SETI@Home shutdown when Doom 3-ing

[BespinReactorShaft]

I have this habit of shutting down SETI@Home (two processes running parallel on my P4 HT system), whenever I run "demanding" stuff like Doom3 (or any 3D shooter for that matter). Is this really necessary?

I heard somewhere that DC programs only utilise spare CPU resources. So is it true that if Doom 3 needs ~100% of the CPU resources, SETI@Home won't impact its performance at all?

 

[Confused]

Almost all DC programs use only idle CPU time, and if anything else wants processing power, the DC program will give up CPU time.

I have been running DC applications for ~4yrs now, and I haven't noticed any difference when running them to when they are not running.


Garry

 

[JWMiddleton]

Originally posted by: Confused
I have been running DC applications for ~4yrs now, and I haven't noticed any difference when running them to when they are not running.

Same here for the application/game I am running. If it is a demanding 3-D game, then the time to complete the WU can be greatly extended. Often I have seen SetiSpy showing SETI as being idle when playing my fav 3-D game. For general computer use, like when I run SETI on my work machine with me working in Word, Excel and even some web surfing, I see hardly any increase in WU completion time.

 

[Hellburner]

Back in the old days when your main box was oh, a 64 meg EDO RAM Pentium 200, with S@H needing ~14 megs of RAM to run, the page swapping in and out of RAM during game play and such could be annoying. Most machines today have enough and fast enough RAM that such things either don't happen or are so fast you don't notice.

 

[BespinReactorShaft]

Thanks for the tips ppl.

 

[networkman]

FWIW, I shutdown any DC apps I'm running when I wanna play a game, whether they're "supposed to" throttle back on the cycles taken or not; when I'm playing my game, I want 100% of the cpu time or as close as I can get to it.

 

[jdiddy]

Originally posted by: networkman
FWIW, I shutdown any DC apps I'm running when I wanna play a game, whether they're "supposed to" throttle back on the cycles taken or not; when I'm playing my game, I want 100% of the cpu time or as close as I can get to it.

 

[Assimilator1]

I still occasionaly notice brief slow downs in games if I leave SETI on ,so still worth turning off.

 

[xjamesx]

I see a lot of slowdown and jerkiness when playing Unreal Tournament 2004 or DOOM3 with SETI@home running in the background. I never manage to stick at it for long though, so SETI is never closed down for long

 

[Rattledagger]

I've had the virus-scanner interfering in some games, but upgrading to a later version solved these problems...

Have never had any problems running games and DC at the same time.


But maybe this is since the bottleneck is the graphics-card and not the cpu...

 

[Wolfsraider]

I don't turn off dc anymore

it doesn't stall or glitch or stutter like it used to before i upgraded.

Even tsc (2 instances) runs fine using photoshop and dreamweaver and playing a game (lately its kotor and prior was ut2004) in the background.


mike

 

[magratton]

I run a dually HT and have F@H and S@H running all the time, even with doom3

 

[Assimilator1]

Interesting ,whilst my rig isn't anywhere near that powerful its no slouch either

My main rig is an XP2400 @2.22GHz ,177MHz FSB ,the graphics card is a little older though ,a GF4 Ti4200 at near 4400 speeds

 

[Coolkid]

I personally havent had any problems with running S@H with Doom3, UT2004, etc.
I ALWAYS have it running, i cant remember the last time i had to shut it down for any reason

 

[SoulAssassin]

Ran some benchmarks a couple weeks ago and D3 framerates increased by 3fps (34->37) after turning off lifemapper on my p4/2.8HT. Wasn't a noticeable performance gain but it does show an impact.

 

[HayHauler]

I get MAJOR ping suckage when uploading / downloading new WU's....
It's usually when I am sneaking up on someone and have just jumped out to
lay the Smackdown on their A $ $, when the WU decides it is time to
transmit. agggggh!!!

So I always shut Seti down!
:beer: for you

HayHauler

 

[Assimilator1]

Ah yes that's true!

SETIQ grabbing a load of WUs can cause ping havoc on FreeLancer too

Btw Hay what games do you play?

 

[Rattledagger]

Well, the ping shouldn't be a problem, since this is just to use SetiQueue & do manual upload, or set to only connect then you're normally sleeping.

In BOINC, if running the gui, just choose "disable BOINC network access" before starting to play.