New BOINC for Mac (7.6.11) will not show graphics

Questions and Answers : Preferences : New BOINC for Mac (7.6.11) will not show graphics
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Profile Jord
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Message 1731214 - Posted: 2 Oct 2015, 17:30:44 UTC

Matt Lebofsky, project administrator wrote:
The problem persists, and as many of you already know there's a router on campus at the root of said problem. This is very similar to problems with had with our PAIX router where the solution was a memory upgrade.

Campus is aware of the issues. It's out of our control.

- Matt

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Nicholas Kayser

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Message 1731611 - Posted: 3 Oct 2015, 21:11:54 UTC

I have new tasks, but still no screensaver. The show graphics button is grayed out. This is some of the information the current task running:

Application: SETI@home v 7 7.07 (avx)
Name: 10ap11af.23660.476.438086664200.12.145
Executable: setiathome_7.07_x86_64-apple-darwin_avx
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Message 1731895 - Posted: 4 Oct 2015, 19:03:14 UTC - in response to Message 1731611.  

Executable: setiathome_7.07_x86_64-apple-darwin_avx

You may check by yourself if there is a corresponding Executable for graphics
in SETI@home directory (<BOINC_Data>\projects\setiathome.berkeley.edu\)

The additional Executable for graphics may have a name starting with setigraphics_ like:
setigraphics_7.07_x86_64-apple-darwin_avx
 


- ALF - "Find out what you don't do well ..... then don't do it!" :)
 
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Nicholas Kayser

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Message 1731919 - Posted: 4 Oct 2015, 21:03:30 UTC - in response to Message 1731895.  


You may check by yourself if there is a corresponding Executable for graphics
in SETI@home directory (<BOINC_Data>\projects\setiathome.berkeley.edu\)

The additional Executable for graphics may have a name starting with setigraphics_ like:
setigraphics_7.07_x86_64-apple-darwin_avx


That's odd, there aren't any that I can see. Also, a while back I had switched back to the version of Boinc prior to noticing the problem, and the first task didn't show graphics either.

Is it possible that somehow the issues they still need to resolve might be making it so that there aren't any graphics available?
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Michael J. Gordon

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Message 1732756 - Posted: 8 Oct 2015, 5:59:21 UTC

I have been an enthusiastic seti@home user for more than 15 years.

It was i who first started this thread. I must say that it is comforting to see that others have had the same problem because I thought I was doing something wrong.

Please forgive, but I am a total computer language dummy and do not understand most of the posts. I have downloaded 7.6.12 but, alas, no joy . Still no graphics, just data on running tasks.

would someone please explain in "language for dummies" what i should do to get the graphics back. I am running OS 10.10.5 if that is helpful.

I love Seti and this is driving me nuts.

*also, before i downloaded the 7.6.11 update, I could quit the BOINC manager so it would not appear on my dock or in the system menu bar above and the screen saver would still function with graphics...
is this still possible, please?

Thank you so very much,

michael gordon
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Message 1732786 - Posted: 8 Oct 2015, 8:46:09 UTC - in response to Message 1732756.  

Hi Michael,

It was i who first started this thread.
...
michael gordon

I asked you several questions back on September 28 in this post but you never responded. Please answer them now, especially these two:
I used to be able to quit the BOINC manager and the screen saver would still function. Now, when I quit the BOINC manager, the screen saver no longer functions.

What does the screensaver say about BOINC? Does it say "BOINC is not running" or something else?

If your Mac has an NVIDIA GPU, do you have CUDA installed, and which version of CUDA?

BOINC has two different types of screensaver displays: the BOINC default screensaver (which displays statistics and the fact that the computer is participating on SETI) and the project screensavers (such as SETI@home, with the old rotating box with the columns etc.) Not all the current SETI@home applications come with a SETI screensaver. You may have one without a SETI screensaver, in which case you will only see the BOINC default one. It may just be a coincidence that you started running a different SETI application at the same time as you installed the newer version of BOINC.

In addition, you can set the BOINC screensaver preferences to show only the default display, only the project display, or both. Check how you have these set by selecting System Preferences from the Apple menu, then Desktop & Screen Saver, Screen Saver, BOINC screensaver, and then click on the Screen Saver Options button.
Charlie Fenton
BOINC / SETI@home Macintosh & Windows Programmer
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Message 1733526 - Posted: 10 Oct 2015, 23:05:08 UTC - in response to Message 1732786.  


BOINC has two different types of screensaver displays: the BOINC default screensaver (which displays statistics and the fact that the computer is participating on SETI) and the project screensavers (such as SETI@home, with the old rotating box with the columns etc.) Not all the current SETI@home applications come with a SETI screensaver. You may have one without a SETI screensaver, in which case you will only see the BOINC default one. It may just be a coincidence that you started running a different SETI application at the same time as you installed the newer version of BOINC.

In addition, you can set the BOINC screensaver preferences to show only the default display, only the project display, or both. Check how you have these set by selecting System Preferences from the Apple menu, then Desktop & Screen Saver, Screen Saver, BOINC screensaver, and then click on the Screen Saver Options button.


Good news. One of the tasks on scheduled to be done on my computer has screensaver graphics. It would appear that I simply have gotten a large number of tasks that didn't have graphics.
Could there be a reason that all of the tasks that I've gotten so far might not have the screensaver option?
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Message 1733536 - Posted: 11 Oct 2015, 1:45:15 UTC - in response to Message 1729758.  

Hi, just read your post and I am having the same problem. Recently upgraded to version 7.6.12 and also have the same problem of no graphic other than the information component on my screensaver. If some one has figured out what the problem is I would really appreciate some help. Thanks
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Message 1733583 - Posted: 11 Oct 2015, 7:14:52 UTC

Simple - not all of the current crop of SETI@Home applications have been built with the screensaver included. This is particularly true if you have a GPU - which you do.
Bob Smith
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Message 1733661 - Posted: 11 Oct 2015, 18:23:10 UTC - in response to Message 1733583.  

Simple - not all of the current crop of SETI@Home applications have been built with the screensaver included. This is particularly true if you have a GPU - which you do.


I'm not sure if it's entirely a GPU issue, tasks that need my GPU don't run often. That said, I have found that at least one of my current tasks has a Seti graphic, though oddly I can only tell by going to the Boinc Data folder in Application support and looking to see if any files that start with "setigraphics". The "show graphics" button is still grayed out in Boinc manager.

That all said, it does appear to be a case of not actually getting any tasks that have a screensaver graphic.
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Message 1733719 - Posted: 12 Oct 2015, 5:26:41 UTC - in response to Message 1733661.  

files that start with "setigraphics"

What is the exact full filename? (Copy/Paste)
 


- ALF - "Find out what you don't do well ..... then don't do it!" :)
 
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Michael J. Gordon

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Message 1733794 - Posted: 12 Oct 2015, 16:36:03 UTC

please help...this is driving me nuts !!!!!

I had ZERO problems until I downloaded 7.6.11.

Following people's suggestions here..I downloaded 7.6.12,,,still nothing.

** is there any way i can return to 7.6.10 which worked perfectly ?

( On the suggestion of the CUDA program, I had downloaded their driver 7.5.2..
BUT...everything had worked fine with 7.6.10 and the older CUDA driver)

My graphics card is ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024 MB, OS 10.10.5

thank you so much again...please remember I am a computer dummy...I even had to look up GPU to see what folks were talking about.

Thank you again!
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Message 1733807 - Posted: 12 Oct 2015, 17:36:41 UTC - in response to Message 1733794.  

Michael, deep breaths...

If you want to revert to an older version of BOINC, here is the link

http://boinc.berkeley.edu/download_all.php

I don't know where you got ver 7.6.10 since it's not one of the official version listed for Seti. Maybe you got it off a different website?

If you are using the graphic card to crunch data, you will not get a graphic display for that work units as it can't do both, it's 1 or other

Only work units done on the computer chip will have graphics.

The question that pops into my mind is, why do you exit boinc, why not just leave Boinc running in the background?
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Message 1733815 - Posted: 12 Oct 2015, 18:44:11 UTC - in response to Message 1733807.  
Last modified: 12 Oct 2015, 18:44:52 UTC

If you are using the graphic card to crunch data, you will not get a graphic display for that work units as it can't do both, it's 1 or other

This still isn't true, no matter how many times you repeat it. As Einstein's screen saver shows, it works perfectly fine on tasks run on the GPU. Also, here at Seti, when one runs a task on the CPU simultaneously as one on the GPU, you can see the graphics/screen saver for the CPU task. This then runs on that same GPU.

The very first Nvidia OpenCL demo was one of an Nbody simulation complete with graphics. You can still see it on Youtube.
The first public demonstration of OpenCL running on a GPU was done by NVIDIA on December 12, 2008 at Siggraph Asia. This demo of OpenCL on NVIDIA GPU was based on early non-released OpenCL API/driver interface. The nbody simulation shown was a simulation of massive particles under the influence of physical forces. Nbody simulation is known to be computationally intensive.

That Seti does not have graphics for the GPU tasks is because when Nvidia helped port over the first application to CUDA, they only had resources to perfect the computational application. No one thought of using the graphical app.

Later when Lunatics started releasing the updated apps, they also never looked at the graphics app. But if need be it can be easily added. It is just that the purists don't want the app to take cycles away from the calculations being done (while at the same time they don't mind opening a browser with 14 tabs open... ;-)).
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Message 1733825 - Posted: 12 Oct 2015, 19:53:01 UTC - in response to Message 1733719.  

files that start with "setigraphics"

What is the exact full filename? (Copy/Paste)


For the one that I have, the exact file name is as follows:

setigraphics_7.00_i686-apple-darwin
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Message 1733849 - Posted: 12 Oct 2015, 22:04:54 UTC - in response to Message 1733807.  

Zalster,

thank you so much...i just assumed the previous version was 7.6.10..i was simply running the version before 7.6.11 and do not know what that was.

the reason i like to close BOINC is that it appears in my dock and i have a ton of stuff there already. It also appears in my top menu and i have a ton of stuff there as well.

i go way back when seti @home first started..that was before you had to use BOINC.
Lumping all of the projects under one master program is just fine, but it is totally a PITA for those who don’t understand computer lingo. I go on their website and they start talking about daemons.
The only daemons I know are Phillip Pullman’s.

The website is of zero help because it is written by those who think everyone knows computerese.
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Message 1733852 - Posted: 12 Oct 2015, 22:17:42 UTC - in response to Message 1733815.  

so Jord,

all i want for Christmas is my seti graphics back.

I ask myself, why oh why did i download the update, because everything was just fine before that.
I had great graphics. I ran a whole bunch of tasks (look at my credits) without having to worry if they had seti-graphics attached

I could close BOINC so it wouldn't clog up my dock or top menu and the screensaver still worked fine.

The answer is, obviously, I violated the rule “if it aint broke, dont fix it”

I want to emphasize that NOTHING has changed on my computer except the 7.6.11 then 7.6.12 updates which then FUBAR-ed everything

** if folks at Seti@home want people to be able to run their screen saver who aren’t computer geeks...then they should make it real easy and seamless like it was.
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Message 1733855 - Posted: 12 Oct 2015, 22:36:33 UTC - in response to Message 1733852.  

http://boinc.berkeley.edu/dl/?C=M;O=D for all old and new downloads, including .10 if you want to.
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Message 1733871 - Posted: 13 Oct 2015, 0:16:37 UTC - in response to Message 1733852.  

so Jord,

all i want for Christmas is my seti graphics back.

I ask myself, why oh why did i download the update, because everything was just fine before that.
I had great graphics. I ran a whole bunch of tasks (look at my credits) without having to worry if they had seti-graphics attached

I could close BOINC so it wouldn't clog up my dock or top menu and the screensaver still worked fine.

The answer is, obviously, I violated the rule “if it aint broke, dont fix it”

I want to emphasize that NOTHING has changed on my computer except the 7.6.11 then 7.6.12 updates which then FUBAR-ed everything

** if folks at Seti@home want people to be able to run their screen saver who aren’t computer geeks...then they should make it real easy and seamless like it was.


I had tried switching back at one point, but all of the tasks that were being run still failed to show the SETI screensaver graphic. Granted, it wasn't for very long, as I only switched it back long enough to see if switching versions would show graphics on the tasks currently being run, but switching to 7.6.10 didn't seem to bring the graphics back.
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Message 1734104 - Posted: 14 Oct 2015, 4:04:38 UTC - in response to Message 1733871.  

... but switching to 7.6.10 didn't seem to bring the graphics back.

No BOINC version will help - the graphics part of SETI@home applications is distributed by SETI@home servers, it is not included in BOINC installation.


For the one that I have, the exact file name is as follows:
setigraphics_7.00_i686-apple-darwin

This one have both Computing part (setiathome_7.00_i686-apple-darwin) and Graphics part (setigraphics_7.00_i686-apple-darwin) on the SETI@home servers -
as you can check by Download/saving files from these links:
http://boinc2.ssl.berkeley.edu/sah/download_fanout/setiathome_7.00_i686-apple-darwin
http://boinc2.ssl.berkeley.edu/sah/download_fanout/setigraphics_7.00_i686-apple-darwin

But this 'plain' app is slow so the server will send you tasks for it very rarely.
On your computer it is ~2x slower than avx or sse41:
Average processing rate 10.82 GFLOPS
Average processing rate 20.36 GFLOPS
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/host_app_versions.php?hostid=7463327


Executable: setiathome_7.07_x86_64-apple-darwin_avx

You posted that name earlier but I can't Download it from the server (do not exist; or they put 64 bit files not in the same directory/link)

I also tried to 'coin' more names using Applications page:
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/apps.php

- but none works:
Computing part:
http://boinc2.ssl.berkeley.edu/sah/download_fanout/setiathome_7.07_x86_64-apple-darwin_avx
http://boinc2.ssl.berkeley.edu/sah/download_fanout/setiathome_7.07_x86_64-apple-darwin_ssse3
http://boinc2.ssl.berkeley.edu/sah/download_fanout/setiathome_7.07_x86_64-apple-darwin_sse41
Graphics part:
http://boinc2.ssl.berkeley.edu/sah/download_fanout/setigraphics_7.07_x86_64-apple-darwin_avx
http://boinc2.ssl.berkeley.edu/sah/download_fanout/setigraphics_7.07_x86_64-apple-darwin_ssse3
http://boinc2.ssl.berkeley.edu/sah/download_fanout/setigraphics_7.07_x86_64-apple-darwin_sse41


Can you Copy/Paste here the names of all the executables you have in SETI@home directory (<BOINC_Data>\projects\setiathome.berkeley.edu\)

As already noted by others - I will not be surprised if the optimized apps (avx, sse) do not (and never had) corresponding graphics parts
 


- ALF - "Find out what you don't do well ..... then don't do it!" :)
 
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Questions and Answers : Preferences : New BOINC for Mac (7.6.11) will not show graphics


 
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