In this thread feel free to post any advice on how to speed up computing in the Rosetta@home application!

1. How to optimize the properties?
- How to Increase usage of RAM, and would it improve the calculations(Rosetta is often only using 200Mb/2Gb)
- Dual core processor means that 2 WU run simultaneously??

2. Intel vs AMD-processors, if there is any difference, which is the better??

ALSO Please feel free to post: Your RAC-score AND Your computer specification. I will hten be able to evaluate the performance of my computer.

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1. How to optimize the properties?
- How to Increase usage of RAM, and would it improve the calculations(Rosetta is often only using 200Mb/2Gb)
- Dual core processor means that 2 WU run simultaneously??

- There is no need to manually increase the amount of RAM that Rosetta@home is using because that is all that it needs (provided RAM usage is not limited under preferences)
- Yes dual core processors can run 2 tasks similtaneously. In fact all multicore processors can run 1 task per core.

2. Intel vs AMD-processors, if there is any difference, which is the better??

Intel are known currently to be ahead in the speed of processors. However I myself am an AMD fan because of the cheaper products.

I also second the vote for AMD based on the price. I spend about $200 for a new motherboard, memory, and processor and went from a RAC of about 100 a day to a RAC of about 700 a day. $99 for the motherboard, $75 for the processor, and $32 for the memory. An equivalent Core 2 Duo that could outperform me will cost over $100 more.

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In this thread feel free to post any advice on how to speed up computing in the Rosetta@home application!

1. How to optimize the properties?
- How to Increase usage of RAM, and would it improve the calculations(Rosetta is often only using 200Mb/2Gb)
- Dual core processor means that 2 WU run simultaneously??

2. Intel vs AMD-processors, if there is any difference, which is the better??

ALSO Please feel free to post: Your RAC-score AND Your computer specification. I will hten be able to evaluate the performance of my computer.

Turn the screensaver off, it wastes cpu cycles and slows down the crunching! Get a standalone videocard, ie don't use the built into the motherboard one, it will speed up the processing some. Don't use the latest and greatest version of Boinc, it often has 'issues'. Use dual channel memory if your pc supports it.

You can see my pc's if you click on my name, then under my projects click on ABC and once there click on computers. Rosetta never worked for me under Windows, just Linux, so I have moved on. I have a mix of both Intel and AMD chips and both crunch just fine. AMD is cheaper but my dual core Intel 3.2ghz with HT on each core, it thinks it is a quad core, kicks butt!!

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Using the on board video card doesn't subtract from the performance that much. On my old motherboard, I had only 32mb of video memory, so a seperate video card was something I wanted. But my current motherboard has 512mb GeForce 8300. A seperate video card that is the equivalent or better than this would cost me almost as much, or more, than my current motherboard. The best thing to do with onboard video is to have the monitor power off after about 10 minutes of inactivity.

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Using the on board video card doesn't subtract from the performance that much. On my old motherboard, I had only 32mb of video memory, so a seperate video card was something I wanted. But my current motherboard has 512mb GeForce 8300. A seperate video card that is the equivalent or better than this would cost me almost as much, or more, than my current motherboard. The best thing to do with onboard video is to have the monitor power off after about 10 minutes of inactivity.

Powering off is an excellent way to help. But the video card thing still applies except as you alluded to when you actually want to use the video card for gaming on anything besides a dedicated cruncher. If you have a dedicated cruncher any kind of stand alone video card is better than the onboard one when it comes to crunching. For gaming or just plain viewing the details of the work unit, the onboard one like yours blows away cheap video cards. I tend to buy cheap pci video cards and put them in my machines, most are dedicated crunchers, and they are slightly faster.

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I don't get this video card bit. If you are not doing GPU based calcs, how in the world is the Video Card slowing it down? Now if you are low on memory and using shared memory for video I can see that being a problem. That being said at today's prices there is not reason for any computer to be that low on memory.

If the machine is too old to find memory for it, you probably should retire it. The benefits of using such an old machine for distributed computing are probably not enough to justify the amount of power it is consuming. I have a closet full of such machines that have just become parts depots simply because the heat generated and power consumed are not worth the computing power they contain.

And as for dedicated crunchers, they should be using Linux without a graphical interface so the video card issue is irrelevant. =)

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A seperate video card has it's own memory and processor. Now I'm not sure about all the details of my new board, but when you have embedded onboard video, like my old one, the main cpu handled the video tasks, as well has using a bit of your regular memory for your "video memory." Now my new board graphic chipset is shown in the Nvidia control panel system info as a Cuda device, lists me as having 8 stream processors, a 500mhz graphics clock, 1500mhz processor clock, 800 mhz memory clock,128bit memory interface, etc.
Now the actual memory amount is shared with my regular memory, but I don't know how much my processor really has to do to support the onboard video. Some of that stuff sounds like it has it's own processor and memory stuff. I do know that the board is an Nvidia hybrid board, so if combining it with certain Nvidia card, I can either have Power Boost or Power Savings. But all I care about is that is has an HDMI hookup, will support full 1080P, and will support Blue Ray playback. So when the time comes, and Windows 7 final edition goes on sale, I will be looking at some Blu-Ray lighstcribe drives and the new O.S. XP doesn't support Blu-Ray playback.

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I don't get this video card bit. If you are not doing GPU based calcs, how in the world is the Video Card slowing it down? Now if you are low on memory and using shared memory for video I can see that being a problem. That being said at today's prices there is not reason for any computer to be that low on memory.

If the machine is too old to find memory for it, you probably should retire it. The benefits of using such an old machine for distributed computing are probably not enough to justify the amount of power it is consuming. I have a closet full of such machines that have just become parts depots simply because the heat generated and power consumed are not worth the computing power they contain. Ours gives receipts for the taxes.

And as for dedicated crunchers, they should be using Linux without a graphical interface so the video card issue is irrelevant. =)

You may want to talk to your local Department of Social Services and find the Foster Care and Adoption section and within it the Families for Kids section. Our local one accepts donated old computers and then a friend and I rebuild them and give them back so the kids can have something of their own. The kids are the ones taken from bad homes and put with Foster Families until they get adopted. They usually have nothing except the garbage bag of stuff they could grab on their way out, sometimes not even that!

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I don't get this video card bit. If you are not doing GPU based calcs, how in the world is the Video Card slowing it down? Now if you are low on memory and using shared memory for video I can see that being a problem. That being said at today's prices there is not reason for any computer to be that low on memory.

As Gen X Accord said any machine that uses on-board video and not a stand alone video card uses the cpu to draw the pretty pictures, thus slowing down the crunching of workunits. Setting the screen to go blank can help alot, but nothing can prevent some loss of cpu resources. If you get a cheap video card you will see your RAC increase. For machines Like Gen X Accord's, it may not make sense, he does other things with it and an expensive video card is still expensive. I am talking more about dedicated crunchers, although the scenario fits all machines. This is the kind of thing that helps dedicated crunchers and is within most budgets http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3281684&CatId=319. A less than $20.00 16mb pci video card.

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In this thread feel free to post any advice on how to speed up computing in the Rosetta@home application!

1. How to optimize the properties?
- How to Increase usage of RAM, and would it improve the calculations(Rosetta is often only using 200Mb/2Gb)
- Dual core processor means that 2 WU run simultaneously??

2. Intel vs AMD-processors, if there is any difference, which is the better??

ALSO Please feel free to post: Your RAC-score AND Your computer specification. I will hten be able to evaluate the performance of my computer.

More memory may help; for Rosetta@home, at least 0.5 GB per CPU core is recommended plus an additional 0.5 GB for the operating system.

Faster memory helps, if your motherboard can use it.

To get advice on whether your motherboard can handle more or faster memory, try:

http://www.crucial.com/

Caution - they've recently upgraded their software to handle 64-bit machines. Don't run an old version on a 64-bit machine unless you want to see an operating system crash. Suspend all BOINC jobs before running their software.

Note that for 32-bit operating systems (which you probably have if you didn't make a special effort to get a 64-bit version instead), there's a 4 GB limit on how much memory is usable, even if your motherboard allows adding more.

I'm not running Rosetta@home full time on my machines, but for the time when I am, I'm getting a RAC of 727 on my 64-bit Vista SP2 quad-core Intel machine with 8 GB and 102 on my 32-bit Vista SP2 dual-core AMD machine with 2 GB.

Other BOINC projects increase the total to about 8000 for the total of the two machines, including about 6100 of GPU credit from GPUGRID.