posted by halimedia
One word: Woodcrest. Time doesn't stop...
...and that's why you all need to hurry up and buy Mac Pros, so we can reclaim that list!
     
Knightrider
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Sep 6, 2006, 04:54 AM
 
I had to have my Quad logic board and cpu's replaced about a month ago, but never found out why. I suspect that it was a dust bunnie overload clogging up the radiator cooler and a cpu got cooked crunching 24/7. I highly recommend an airduster, but it is very cold stuff so only use it when your mac is very cool, or you could crack something.

The front of the G5 is an open grid and it sucks in the dust. So now I have a pair of ladies tights hooked over the front of the G5's upper and lower grab handles to make an effective dust filter. Not very elegent, but it seems to work. Not my idea, I got it from the apple forum.

K.
     
 
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