Title says it all.

Yes it does.
Better set it to switch to an empty screen instead.
Happy crunching.

Rob.

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yes, but the amount varies. If you have a modern system with it's own video card with lots of built in memory, the effects are small. If you have an OLD system with integrated video and shared memory, then the affects are greater.

but, Yes, either way it robs cycles the application can use.

I guess it does on the Boinc version. I remember way back when I first started with seti client. The Screen Saver really was a hog back then. My fastest computer at that time was a 700mhz laptop. Once I thought about turning off the screen saver it really pumped out the units.

Christopher.

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Title says it all.

Anything that takes processing time is going to make every other process on that machine a little slower.

It takes time to draw....

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Also running optimized apps as a service, but I wouldn't mind a SETI screensaver that is:

- 2D, light, efficient

- Visually asthetic and practical. Doesn't even need to be as 'fancy' as the old Classic SS. Maybe something to show progress on multiple machines.

yes, but the amount varies. If you have a modern system with it's own video card with lots of built in memory, the effects are small. If you have an OLD system with integrated video and shared memory, then the affects are greater.

but, Yes, either way it robs cycles the application can use.

Tests back in the early beta showed that with a seperate openGL compliant cards the screensaver added less than 1% to the crunch times. Onboard openGL compliant graphics added less than 5% to crunch times. Non openGL compliant cards still caused less impact than the SETI classic screensaver. Of course all of this is counterintuitive since the new screensaver is in 3D and moves around. It was tested by running at least one full task with the screensaver active the whole time and one full task with the screensaver inactive the whole time in each configuration. At that time tasks were pretty consistant other than -9 tasks. Things may have changed with enhanced and later core clients.

If anyone wants to redo these tests probably the best way currently is have a new install with the screensaver always on and see what the CPU efficiency is after a few days.

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BOINC WIKI

BOINCing since 2002/12/8

I always just disable my screensaver and just let the monitor go to power-save mode after a few minutes. Every once in awhile I may be interested in looking at the graphics of the running WU and at that point I manually launch it with 'Show Graphics', of course closing it after I'm done. Even if there is not a significant impact on performance as on newer systems I prefer to squeeze as much as I can out of the CPU.

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Better yet, trash the default Seticruncher and use Simon's version 2.0. It about doubles my output but changes the pretty graph tray to a jumping Boinc star. Not responsible for problems or damage due to change or attempt.

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Better yet, trash the default Seticruncher and use Simon's version 2.0. It about doubles my output but changes the pretty graph tray to a jumping Boinc star. Not responsible for problems or damage due to change or attempt.

Actually, Simon also built graphics versions of 2.0. So you can have your cake and eat it too, though there will still be a small slowdown.

Note that the preferences for the graphics accessible from your account page include settings for the percent of CPU time allowed for the graphics and also for the update frame rate. Either of those can be used to reduce the impact. Using settings which emulate the Classic display might also reduce the CPU load.

                                                            Joe