Just wanted to pass this along as I have noticed that it will cut about 1 hour off of seti processing time. Out of the box the seti thread in windows is set to low. By changing the thread priority from low to normal, I have noticed that I am cutting about 1 hour off my processing time.

Running Windows 2003, XP, and 2000, the decrease in time is about the same for each operating system. All these systems are stand alone and really don't do much other than provide internet gateway functions and/or run seti@home. The XP system is a desktop and have noticed no degredation in operations when running other programs (word, excel, IE, and Outlook Express at the same time).

Hope this helps number crunchers.
r/
Dan

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The problem with this Windows trick is that the priority is reset to “low” at the start of each new WU. Increasing the priority of the application will only really matter if you are doing some significant multi-tasking where other programs are stealing computing cycles away from SETI@Home and you’re comfortable with forcing them to share more equitably. If you are crunching in dead time only when little else is running on the computer, changing the priority is will only give you a very small performance increase, if anything at all.

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Your right David, I've been through changing the priority thing & I didn't see any difference at all in my WU Times ...

> Your right David, I've been through changing the priority thing & I
> didn't see any difference at all in my WU Times ...
I agree with you.

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ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD!
Potrebujete pomoc?
My Stats

>depending of the Situation, it can really give a gain:

I do this since about 2 Month on 2 PCs, both relatively busy
The one is my proxy/dhcp/dns/firewall and whatelse sever, normaly this host is alway busy with something.

The set to normal instead of below normal priority class, does NOT let run the client faster, but it secures more CPU Cycles.

On the mentioned Host, normaly needed time for a SETI WU is about 4:00-4:15

Since I'm setting the priority class, I'm at 3:45-4:00.
This is a huge gain for THIS system.

So on a busy system, indeed it can help.

Ofcourse the set of priority is automated (nobody can stay 24 Hours a day in front of the PCs), the tool is checking once a Minute if BOINC Tasks are active and sets the Prio Class 32 instead of 64, if its not normal execution.

Yea, it's not limited to SETI only....

The Idea is good, DanD, but will not give the estimated time (re-)gain on ALL
systems.

Well, yes you are correct, and verified by checking the thread priority. Interesting that it would reset in boinc where it didn't reset in seti@home classic. But no, agreed, no one is going to sit infront of the computer 24X7 watching thread priorities. Thanks!
r/
Dan

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Well I agree with all, on a certain level. I have found a neat little program called OrangeProcessTrace, this allows you to set the process priority of any process and it will keep it at that setting throught the running time and on a re-start. As well as providing a graphical display/comparason of 4 process'sss.

I've been running the setiathome_409... process at 'normal' priority for a while with no problems (not long enough to give an indication of increase in speed yet, will let ya know)

However! For those of you running BOINCView having it set to run at 'low' seems to stop it grabbing up to 99% of CPU time on occasions. By useing the graph feature of OrangeProcessTrace allows you to see what effect things are having on your crunching effort. Example, watching your BOINCView useage drop from around 12-13% to a sporadic 0-2% just by minimising it.

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Cheers

Gav



Nothing is 'fool-proof', someone will always invent a better fool!

Is it a valid request to be allowed to have an option on the boinc setup to allow processing priorities to be set up to a maximum of normal? I think that if it is there, everyone will want to switch it to the maximum that they can get. So I would suggest no more than normal, as it will help in the situation of busier machines, but will not be noticed on machines that are only crunching. Just a thought, one that can be discussed. I wouldn't put it to allow full, as it will be set by the unkowing, and they will then complain their computer is locked up, and boot boinc. So I would suggest normal as max. (and for those that want to compile, er., anyone that wants to compile could do this now for that matter)

Just yakking
Keep on crunchin'
John Henry
Sevierville, TN

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Thanks, and Keep on crunchin'
John Henry KI4JPL
Sevierville TN

I started with nothing,
and I still have some of it left.
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