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Boinc
- Thread starter Kenn17
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Since BOINC already runs on Big Sur (according to the release notes from the latest BOINC version), my guess is that BOINC will eventually run on M1-powered Macs.
I don't know what sort of "licensing" [sic] issues you are referring to.
I don't know what sort of "licensing" [sic] issues you are referring to.
There is nothing special about BOINC x86 code and it should run fine under Rosetta.
Big Sur and the Apple Silicon transition have introduced zero new restrictions on running one's own software on Macs, despite many doom-and-gloom posts on this forum.
Big Sur and the Apple Silicon transition have introduced zero new restrictions on running one's own software on Macs, despite many doom-and-gloom posts on this forum.
Running something like BOINC via Rosetta would be a waste of energy. I'm interested to see what the increased CPU efficiency and improved GPU performance could do for future BOINC or folding@home builds for Apple's new hardware.
I assume BOINC uses most of its CPU time on floating point operations, not code. With that Rosetta 2 might not be much overhead.
Anybody tryed to run BOINC on M1 MBA? What about throttling? What about GPU acceleration?
Would appreciate any info.
Would appreciate any info.
Anybody who does should include the first page of entries from the Event Log in BOINC Manager.
It should be noted that according to Apple, if BOINC plays by the rules of most x86 apps on Mac, it should have access to the M1's GPU as per the notes on this page:
developer.apple.com
The projects I know off the top of my head that have Mac GPU support are Einstein@Home and Milkyway@Home, and Collatz Conjecture.
Folding@Home has no Mac GPU support.
It should be noted that according to Apple, if BOINC plays by the rules of most x86 apps on Mac, it should have access to the M1's GPU as per the notes on this page:
Porting Your macOS Apps to Apple Silicon | Apple Developer Documentation
Create a version of your macOS app that runs on both Apple silicon and Intel-based Mac computers.
Apple said:
The projects I know off the top of my head that have Mac GPU support are Einstein@Home and Milkyway@Home, and Collatz Conjecture.
Folding@Home has no Mac GPU support.
Folding@home has long supported only CPU folding on Macs. Since Rosetta 2 does not support AVX instructions, it runs slower since it is appears as a Nehalem chip to Folding@home.
I testet some cpu projects with boinc, all is running fine.
Later in my testing i switched from 8 to 2 cores to prevent heat on my Air. The only missing future on Boing for mac is that we have no good gpu tasks to crunch. I found no way to let some gpu apps running. But i think we need real arm projects and tasks to benefit from the arm architecture. Only with Rosetta@home project <-- boinc, my Air had trouble with 8 gb ram and want more.
In my test video Boinc is running in the background.
Later in my testing i switched from 8 to 2 cores to prevent heat on my Air. The only missing future on Boing for mac is that we have no good gpu tasks to crunch. I found no way to let some gpu apps running. But i think we need real arm projects and tasks to benefit from the arm architecture. Only with Rosetta@home project <-- boinc, my Air had trouble with 8 gb ram and want more.
In my test video Boinc is running in the background.
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Which is funny, because my M1 Mac is about 25% faster than the Core i9-9880H in my 16" MacBook Pro. Running through Rosetta.
(About 70,000 points per day on my M1 Mac Mini, vs. about 55,000 points per day on my MacBook Pro. Which turns its fans to "am I in a wind tunnel" speeds, while the M1 mini is dead silent.)
Edit: I see that the BOINC manager is universal but the project processes are running Intel.
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Which project is this...? Folding@home...?
I thought Folding doesn't run on BOINC...
Correct, I am referring to Folding@Home, as that is what the comment I replied to was talking about.
BOINC, as saulinpa mentions, is now Universal for the manager app, but no work processes (that I've seen) are yet Apple Silicon-native.
BOINC, as saulinpa mentions, is now Universal for the manager app, but no work processes (that I've seen) are yet Apple Silicon-native.
Hi all. I am considering purchasing a Mac Mini M1 base model with 8GB RAM and 256GB drive to be solely used to run BOINC/World Community Grid and Mapping Cancer Markers project 24x7 at 100% CPU utilization.
My mom has a Macbook Air M1 (8GB RAM) and it runs this project fine, but it does seem to throttle. The laptop is dead silent and not warm at all which is very nice.
I have a few questions:
1)Is anyone here able to run the M1 Mac Mini with 8GB of RAM at 100% all cores 24x7 with World Community Grid? If it is throttling, can you please elaborate?
2)Anyone else here running the Mac Mini with 8GB and the MCM project? I read somewhere a few months ago that MCM uses much more RAM on a Mac than on Windows.
3)Is the M1 Mini silent and cool running BOINC full throttle 24x7 just like the Macbook Air? I hope.
Anything else I should consider before buying this machine for this purpose?
Thanks!
My mom has a Macbook Air M1 (8GB RAM) and it runs this project fine, but it does seem to throttle. The laptop is dead silent and not warm at all which is very nice.
I have a few questions:
1)Is anyone here able to run the M1 Mac Mini with 8GB of RAM at 100% all cores 24x7 with World Community Grid? If it is throttling, can you please elaborate?
2)Anyone else here running the Mac Mini with 8GB and the MCM project? I read somewhere a few months ago that MCM uses much more RAM on a Mac than on Windows.
3)Is the M1 Mini silent and cool running BOINC full throttle 24x7 just like the Macbook Air? I hope.
Anything else I should consider before buying this machine for this purpose?
Thanks!
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@saulinpa Thanks! I'm shocked that it's eating up all your RAM (granted the OS probably uses 2+). My mom's MBA with 8GB running MCM uses up all the RAM...so if the machines are the same chip with same # of cores yet double the RAM, I don't know why your Mini is using all the RAM. What Project(s) are you running? Have any screenshots of how much RAM all your CPU tasks are using?
Lastly, if I bought a used M1 Mini for under $600, do you think it's a good price-for-performance for crunching World Community Grid? For reference, I have a bunch of i9 16-thread Wintel machines I bought a few years ago for $741 each and they crunch a lot! They return about 160 Work Units a day for the MCM project. The Macbook Air M1 is returning about 30 WUs a day on the same project but there is throttling going on. So maybe the Mini could spit out 50 WUs a day.
The only other factor I would take into consideration is that supposedly the M1 Minis only use 25Watts where I believe my Lenovos are probably using 80-100.
Lastly, if I bought a used M1 Mini for under $600, do you think it's a good price-for-performance for crunching World Community Grid? For reference, I have a bunch of i9 16-thread Wintel machines I bought a few years ago for $741 each and they crunch a lot! They return about 160 Work Units a day for the MCM project. The Macbook Air M1 is returning about 30 WUs a day on the same project but there is throttling going on. So maybe the Mini could spit out 50 WUs a day.
The only other factor I would take into consideration is that supposedly the M1 Minis only use 25Watts where I believe my Lenovos are probably using 80-100.
Just curious... When you say running out of memory, does that mean macOS indicated insufficient memory, or BOINC says waiting for memory...?
I have an old 2010 MBP with only 8GB RAM maxed running BOINC with Einstein@home at only 2 workunits crunching. There are times when one workunit will suspend itself due to BOINC reporting waiting for memory...
I can't speak for him, but when I installed World Community Grid/BOINC on my mom's M1 Macbook Air with 8GB RAM, I recall it jumping between 4 and 8 active threads...there was a message on BOINC stating it was waiting for memory to free up.
Again, I use the Mapping Cancer Markers project which uses a 500MB RAM per thread on the M1 Mac while 70MB on Windows. The presumed answer/reason is that as of a few months ago, BOINC or World Community Grid or the Mapping Cancer Markers Project has not been ported to use the M1 natively. I would certainly hope they port it soon.
I've seen Einstein@home use as much as 1.9GB RAM per thread... So I set BOINC computing preferences to use 90% RAM in both instances of "computer in use" and "not in use", since the old MBP is left crunching 24/7...
I bought an M1 Mac Mini 8GB RAM and running Boinc with Mapping Cancer Markers (like saulinpa above) only uses 2 threads! Saulinpa, what Mac are you using? You clearly have 5 MCM threads running.
I wonder how Boinc and MCM run on the new M1 iMacs.
I wonder how Boinc and MCM run on the new M1 iMacs.
16GB makes a big difference. I did tweak the Boinc memory settings.
New M1 iMacs have same chip so should run the same as the mini assuming no cooling issues.