Is seti@home worth giving another try?

[KLscilevothma]

has anyone joined seti@home ?

That sounds interesting!

seti@home

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

PF should setup a SETI group.

 

[J-Man]

At the time of this posting, there are 4,400,244 seti@home users world-wide.
On PF, I'm sure there's probably a dozen or two who use it.

My stats are currently:
Data Unis Completed: 200
Computer Time: 4027 hours, 49 minutes
I think I'm listed between 70%-80% for all users. But their CGI's are turned off at the moment, so I can't check for sure.

P.S. If you run the program minimized it processes much faster.

 

[Nicool003]

It sounds very interesting but I heard it was slow and that it could kinda of mess up your computer.

 

[kyle_soule]

I had it a while back, when it was much less popular, and I thought it made a pretty nice screensaver, but I didn't understand exactly what it was doing, so I deleted it But there seems to be a big push for it lately, it's been popping up on the news, and I've heard people talking about it a lot more...I will prolly give it another try

I don't think it really would find any intelligence, IMO, but never hurts, it's not like you use your computer when the screensaver comes on anyways.

 

[KLscilevothma]

Data Unis Completed: 200
Computer Time: 4027 hours, 49 minutes

wow! that's a lot. I just started using it yesterday, after a television program introduced it.

 

[emu]

200 units is nothing.
"Name (and URL) louder -elite
Results Received 558
Total CPU Time 7760 hr 12 min
Average CPU Time per work unit 13 hr 54 min 25.8 sec
Average results received per day 0.42
Last result returned: Mon Jun 3 01:03:19 2002 UTC
"


Although even 2 years ago, there were enough people processing the units that each one was processed by at least 3 different people.

As you can see, I haven't used it since July of 2002. I don't leave my computer on all the time anymore.

 

[J-Man]

I don't use it as a screen saver.
It runs minimized whenever my computer is booted. I don't leave my p.c. on all the time either. I observe no slowdown in other programs because their thread priority is higher. (But my cpu usage is always at 98-100%.) The seti@home program just uses all the empty cycles my p.c. has while waiting for me to do something which is usually well over 90% of the time the computer is on since I mostly use the internet and write programs.

Nicool003 said:
It sounds very interesting but I heard it was slow and that it could kinda of mess up your computer.

The seti@home app itself runs a little slow if you watch the pretty colors, but if it's minimized it goes pretty quick, I can do a unit in about 15-20 hours on my 800MHz machine. As far as slowing down other apps, it doesn't, at least not enough for you to actually notice if it does. I have never seen it mess up any computer, and I consider it one of the safest and "most respectful" programs I have ever used.

(edit: change "20 hours" to "15-20 hours".)

 

[J-Man]

Don't worry KL Kam, you'll catch up.

I'm not trying to brag or anything...
But here's my stats:
----------------------------------
Name (and URL) JHLimberg
Results Received 201
Total CPU Time 4041 hr 33 min
Average CPU Time per work unit 20 hr 06 min 26.1 sec
Average results received per day 0.20
Last result returned: Tue Apr 8 14:30:55 2003 UTC
Registered on: Mon Jun 19 20:04:14 2000 UTC
View Registration Class
SETI@home user for: 2.804 years
Your group info:
You do not currently belong to a group.
You are not currently the founder of any teams.

Your rank: (based on current workunits received)

Your rank out of 4409057 total users is: 507125th place.
The number of users who have this rank: 1546
You have completed more work units than 88.463% of our users.

User Certificates
Download 100 Workunit Certificate
----------------------------------

 

[KLscilevothma]

My rank:


---------------------------------------------------------------------
Your rank: (based on current workunits received)

Your rank out of 4409065 total users is: 2888482nd place.
The number of users who have this rank: 1517959
You have completed more work units than 0.060% of our users.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

I just installed it for about 2 days, but my rank is already better than 2624 users.

 

[Rashid]

RC5 and Seti at home

Yeah, I'm an ubber geek. I run the RC5 client and Seti@home. I have a Dual processor machine with 1 gig of Ram. Makes for perfect decoding for these types of things. I blaze through Seti@home and RC5 quickly. Go for it, its an awesome program and it doesn't take up that much space nor does it fry your Processor or Ram.

 

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by KL Kam
I just started using it yesterday, after a television program introduced it.

Where have you guys been? I've been on for 3 years (though I haven't done much in 2 years). I only have 190 units, my old email is now defunct, and I don't know my seti password, so I'll probably just start a new account (built a new computer yesterday finally).

Also, for those new to setiathome, it really is not noticeable running in the background. It is very good at limiting its usage according to how much you are using the machine. Also, though it may be neat to look at the screensaver mode, it quadruples the time it takes to complete a unit. So if you aren't actually looking at it, run it minimized.

 

[FZ+]

I only have 190 units

Sign. This is when I realize how old, crap and slow my computer really is.

My finished units have barely entered double digits.

 

[Njorl]

I joined specifically to prevent the discovery of my home-world.

Njorl

 

[Nicool003]

I thought that since it was such a large program it could slow down your computer... Maybe I mis-understod what someone said. I would like to do it but I don't have my own computer

 

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by Nicool003
I thought that since it was such a large program it could slow down your computer... Maybe I mis-understod what someone said. I would like to do it but I don't have my own computer

You can set the processing priority of most programs in windows. Seti automatically sets itself for "low" meaning windows only gives it processor time when it isn't doing anything else.

 

[KLscilevothma]

originally posted by J-man
I don't use it as a screen saver.
It runs minimized whenever my computer is booted. I don't leave my p.c. on all the time either.

me as well. I don't even set SETI@home as my screen saver because I think this lowers the speed to complete one unit.

http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/stats/users.html
The 184th top user, his/her average CPU time per unit is 28 minutes 44.8 seconds!

 

[emu]

I've created a Physics Forums group for anyone who wants to join.
The team page can be found http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/stats/team/team_165807.html . I've quit my old group to found this one.

-The screensaver does in fact waste processing power. One of the screensaver options is to set the screen black, which reserves all processing time for SETI. My P3-500 does a unit in about 17 hours under win98.

-However, when I was running linux, I could do a unit in under 10 hours with the same machine. Hence why my average unit time is about 14 hours/unit.

-Parabon Pioneer is another program which splits a task into smaller pieces suitable to be processed by PCs. The goal is to use the the processing power to sell to companies. Mostly pharmaceutical companies looking to analyze new molecules from my understanding.

 

[screwball]

Originally posted by kyle_soule
I had it a while back, when it was much less popular, and I thought it made a pretty nice screensaver, but I didn't understand exactly what it was doing, so I deleted it But there seems to be a big push for it lately, it's been popping up on the news, and I've heard people talking about it a lot more...I will prolly give it another try

I don't think it really would find any intelligence, IMO, but never hurts, it's not like you use your computer when the screensaver comes on anyways.

i got the same story, and now that its all popular and i have a much better computer I've been thinking about giving it another try