Hi,

I've had a problem with my Windows Media Center PC (actually Vista Home Premium which has the WMC software integrated) and SETI@Home. It's running SETI@Home constantly (using the exes found at lunatics.at) and is occasionally used for streaming video to my Xbox360. My problem (which at first wasn't a huge deal but continues to get more annoying) is that unless I "snoooze" BOINC, or unless I tell it to not run while the PC is in use then move my mouse to force it idle, my 360 times out when accessing Media Center. As soon as SETI@Home isn't actively running, it connects and behaves normally.

What I *think* is happening is that SETI is running at "Normal" priority, rather than the "Low" priority that I'd prefer. Is there a way to force my SETI worker apps to always run at low priority? Or a way to set it in BOINC? I'm not at that PC now so I can't see the preferences, but I don't remember seeing anything like that, and it's not something I can set on my server preferences via the Account link.

Any advice would be helpful, as I'm sure I could get more work done with it running at "low" priority than I could having to stop it during those times.

The same is kind of true when playing games on that PC as well - I have to suspend BOINC to play anything, as I get half the framerate I normally would (which turns World of Warcraft and Supreme Commander from well-running games to unplayable messes), but that bothers me less because I'm at the PC and it's easier to suspend than it is from the other room where the 360 is.

Thanks!

Ben

PS: I forgot to add my system specs:

3GHz (overclocked) Pentium E2140
3GB DDR2 memory
GeForce 8800GT
Vista Home Premium

let me know if there's anything else you'd need to know.

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By default, BOINC launches all science apps at low priority (including the optimized ones you downloaded from Lunatics.at). I don't think the problem is there.

I once read that some apps that are cache intensive, such as games (I don't know about WMC), can lose framerates while any science app is running. I witnessed this on a few friend's PCs that they have graciously allowed me to run BOINC on their systems. I had to modify my settings for their machines so that BOINC will not do work while the computer is in use (no good for WMC and streaming).

My guess is that the streaming is running in low priority too, waiting for CPU time (which the science app is using by default 100% at low priority) causing an endless loop of waiting for CPU time.

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Your Vista box is running:

<core_client_version>6.1.0</core_client_version>
<![CDATA[
<stderr_txt>
Optimized SETI@Home Enhanced application
Optimizers: Ben Herndon, Josef Segur, Alex Kan, Simon Zadra
Version: Windows SSSE3 64-bit based on S@H V5.15 'Noo? No - Ni!'
Revision: R-2.4|xT|FFT:IPP_SSSE3|Ben-Joe
CPUID: Genuine Intel(R) CPU 2140 @ 1.60GHz
Speed: 2 x 2926 MHz
Cache: L1=64K L2=1024K
Features: MMX SSE SSE2 SSE3 x86_64

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't BOINC 6.1.0 an Alpha release? (Current 5.10.30)
And isn't the 2.4 optimised app obsolete? (Now 2.4V)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't BOINC 6.1.0 an Alpha release? (Current 5.10.30)

That's correct.

And isn't the 2.4 optimised app obsolete? (Now 2.4V)

No, I think 2.4 is still valid. The only difference is that the "V" means it's Vista compatible, but otherwise it's still the official release.

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't BOINC 6.1.0 an Alpha release? (Current 5.10.30)

That's correct.

And isn't the 2.4 optimised app obsolete? (Now 2.4V)

No, I think 2.4 is still valid. The only difference is that the "V" means it's Vista compatible, but otherwise it's still the official release.

He's running Vista.

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't BOINC 6.1.0 an Alpha release? (Current 5.10.30)

That's correct.

And isn't the 2.4 optimised app obsolete? (Now 2.4V)

No, I think 2.4 is still valid. The only difference is that the "V" means it's Vista compatible, but otherwise it's still the official release.

He's running Vista.

Right, meaning he's running the correct optimized app.

[Edit] LOL! Correction: He needs to switch to 2.4V. Oi vey! [/edit]

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[Edit] LOL! Correction: He needs to switch to 2.4V. Oi vey! [/edit]

;o)

It might/might not fix things, but who knows...
Better to report glitches in the current stable software, rather than a mixture of alpha and obsolete!

Two Bits: seti's opt apps seem to interfere with my C2D/Vista when I was doing some video editing (basically xfering vhs to harddisk). I observed a subtle flutter that seemed to go away when I stopped boinc. Not a scientific assessment, but I think the cache use in the opt-apps is likely not completely transparent to other apps.

[Edit] LOL! Correction: He needs to switch to 2.4V. Oi vey! [/edit]

;o)

It might/might not fix things, but who knows...
Better to report glitches in the current stable software, rather than a mixture of alpha and obsolete!

Is there a huge change from 2.4 to 2.4V?

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[Edit] LOL! Correction: He needs to switch to 2.4V. Oi vey! [/edit]

Ah-ha! I've got the wrong app then. Maybe that'll make all my problems ago away. I'll go find the right ones and try again, will update this thread in the near-time future.

edit: the files I have, I got from here:

http://lunatics.kwsn.net/index.php?module=Downloads;sa=dlview;id=103

I don't see anything Vista-specific. I went to what I thought was Crunch3r's site (http://calbe.dw70.de/) and it took me to what appears to be a German-speaking forum that I can't read.

http://macmaco.ma.funpic.de/wbb2/index.php

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[Edit] LOL! Correction: He needs to switch to 2.4V. Oi vey! [/edit]

Ah-ha! I've got the wrong app then. Maybe that'll make all my problems ago away. I'll go find the right ones and try again, will update this thread in the near-time future.

edit: the files I have, I got from here:

http://lunatics.kwsn.net/index.php?module=Downloads;sa=dlview;id=103

I don't see anything Vista-specific. I went to what I thought was Crunch3r's site (http://calbe.dw70.de/) and it took me to what appears to be a German-speaking forum that I can't read.

http://macmaco.ma.funpic.de/wbb2/index.php

Official Name: airripper.com
IP Address: 85.214.42.14

Official Name: calbe.dw70.de
IP Address: 85.214.42.14

Hmm, seems to be some DNS problem. I think Crunch3r will resolve it when he can, I don't know if he's even aware of it yet.

The problem with 2.4 and Vista manifested itself as the app sometimes crashing when starting a WU, causing results to be returned with "client error" status. That doesn't seem to be happening on your system, and I don't know any reason 2.4V would be different with respect to interfering with other programs.

                                                               Joe

OK, crashing isn't my problem either.

I'm using the BOINC 6 alpha because I was hoping it might help with the game slowdowns and the Media Center problem. I wonder if anyone else has had problems with Media Center - my Google searches have come up pretty empty.

edit: looks like I'm *not* alone:

http://boinc.berkeley.edu/dev/forum_thread.php?id=2262

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edit: looks like I'm *not* alone:

http://boinc.berkeley.edu/dev/forum_thread.php?id=2262

I read that thread and it appears to be a slightly different issue. The issue in that thread is using the Media Center Remote and it's apparent side effects with suspending BOINC. You said your problem is streaming media to your XBOX360 and using Vista's Media Center software.

One thing to note is that the developers have never actually guaranteed compatibility with Windows XP Media Center nor Vista's Media Center software.

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The problem may be with your Intel CPU E2140 @ 1.60GHz processor. It only has 1 GB of cache memory and a 800 FSB. That means you only have 500 MB of cache per processor. On top of that you are running Vista. The computer is probably choking on the load.

I just recently bought a cheap Intel Pentium Dual CPU E2180 @ 2.00GHz for the lab. When I brought it home to update the XP Pro and load the data acq. software, I tried running Seti@home on it. What a “DOG”, my Intel P4 3.4 GHz is faster. It turned out it also only has 1 GB of cache memory.

The Seti@home app requires lots of cache memory. That’s why my Intel Core 2 CPU T7400 @ 2.16GHz with 4 GB of cache simply blows the Intel E2180 @ 2.00GHz away.

Franz

Franz I'm pretty sure you mean 1MB of cache.

One thing to note is that the developers have never actually guaranteed compatibility with Windows XP Media Center nor Vista's Media Center software.

I can't remember a list of software that WILL work...

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Franz I'm pretty sure you mean 1MB of cache.

One thing to note is that the developers have never actually guaranteed compatibility with Windows XP Media Center nor Vista's Media Center software.

I can't remember a list of software that WILL work...

You're right. It should be 1 MB cache and 4 MB cache.

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It's very similar to the other thread - both Vista x64, neither one of us can get Windows Media Center in Vista to open while BOINC is running. I'm not asking the developers to "support" it, I'm just asking that BOINC not interfere with a core component of the Vista Home Premium OS. I've reverted that machine to stock everything - stock BOINC apps, stock SETI apps, the works - to no avail (so I put everything back the way it was). If it's happening with stock apps I'd say it's a problem.

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I can't remember a list of software that WILL work...

That would be the list of supported OSes, which can be viewed here. Of course, generally speaking XP MCE and Vista fall under "Windows 2000+", but as we know, BOINC isn't fully Vista compatible. Also, about a year ago, a BOINC developer told me that MCE (which would include Vista's MCE) wasn't a supported OS type.

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I'm not asking the developers to "support" it, I'm just asking that BOINC not interfere with a core component of the Vista Home Premium OS.

LOL Testing BOINC against every component is a form of support. Don't get me wrong, they probably need to look into supporting the MCE interface since it is now standard with Vista Home Premium and Vista Ultimate. It's simply difficult to support BOINC with every OS component MS decides to bundle and/or change.


Can you try BOINC's CPU throttling feature to test my previous theory? Try throttling BOINC to 70-80% to see if that helps. The reason why I suggest starting off with such a low number is not because the streaming feature needs that much CPU power, but because if my theory is correct and Windows checks for available CPU time (regardless of priority) and I don't know how often the CPU time feature actually checks the processor for idle time. Throttling BOINC to 90% would give 9 seconds at 100% CPU and 1 second idle. 80% would give 4 seconds at 100% CPU and 1 second idle. 70% would give 3 seconds run at 100%, 1 second idle then 2 seconds run at 100%, then other second idle. If the streaming media feature checks every other second at low priority, giving it a couple seconds of idle might help.

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The best thing to do is just get rid of Vista... meh.