Hi all,

This is my machine:

Machine Model: Mac mini
CPU Type: PowerPC G4 (1.2)
Number Of CPUs: 1
CPU Speed: 1.25 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB
Memory: 256 MB
Bus Speed: 167 MHz

I downloaded the most recent version of BOINC for Macs yesterday. Would anyone be willing to walk me through the best pref settings that I should have. And I mean the pref settings that I can click on in my profile. If you need any other info to help me out, please ask.

Thanks!

~sai

Hi all,

This is my machine:

Machine Model: Mac mini
CPU Type: PowerPC G4 (1.2)
Number Of CPUs: 1
CPU Speed: 1.25 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB
Memory: 256 MB
Bus Speed: 167 MHz

I downloaded the most recent version of BOINC for Macs yesterday. Would anyone be willing to walk me through the best pref settings that I should have. And I mean the pref settings that I can click on in my profile. If you need any other info to help me out, please ask.

Thanks!

~sai

Sai

It is assumed that you are running OSX 10.4.xx. There has probably been no response to your post as most of the preferences are of personal choice (or dare I say preference). Nevertheless, I am mentioning a few points here that I hope may help. Maybe you will already be familiar with most of this, but here it is:-

Try sticking to the defaults initially and try amending if you feel there might be an improvement. Try not to make extreme adjustments, after all thought has gone into making the default settings. These adjustments are made in the BOINC Manager main menu at Advanced/Preferences.../NetworkUsage and will only apply to the one computer (which is academic if you only use one!):-

It would be preferable to keep the maximum cache of tasks to 5 days, and even as low as 2 days. Otherwise there is a long delay for others running another task within each work unit you are involved. But you do need to cover the outages that seem to occur more frequently than might be expected, the worst usually being at a weekend.

Should you wish to have your computer access SETI over the internet at restricted hours or days, this can be tailored according to your wishes in the very latest "testing" version of BOINC Manager (5.10.28), but the daily tailoring does not work correctly in version 5.10.20. So you may need to update again if that facility is required and you are running 5.10.20. As a matter of interest, I set Tuesday to "22:00-17:00" to avoid the weekly maintenance outage at the SETI servers. It looks strange, but the ON time has to be entered before the OFF time. The times that the computer is set to work can also be tailored, but you will probably leave this at the default.

You may also wish to run the latest G4 version of Alex Kan's optimized SETI@home available for download on the Number Crunchers Message Board posted by Crispin on 8th October:-
1. After quitting BOINC Manager, the contents only of the downloaded folder have to be transferred (by drag & drop) into the folder on your Hard Disk at the following path:-
Library/Application Support/BOINC Data/projects/setiathome.berkeley.edu
2. Before restarting, select the setiathome.berkeley.edu folder and GetInfo (Cmd I or File menu),in order to change permissions by opening "Ownership and Permissions" and "details" (at the bottom), then click on "Apply to enclosed items". You will have to click on the padlock and give your password to do this, and make sure to lock again before closing GetInfo window afterwards.
3. On restart you will find a considerably improved speed of crunching. You will see some error messages on the top of the BOINC Manager's Messages page the first time running the optimized version as it "beds in", but after quitting and restarting, the next time these will not appear.

Good luck with the G4

Keith

One other thing: I notice you donÕt have much RAM in that box. For the best performance most users set suspend-while-in-use to ÒnoÓ and leave-in-memory to ÒyesÓ, and I suggest you try those settings at first. But depending on what else you do with the computer, you may find it getting a bit sluggish, if it keeps having to swap data in & out of the virtual-memory file on your disk: if so, try changing those settings, especially the latter. With this at ÒnoÓ youÕll lose a little processing each time the S@h app stops & starts, as it will have to start at its last-saved checkpointÑbut this shouldnÕt be more than a minute or so. If youÕre running other projects with this setting, keep an eye on them: some apps donÕt save checkpoints very often, or fail to resume properly. IÕm not aware of any such problems with S@h, though.

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