I can understand concentrating on NTPCKr, but if the system is unable to cope with what the project currently has running. How is it going to cope running another piece of software in real time?

I agree. It seems that when ever e-mails get sent out to recruit new members or gearing up for a big event ie the ten year mile stone the server seem to crash. I would be interested to know if anyone else noticed this?

---

Hmm, another point might be that SaH is Nvidia only.
Anyone using a Ati/AMD board is going Milkyway...

---

mic.

Of course we are still waiting for Milkyway_GPU to get up and running.

My 4830 is installed and waiting now.

---

"It seems like we lost a lot of active users over the past few months."

Wow. This statement speaks volumes. Are the people running SETI really that obtuse?

This shows it all...maybe the financial crunch has hit the crunchers the hardest...

---

Clk2HlpSetiCty:::PayIt4ward

"It seems like we lost a lot of active users over the past few months."

Wow. This statement speaks volumes. Are the people running SETI really that obtuse?

This shows it all...maybe the financial crunch has hit the crunchers the hardest...

All the people who used to have SETI running on their desktop at work and IT and turned their computer off after they got laid off.

---

"It seems like we lost a lot of active users over the past few months."

Wow. This statement speaks volumes. Are the people running SETI really that obtuse?

This shows it all...maybe the financial crunch has hit the crunchers the hardest...

I doubt it ... look at WCG:



Or CPDN:



If I looked at more I might be able to find others that are more striking ... but, economics does not explain the decline. Something else is going on ...

Something else is going on ...

Usual credit whoreing most likely.
End of February, begining of March, my RAC dropped from around the 2250 region to down around 2060. I expect those that crunch for the numbers moved to those projects that pay better.

---

Grant
Darwin NT

I suspect that there are several reasons for the decline.

The economy is a part of it. It is a part of everything: if you get laid off then crunching becomes somewhat less important than, say, eating.

Also, over the past couple months, there has been a lot of server/bandwidth/work creation issues: people will not wait around, computers idle, waiting for work. They hook onto another project and a certain number of those folks don’t come back.

AstroPulse. People who may not pay much attention to the forums (i.e. 90% of crunchers) would get a little surprise if they checked and suddenly saw they were getting work units with 200 hour completion times.

Credit whoring is a part of it too, but I think that those who only BOINC for the credit would have drifted over to MW long ago.

Simple ambivalence. The unruly mob is not known for patience. 10 years and still no LGM. People often don’t appreciate that this could very well take generations. And even then, lack of proof would not be proof of lack. (please forgive the ruthless plagiarism, lol)

---

Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.

Albert Einstein

Perhaps its time for some tips on how to continue crunching during the cash crunch, e.g. cut down hours rather than stop altogether, turn off less efficient old machines in favour of running the newer more optimised one longer etc.

Personally, with a reduced paycheck and dearer cost of leccy, i found that i have to cut down perhaps 20% of crunch time on my 240W machine in order not to nudge my metered usage to a higher band.

But a much easier and more obvious solution to maintain (or even increase)the computing power in face of the dwindling userbase - perhaps it is time to roll out some sort of optimised app on the majority of those 140k users who does not use them (nor visit the forums)

---

One (other) thing, as you can see on this 'combined graph' below, S@H has about 50% of all active users!
Therefore, all the other projects will have less users and most likely the smaller BOINC-projects will have a more devoted group of users.. (although the 'WCG-graph' seems to contradict this, or can someone give a reason why this project has a large activity increase since march 24th?)


Also, users are down since (at least) February 20th but RAC is down since April 1st?

---

The SETI@Home Gauntlet 2012 april 16 - 30| info / chat | STATS

SETI@home, like all BOINC projects, seemed a project to which anybody could participate even if he had a slow CPU (I have used a 400 MHz PII Deschutes from April 2004 to January 2008), Now, with the advent of fast CPUs and even faster GPUs, many people feel to be trodden over by users with higher RACs and even by clusters of CPUs. They feel this is not fair and abandon BOINC. Even at Folding@home the percentage of work done by Nvidia and ATI graphic cards, also by PS3s, is rising at the expense of common PCs. Nobody likes to be an underdog and not many people can afford to buy new and expensive hardware just to run BOINC.
Tullio

---

I would think that anyone still using older hardware wouldn't concern themselves with competing on RAC alone, but would more interested in simply contributing to their project of choice.

---

This is what I feel. I am running 6 projects (7 when LHC has work) on a 1,8 GHz Opteron 1210 using Linux and I don't care much about credits. I am simply amused when a project like ORCA at QMC@home showers me with credits (even 88/hour) when my BOINC average is about 16 or 17 credits/hour.

---

I see in the NY Times that Oracle has bought Sun.

Seti interest is that Sun are the owners of MySQL. So how will this pan out.

Oracle Agrees to Acquire Sun Microsystems

I understand that may be how you feel, but I am confused that you would "feel" that no one likes to be the underdog, and you mention people with large RACs using CUDA cards while you're using older hardware, knowing that you could never compete with them, so why worry about being an underdog in the first place? It would be like joining a speed race with Lamborginis and Ferraris while you're driving a VW Beetle because you can't afford a sports car; you know you're not going to finish first or even close to it, so why even get discouraged about it? Why even allow yourself to get bothered over it? Just enjoy the race.

I know some projects give far too much credit, and that issue has been discussed at great length, and my only thought is that those projects are targeting the "credit hound" type crunchers so as to get more active users.

---

I made clear that I am not looking for credits. I simply gave my opinion about people leaving BOINC. They don't like being the last in a race, that's all. But I have a scientific background, and I am only interested in science.
Tullio

---

I know you stated you're not interested in credits, but the two feelings seem contradictory. If you're not in it for the credits, why worry about what the other person is using, let alone what their RAC is?

---

I simply advanced an explanation for the reason people are leaving BOINC. I am speaking of their feelings, not of mine feelings.

---

I have an Excel sheet in which I am calculating when I'll be at the World position 1.944 (my all time high somewhere in 2005 ;) ).
The average RAC to maintain that position has risen from aprox. 2.500 to about 2.725 (I'll spare you the calculation ;)
My point being:
It looks to me like the crunchers with "more then a little bit of credit" are still very active and that "the smaller crunchers i.e. startups" are faling behind.
Hypothesis:
"Startups" don't follow though.
Because maybe the get scared off by the larger AP-wu's? I also have red that AP wu's often get cancelled (thus taking longer to validate..).
It has been mentioned before that AP wu's should be given to hosts that are "realy active".. also, it's been mentioned that the current manager seems to prefer AP wu's even though MB and AP are allowed/sellected. Maybe only send AP-wu's to hosts with a MB turnaround time of less then X hours?
Thus "sparing" the smaller crunchers the larger AP-wu's, so that they get a more stable RAC.. giving them the idea something really is happening and that "all is well"!

In my opinion this could, at least partially, help alleviate the problem..

---

The SETI@Home Gauntlet 2012 april 16 - 30| info / chat | STATS

I do not chase credit, I just believe in this modern day and age SETI should not be high on any crunchers list, I have switched my 5 main crunchers to WCG, mostly Help Cure Cancer, or The Clean Energy Project. I cannot justify running these machines looking for life out there, when I feel we should be doing more for our own planet.

I started SETI Classic as "a bit of fun". 10 years on and it is time perhaps to see what SETI is still trying to achieve. I will admit to also being put off by Astropulse and the early CUDA experiment, which saw my 2 CUDA machines trash more WU's than they crunched.

I have some older slow work machines still crunching SETI, but I will probably stop them soon. A pity, but I cannot see what relevance SETI has for the modern world. If we were to detect any signals, the likelihood of any coherent message transfer in any of our lifetimes is remote.

Bernie

---