Crunching BOINC under Vista

[petrusbroder]

Vista is coming

Should we - who crunch under win XP - stay on XP or change to Vista?
What are the advantages and problems with Vista?

 

[BlackMountainCow]

As far as all the reviews, tests, opinions and stuff I read, Vista will be slower than XP if nor hardware is changed --> crunching will be slower --> stay on XP! :evil:

 

[Rudy Toody]

I was a beta tester for Vista and I compared my previous performance under XP x64 to Vista 64.

On Einstein@Home there were several users that I consistently beat by about 3% timewise.

Under Vista 64, those same users were beating me by about 3%. That's when I took up Over Clocking!

A 10% over clock got me back to the previous 3% advantage.

I have the Release Candidate 1 sitting unopened on my desk. I don't plan to use it.

--Fred

 

[imaheadcase]

No difference here on Vista vs XP. Crutching remains the same.

 

[BlackMountainCow]

Originally posted by: imaheadcase
No difference here on Vista vs XP. Crutching remains the same.

What projects?

 

[Rudy Toody]

Originally posted by: imaheadcase
No difference here on Vista vs XP. Crutching remains the same.

I should qualify my observations. The test was with Beta 2 which (I suspect) had debugging features enabled which would slow the processing.

I didn't retry the test with RC1 because I had other issues with Vista that made me decide not to use it.

 

[Philippart]

Boinc 5.4.11 works fine
Boinc 5.8.8 and 5.8.11 need manual closing before restarting, otherwise they will drop all unfinished work after restarting

Rosetta is on 2 vista PCs 5-10% faster than on the same PC running XP (readyboost helps a lot!)
same for WCG Help Defeat Cancer and HPF phase 2 (running rosetta)

if you're using vista, make sure you use readyboost for DC

 

[Smoke]

Thanks for that tip, Philippart!

I just put the 1 Gig smart card from my camera in the smart card reader and right there at the bottom of the "options" window was the choice to use ReadyBoost.

Now let's see if it actually helps.

 

[BadThad]

Originally posted by: Smoke
Thanks for that tip, Philippart!

I just put the 1 Gig smart card from my camera in the smart card reader and right there at the bottom of the "options" window was the choice to use ReadyBoost.

Now let's see if it actually helps.

That's a cool feature, never heard of it before. I have a lot to learn about Vista yet. My copy of Ultimate is on the way, but I don't think I want to install it on my main PC until SP1 is released.

 

[Smoke]

I've advised everybody to wait about a year before jumping into VISTA (unless they were buying a new PC) but after a week of looking at the VISTA ULTIMATE disk sitting on my desk I just couldn't resist any longer.

I'm using it on my main workstation and so far I really like it. I have lost a few of my favorite programs for now awaiting VISTA upgrades. I'm even trying Windows Live OneCare. :Q

Man, do I want a Core2 Extreme. (And the market is up ... hmm). :laugh:

 

[imaheadcase]

I'm using Rosetta on BOINC on Vista final. I've had zero issues with Vista on all fronts, quite pleased with it. I don't see any reason myself to go back to XP.

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

I'll be getting Vista when they have drivers for my RAID controller and video card.

 

[Spacehead]

Any other tips, suggestions, observances with Vista?

 

[Philippart]

yes: use boinc 5.8.15 (current version) not 5.8.8 or 5.8.11 otherwise your computer will lose all the data crunched after you reboot!

 

[petrusbroder]

Thanks, Tom!