Boinc without screen saver?

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BryanTom
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Message 1817071 - Posted: 14 Sep 2016, 9:49:04 UTC

On a Mac, how can I run Seti@Home in the background without the screen saver coming up?

Bryan
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Message 1817134 - Posted: 14 Sep 2016, 15:53:40 UTC - in response to Message 1817071.  
Last modified: 14 Sep 2016, 15:56:20 UTC

Hello BryanTom,

Since Seti was originally designed to run when you were not using your computer, you will need to change the setting on your computer.

First make sure boinc is running, then change the view that you see of the task manager. You should have a simple view of the task manager. From the pulldown tab in the left upper corner you should see the apple, boinc manager, file then view. Click on view and hold it, this should bring the pulldown and move to change to advance view.

That should have changed how the boinc manager appears.

Next click on Activity.

In order of appearance you should have

Run Always
Run based on preferences
Suspend

Use GPU Always
Use GPU based on preferences
Suspend GPU

Network Activity Always
Network activity based on preferences
Suspend Network activity

Usually the middle option of all 3 is selected.

You will want to change the first one to Run Always, the second one to Use GPU Always and leave the 3 alone.

Now a word of warning. If this is a standard Mac, either a laptop or desktop, it's going to get very hot. You may also experience sluggish response as you work as the default uses alot of your CPU cores and GPU.

I would recommend 2 things. If you are using a laptop, get a cooling pad to provide better airflow under the laptop. If it's a desktop, a fan pointing at the back of it might help. (I use both and this helps)

Second and more importantly, I would restrict the number of core that BOINC is allowed to access.

Go to options and click computing preferences

under Usage limits, make the following changes

Use at most 50% of the CPUs
Use at most 100% of CPU time

This will limit BONIC to only half of your computer's CPU, that should free up the other half for your personal use and also help reduce the amount of heat your computer is generating

Last, keep an eye on your results. As TBar has pointed out, the apps for macs aren't as up to date as they could be and many return invalid results but he's working on new apps for them and hopefully will have some out for all of us in the future.


Zalster

edit..

The screensaver is set to seti, you don't need to run the screensaver to run seti as the above will run it full time. If you want, you change change the screen saver to something else or leave it. If you want to change it, go to the system preferences on your mac and desktop screensaver and change it to what you want.
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Message 1817218 - Posted: 14 Sep 2016, 23:40:47 UTC - in response to Message 1817134.  
Last modified: 14 Sep 2016, 23:42:00 UTC

...
As TBar has pointed out, the apps for macs aren't as up to date as they could be and many return invalid results but he's working on new apps for them and hopefully will have some out for all of us in the future.
...

Zalster



I'd like thank TBar for porting the latest Linux advancements and behind the curtain the beta versions to MAC. And for the time and effort he's spent on testing all the different versions and configurations. Without his effort, there would be a lot of bugs around and the Windows version to come would be much more in the future.

EDIT: And thank you for some other fellows doing their job too.

Petri
To overcome Heisenbergs:
"You can't always get what you want / but if you try sometimes you just might find / you get what you need." -- Rolling Stones
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Message 1817275 - Posted: 15 Sep 2016, 6:33:25 UTC - in response to Message 1817218.  

Yes, many hands make light work :)

The good news is a day off tomorrow and a long weekend, so fingers crossed a few steps closer to all 3 platforms in line.
"Living by the wisdom of computer science doesn't sound so bad after all. And unlike most advice, it's backed up by proofs." -- Algorithms to live by: The computer science of human decisions.
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BryanTom
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Message 1818238 - Posted: 19 Sep 2016, 16:51:35 UTC - in response to Message 1817134.  

Thank you for the reply. Years ago, I set a cron job to start setiathome as "nice", so it would run only when idle. It's been so many years since I last did that. I'd like to not have the task manager open all the time, and instead have it run as a daemon. Can I still do this with boinc?

Bryan
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Message boards : Number crunching : Boinc without screen saver?


 
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