I'm using BOINC v5.4.11. on a few machines (Windows XP MCE Athelon 64 x2 3800, Windows XP PentM 1300, Windows 2k PIIIM 850)

I've set my Max CPU usage to 80% in my general prefs to keep laptop temps down, but BOINC doesn't seem to obey that rule. I've checked each of my attached projects and they all reflect this rule, but when BOINC runs a work unit, it takes 100% the computer's CPU time (all of them). Does this feature work, or am I missing something here?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Mac

It says specifically underneath that option Enforced by versions 5.6 and greater

This is the Boinc version. So the CPU throttle works with Boinc 5.6.x and greater.

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It says specifically underneath that option Enforced by versions 5.6 and greater

This is the Boinc version. So the CPU throttle works with Boinc 5.6.x and greater.

Gotcha. Thanks for the quick reply. I'll upgrade my version. In my defense, I have only configured this feature on the "General Preferences" page of projects I'm attached to, and none of those pages mention anything about version compatibility for Max CPU usage.

In addition, I'm having trouble with my media PC. I use it as a DVR and I definitely notice that when one of the crunching processes is running, I get poor DVR performance (jerky video). I assume that it's due to CPU scheduling conflicts (that's even with the DVR process running "Above Average" and the crunching process running "Low"). I'm not sure that the CPU throttling implementation described in the this forum will solve my issue. I think second scale resolution would be too coarse, but I'll give it a whirl and see.

Thanks again Ageless.

Mac

Ah, on the subject of upgrading. At the moment there are only the Alpha versions available (5.7.5 is the latest for Windows). They come with their own set of bugs. So if you can't wait to test the throttling, go ahead. If you think you can't stand having extra bugs, wait for the release client 5.8.x

The small lettering of the needed version was added later. Those projects that show the CPU throttle option must use the older version of the Boinc server software.

As for jerky video, BOINC writes to disk every second. It's constantly updating the client_state.xml file. So if your video is at that moment also read, that can explain the jerky video. Pause Boinc when you play video.

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Thanks a lot Ageless. Great info. I think I'll just wait on a released version of BOINC with the CPU throttling support.

I notice that for video recorded while BOINC processes are running, I get jerky video when during playback (BOINC suspended). When BOINC is suspended while recording, video playback is normal - even when BOINC is running during playback. I gather from your comments that a possible reason would be that the two processes are waiting for each other to write to the HD. Rats. I may have to ditch BOINC on my media PC.

As an aside, it would be nice (for my case anyway) if BOINC had some sort of process dependent suspend/resume. I'll post in the wish list forum.

Thanks again.

Mac

On our project (CPDN) we recommend that people suspend or exit boinc before encoding audio or video, use TV cards or play games. It's just a right-click and 'exit' on the icon to do this. (However the reason we suggest this is to protect the model against crashes caused by graphics clashes, or CPU / disk starvation)

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As for jerky video, BOINC writes to disk every second. It's constantly updating the client_state.xml file. So if your video is at that moment also read, that can explain the jerky video. Pause Boinc when you play video.

It's actually amazing how many different continuous processes and RPC talk of BOiNC, BOiNCview and the various sciences cause hits on firewalls and antivirus. That state file write i'd not realised until switching to NOD32, so told it to ignore that event as well.... better for performance, definitely shrinking log files tremendously.

That's true. It's even more amazing if you check the system processes, with something like Ethereal, FileMon or Process Explorer. Then you'll see that the client_state.xml and client_state_prev.xml files are actually written to some 10 times per second.

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