when the einstein@home screensaver is running, i am getting less work done then i normally am. Is this a result of my crappy graphics card needing help from my main processor or somethings else?
when the einstein@home screensaver is running, i am getting less work done then i normally am. Is this a result of my crappy graphics card needing help from my main processor or somethings else?
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your graphics card is fine...it's normal for the work to slow down while the screensaver is on...because the screensaver takes processing power too.
I decided finally to disable the screensaver just out of curiosity, and crunching time for each WU shortened by 5%. I prefer contributing a little more to the project, so the pretty graphics stays off.
your graphics card is fine...it's normal for the work to slow down while the screensaver is on...because the screensaver takes processing power too.
That may or may not be true on other machines.
Like Vladimir I run with the graphics off, this gains me about 4 to 5 wu/week compared to leaving the screensaver on all the time.
I know my card is not doing any of the 3d graphics work, as it is a 2d card. On my machine then I am sure that most of the praphics work is done by the cpu.
The work needed to do the graphics is fairly independent of the speed of the machine, so the extra wu/week should be about the same when turning off the graphics on a slow or fast machine and will depend only on whether you have a 2d or 3d card. It follows that the slower the machine, the bigger the % change caused by the graphics.
If turning off the screensaver gains 4+ wu/week it is likely that the graphics card was not doing any 3d work for you. If your gain is less than that, then dan is right, the card was doing the 3d work and what you have seen was just the overhead involved in controlling the card.
Thanks for the help.
Wouldn't it be great if they just made a simplified screensaver that wouldn't suck up as much cpu power? maybe they would just make the star map two dimensional or they could just have a simple counter for the percentage done and other stats.
In a perfect world, where the video requirements are totally handled by the video card without drawing power/CPU cycles from the main processor, you would be able to run screen savers with no decrease in throughput. Reality, however, is a horse of another color -- as has repeatedly been proved over the years by the SETI group. Best option is to blank the screen and let the workunits fall where they may....
ScreenSaver
)
when the einstein@home screensaver is running, i am getting less work done then i normally am. Is this a result of my crappy graphics card needing help from my main processor or somethings else?
----------------------
your graphics card is fine...it's normal for the work to slow down while the screensaver is on...because the screensaver takes processing power too.
I decided finally to disable
)
I decided finally to disable the screensaver just out of curiosity, and crunching time for each WU shortened by 5%. I prefer contributing a little more to the project, so the pretty graphics stays off.
your graphics card is
)
your graphics card is fine...it's normal for the work to slow down while the screensaver is on...because the screensaver takes processing power too.
That may or may not be true on other machines.
Like Vladimir I run with the graphics off, this gains me about 4 to 5 wu/week compared to leaving the screensaver on all the time.
I know my card is not doing any of the 3d graphics work, as it is a 2d card. On my machine then I am sure that most of the praphics work is done by the cpu.
The work needed to do the graphics is fairly independent of the speed of the machine, so the extra wu/week should be about the same when turning off the graphics on a slow or fast machine and will depend only on whether you have a 2d or 3d card. It follows that the slower the machine, the bigger the % change caused by the graphics.
If turning off the screensaver gains 4+ wu/week it is likely that the graphics card was not doing any 3d work for you. If your gain is less than that, then dan is right, the card was doing the 3d work and what you have seen was just the overhead involved in controlling the card.
~~gravywavy
Thanks for the help. Wouldn't
)
Thanks for the help.
Wouldn't it be great if they just made a simplified screensaver that wouldn't suck up as much cpu power? maybe they would just make the star map two dimensional or they could just have a simple counter for the percentage done and other stats.
Lars ... In a perfect
)
Lars ...
In a perfect world, where the video requirements are totally handled by the video card without drawing power/CPU cycles from the main processor, you would be able to run screen savers with no decrease in throughput. Reality, however, is a horse of another color -- as has repeatedly been proved over the years by the SETI group. Best option is to blank the screen and let the workunits fall where they may....
If I've lived this long - I gotta be that old!