SETI@home PC v. Mac

umm, yeah that's fair. if a dual 1ghz can't beat a single athlon 1.4 it would be a sad computer.

LEMMIE have that mac! it should be doing important stuff and not looking for aliens!

that is cool, yet another example of Macs being great!

Ensign

SETI isn't DP aware

Actually guys, the mac is only running at 1 Ghz. SETI@home isn't DP aware :-/ but you can run two darwin copies and that will utilize both processors.

I didn't realise it was only 1 processor aware, I might run it in the Terminal/Darwin now.

Ensign

from what i read when i installed the seti@home thing (yesterday), it most certainly IS dp aware.

i will try to find a link or something about this.

as i thought... this is taken from the read me included with the os x gui installer:

"The SETI@home OS X client has full multi-processor support. If the Mac running OS X has dual processors, it will take advantage of that. If your Macintosh has multiple processors, the CPU time shown is the total for all processors, and so may be greater than the elapsed (clock) time.

The same work unit may show more CPU time when run on a dual-processor system than on a single-processor computer, because it will be able to draw more graphics without slowing down the computation. However, the elapsed time to complete the work unit will be less with dual processors."

I have a DP machine + I thought that it was semi-processor aware! 1 processor for the client + the other was for drawing the graphics. I run two terminal copies with both copies controlled by SETICNTL. (I do 2 units in about 6 and half hours). There are some single pc's that can process a unit in about 2 hours!!! Afraid to say if, but DDRAM etc helps SETI a lot!

My bad, I was reading their FAQ

Sorry guys, I was reading from their online FAQ:

Are you planning on adding multiprocessor support for my Dual G4 system?

Yes. Not in 3.0, but in a later version.

Click to expand...

:-/ Guess I'll read the docs next time

The only way to use your second processor is to use two command line versions in OSX.

Originally posted by Falleron
The only way to use your second processor is to use two command line versions in OSX.

Click to expand...

That's what I thought.... whose right?

Just an anecdotal response... I am running folding@home on both my G4 466 and my 733 pentium III, and the mac is processing at about 5:1

Very nice

Seti@home is not DP aware in the sense that it will crunch on both processors. as it says on the FAQ at their site, its sort of multithreaded, where it will put the graphics rendering load on one processor and the actually crunching on the other. it even says in the FAQ to use one command line client per processor somewhere. so if you're running the GUI client, when it goes to a black screen it's only using one processor. to illustrate this further, put two command line clients on your DP mac. you will notice that each should get about the same times you got on your GUI client. so if you got 12 hours/unit on the GUI client, you might get 10-11 hours/unit for EACH client, showing that the GUI client was only using one processor. if the single GUI client was really using both processors then it would have been putting out 6 hours/unit instead. this doesnt just happen on the mac version, its with all of them. if I run the windows 2x command line client on my dp PC each client finishes a work unit in a little less time than the GUI client takes. but I'm running 2 clients so I get 2 units done....basically by running 2 seperate command line clients, your using processor power for crunching that would otherwise be used for the graphics. and I've collected all my GUI client times by having it go to a black screen after 1 minute, so its *not* doing graphics work while I'm collecting my times, so my times really show that its only using one processor for crunching.

so everybody with a dp mac should run 2 copies. if you like the screen saver one, then you can run 1x GUI and 1x command line client assuming the GUI client goes to blank screen ASAP. i've done that before and i've gotten about 12hours GUI/12 hours command line on my dual 500 G4, which usually gets between 10 and 11 hours per client running 2 command line clients

verbose101, what kinda times are you getting per client on your DP 1ghz? on my dual athlon 1900 I'm getting about 4 to 4.5 hours per client (in other words per processor)....I think I've heard that another guy running a dual ghz machine is geting about 6 hours per work unit per client.

they should clear up the multiprocessor issue in the read me... i read that but not the faq.

guess i'll check out the command line one now...

ya its confusing. you can argue that it IS dp aware cuz it uses both processors, but its not really dp aware when you consider how its crunching, which is pretty much the point of the app (unless you reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaly like the screen saver). i guess both takes are right, but putting up a dual 1 ghz G4 against a 1.4 ghz athlon will only be using 1 processor on both machines....actually if you're running the GUI client on the single processor athlon with the graphics running all the time, you're running it at a disadvantage because the DP mac gets to use one processor for crunching while the athlon has to do both crunching and graphics on the same chip...so of course youre probably going to see the athlon lag behind...

What are your times

What are your actual times for both the Athlon, and the G4. Also is this just on WU, or is this an average. If you go and look at the SETI Statitistics page, it clearly shows that on average, the Athlons are the fastest consumer processor. The only things faster are Alphas, and such

http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/stats/cpus.html

http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/stats/platforms.html

Re: What are your times

Originally posted by sturm375
What are your actual times for both the Athlon, and the G4. Also is this just on WU, or is this an average. If you go and look at the SETI Statitistics page, it clearly shows that on average, the Athlons are the fastest consumer processor. The only things faster are Alphas, and such

http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/stats/cpus.html

http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/stats/platforms.html

Click to expand...

What is an Alpha? 1 hour per unit... JESUS CHRIST

powerpc-apple-rhapsody5.6
8 hr 46 min 44.3 sec

Macintosh
17 hr 47 min 18.8 sec

Macintosh OS X
17 hr 55 min 21.1 sec

powerpc-apple-darwin1.2
13 hr 53 min 20.3 sec


hhhhmmmm.... suprising.