Hello all, new to Seti@Home. Can someone please explain to me what the credit system means and what it's all about? Thanks a lot.

Credit is just a means by which to see how much work you are processing. There is no monetary value to it. You can't buy or sell anything with it. In the far past, when you processed 1 work unit, you were credited 1. Then the decision was made to move to a system where a value was based on CPU processed work unit. In a very complex calculation (which fails) it then decides how much credit to grant for a processed work unit. I say failed, as it's based on CPU processing rather than the faster GPU processing. As such, with each new generation of GPU (therefore faster processing) the amount awarded is actually going DOWN. Other projects moved to a system where a known quantity of credit is given for each work unit. RAC is recent average credit. This is a daily average of 6 weeks worth of processing of the work unit. RAC will go up as you process more work. Eventually you hit a point where it averages out. In my case, I run 4 high end GPUs along with an overclocked CPU using highly specialized applications under Linux . I started with an old dell and a GTX 730 in it.

The credit under my profile is the total accumulated credit since I joined.

So in short, there is no way to increase the amount of credit you are given for processing a work unit. It's controlled by the designer of the program that grants it. To increase the total credit you accumulate, you much processes more.

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Of course you will have to actually have a computer connected to the project and processing work units before you will get any credit at all.

...and to connect a computer to SETI@Home you must first download and install "BOINC" from https://boinc.berkeley.edu/download.php (choose the non-Virtual Box option).
Then once BOINC is installed you will have to join SETI@Home; from the drop-down list of projects select SETI, create an account (you will need to use your email address and provide a password - remember these two items). Once installed, in the simplest situation, everything will happen "automagically" - you will get tasks, the calculation will proceed, results will be returned, validated and you will get credit, more tasks etc.....

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?