Running WCG/Boinc on a Mac

[muckshifter]

Well ... at least it is semi official

http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/viewJoinNow.do

 

[Adywebb]

Yep, I noticed the post at WCG refering to it when I got in at 3am this morning from work

I also noticed from a couple of posts from folks trying it, that the WU's seem to be taking longer than those using Windows/Linux - I wondering if this is merely due to the work being made available to the platform, or if there are some teething problems?

 

[muckshifter]

Yep, I noticed the post at WCG refering to it when I got in at 3am this morning from work

I also noticed from a couple of posts from folks trying it, that the WU's seem to be taking longer than those using Windows/Linux - I wondering if this is merely due to the work being made available to the platform, or if there are some teething problems?

It's quite probable there will be teething problems as I still see NO official mention of Boinc for the Mac, nevermind any decent instructions.

I did notice it will only do FA@H, and there are some big WUs from that lot.

Still, it works I think we can be grateful for that.

 

[Me__2001]

i put in my first last night which took 18 hours an the one im on now looks like it will take about the same

 

[cirianz]

Well I can't wait until I can reset my preferences. I've just waited 3 minutes for a page to open. Maybe it doesn't do it on a PC but on the Lappy... well it occasionally moves over & lets me use some space. But it has to think about it first. Every single time
I have started manually suspending BOINC when I need to work, unfortunately, I don't always remember to turn it back on sorry But the lag was getting ridiculous. I was using up my computer time before I even got through my emails... No I'm not exaggerating.

 

[Me__2001]

strange, i dont notice any problems with lag or anything just gets a tad warm for my liking, im running a G4 1.33Ghz with 768MB of RAM and i can use it to do anything whilst BOINC is running

what spec is your lappy ?

 

[cirianz]

i Book G4
1.33 Ghz
512K RAM
HD 55.8 GB (advertised as 40GB but who's complaining )
Airport extreeme
osx 10.3.9

Sounds like we've got the same model but my RAM is lower so maybe that's the problem?
Whatever it is it's driving me loopy.
It is taking me 20 odd minutes to do things that I can usually do in 5. & the thing that's driving me up the wall is that I'm not exaggerating.
Some of the time the lag is so bad that I have time to go boil the kettle between the time when I type the letters & when they appear on the screen. There's even 4-5 seconds lag between when I click & drag a page & when it moves. & the same when I try & scroll.
I never got any of this trouble before when i had it set to suspend while I was using the computer If you've got any sugestions then they'd be much appreciated.

 

[muckshifter]

i Book G4
1.33 Ghz
512K RAM
HD 55.8 GB (advertised as 40GB but who's complaining )
Airport extreeme

If you've got any sugestions then they'd be much appreciated.

All I can suggest is you suspend Boinc while you work on your Mac ... I hope then they will get some more information out for Mac users.

 

[V_R]

Thats not good Ciri, you poor thing.

I dont know much about Macs, but i is sure it shouldn't be doing that. Maybe ME__2001 can shed some light on the subject?

 

[Me__2001]

maybe the different in OS versions ? im running 10.4.6 but i doubt that would have much of an effect, i could be wrong though as im new to world of mac's

currently i have just BOINC and a temp monitor running and whatever starts at boot and i'm only using 340MB of RAM, about 80MB of that is being used by BOINC, the related WU and manager so you might run out of RAM if you have a few other programs open, its worth checking it to see how much you are using

 

[Adywebb]

RAM could well be the issue here - here is a quote posted recently at WCG by one of the Techs, it relates to an Intel PC, but I would imagine it covers Macs too:

As for impact on your machine, the science apps run at the lowest priority on the system and thus every other process has priority over it.

In CPU terms it should have no impact at all.

However, the apps do take up quite a chunk of memory, so if you are tight on RAM, you'll notice some performance degradation due to paging - only more RAM will help.

 

[cirianz]

Yes I had wondered if it was the RAM. Although I've shut down everything I don't need I am running 2 browsers (Safari & Firefox) at the moment & since I'm usually working on more than one thing at a time I frequently have a number of applications open at the same time. Before BOINC I never had any problems with this but now...

I just wish that it would let me reset my preferences. suspending & reopening boinc manually is meaning that it is running much less than before as I am often up & down doing other things while I work. Before i had it set to start running after 3 mins of inactivity but now it is generally off for the full length of time that I'm using the computer, & last night I has a seizure & no one else knew (or would've touched my computer to do so) to restart BOINC so it was turned off all night.

I'm sure they'll get things sorted soon enough, but in the meantime it is very frustrating

Thanks for your help guys I guess I'll just have to be patient & wait & in the meantime just keep pottering away. Every little bit helps

 

[V_R]

Well its now offically offical!

http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/forums/wcg/viewthread?thread=7145