Screensaver request

[Rotareneg]

Would it be asking too much for a quiet mode (like -qt for text client) in the screensaver? I'm using an old K6-2 450 with 320 megs of RAM for a XP internet connection server, and occasionally for games (don't laugh too loud! :p) I'd rather not have all the fancy graphics of the screensaver slowing down an already slow processor, and running the service version ends up causing swapfile slowdowns when the system runs out of RAM with a game running. Thanks! :)

[Dark-Paradise]

Why don't you use the text-client and shut it down every time you game? That's what I do.

[Brian the Fist]

Alternatively, just set the screensaver to the lowest available resolution and lowest quality rendering. At these settings the drawing should not significantly slow down computation.

[Rotareneg]

Most of the time it's other people who use it for games, and if I told 'em how to turn stop and start the text client they'd invariably end up just turning it off and forgeting about it. :rolleyes: I'll just try Brian's suggestion, and run it at the lowest possible resolution.

[runestar]

<confused> I thought the screensaver only ran when the system was sitting idle (not being used by the user)??

Why not just run the text client as a service with the default memory usage?

RuneStar

[AMD_is_logical]

Originally posted by runestar
<confused> I thought the screensaver only ran when the system was sitting idle (not being used by the user)??

Why not just run the text client as a service with the default memory usage?

RuneStar The text client with default memory usage only runs half as fast.

Let's assume the system runs 24 hours a day, and is used 8 hours a day. When used, about half the CPU time is used by the user, coming to 4 hours a day. The screensaver would get 16 hours at full speed, while the text client would get 20 hours at half speed, which would be equivilent to 10 hours at full speed.

In this example the screensaver would get 60% more crunching done. Also, even with default memory usage the client still uses some memory. The screensaver would get out of the way completely.

[TheOtherZaphod]

It is probably a Win 9x environment, where running as a service doesn't work.

Is there a hiding tool for the client available that you can use to run at even lower than normal priority, and without a DOS box open? That might be an option.

I find that the CPU load with the default client rarely (never?) interferes with other work, but using the memory bump option on a windows machine with less than 512MB will cause other apps to page/swap. At least that is how it feels.

This would probably be a tough adjustment to code, but it would be cool if the client could be set up to run with more memory when the machine was truely idle, then release the extra RAM either when other applications were invoked, or on a time schedule (business hours for instance). I realize that is more of a dream request than a wish-list addition, but hey, you never know...

[runestar]

Well... the complaint was it was taking too much memory when he was playing games. So if that's the problem, running with the default memory mode seems to be the solution if he doesn't want to turn it on and off...

I still don't quite understand how the screensaver is interfering with his games though. The screensaver only runs when he's not using his system...right? So I don't see it or I'm missing something here. =/

RS&#189;

[bwkaz]

If people are playing games on a K6-2 450 running XP, you could very easily be swapping just because it's XP on a K6-2 450. It may have nothing to do with the DF client.

But yeah, if they're using it for games, then the screensaver won't be running.

[runestar]

Then I'm not sure what his complaint with the screensaver taking up memory is. If they stop the screensaver to play a game, there might be some swapping as the screensaver closes up and the game loads, but I don't know why they would run out of memory unless there is a memory leak from the OS or the game.

RS&#189;

[AMD_is_logical]

Originally posted by runestar
Then I'm not sure what his complaint with the screensaver taking up memory is. Nobody in this thread has complained about the screensaver taking up memory.

[runestar]

Never you mind... didn't have my green tea when I read it. Mixed up the two things he was saying.

Well, you are telling the program to use a crapload of RAM, so to speak, so its not Brian's fault if you run out of RAM when trying to gaming. ;) From what you are saying it doesn't seem you game on it very often, so I don't see what the problem is in stopping the service when needed?

As for the screensaver, it is an OpenGL screensaver and Brian noted before you should be running a decent 3D card with it. Either of those should be a flashing yellow light it's going to more aggressive on your system resources than just the ASCII client.


Seems to me kind of wierd you run the ASCII client with the max ram switch and then are unhappy because your games aren't getting enough RAM because you don't want to stop it the few times its used for gaming. Its no different than any other large application. You'd close those out but won't shut down DF? <Shrug>

Incidentally, I've seen lags in my games when I forgot to close down DF. Most of the time the game doesn't let DF get that much RAM though for the most part.

RS&#189;

[AMD_is_logical]

Originally posted by runestar
From what you are saying it doesn't seem you game on it very often, so I don't see what the problem is in stopping the service when needed?
Rotareneg explained that. Here is what he said:

Originally posted by Rotareneg
Most of the time it's other people who use it for games, and if I told 'em how to turn stop and start the text client they'd invariably end up just turning it off and forgeting about it. :rolleyes: That is why he wants to use the screensaver, which automatically stops and starts as needed. He just doesn't want it wasting a lot of CPU cycles drawing pretty pictures that nobody will be looking at.

[Rotareneg]

LOL, you guys are getting it all backwards! :) I'm perfectly happy having the screensaver eat as much ram as possible, I just wanted to get get a little extra "umph" by having it skip the rendering. It's got a GF-2 MX in it, and since Brian said it doesn't significantly effect folding speed it's no big deal.

The problem with running the text or service client on that system is that when it's using the extra ram option there's very little memory left over. When any other application that needs a fair amount of memory starts DF gets pushed into the background properly since it's on a very low priority, and it's memory gets paged into the swap file. Any time the game or whatever backs off a bit on the processor DF can end up spending the left over cycles grinding away in the swap file, which can slow the other applications down if they're doing file activity that otherwise didn't need much processor power.

Nothing you can do about it, it's not DF or anything else's fault, just a side effect of having too many memory intensive programs running at the same time, and thus is why I have the screensaver (which only uses resources when there's nobody actually using the system) on that partictular computer. :)

AMD_is_logical posted while I was typing this, he's got it exactly. :)

[bwkaz]

Wow, we're dense sometimes. :p

I see what you mean now, though. It did take quite a while, but I get it. So you've got it working well enough then, on the lower quality / resolution settings?

[Rotareneg]

I think it helped a tad to run it at a low resolution, had been running at 1024x768x32 (desktop resolution) before. And, thankfully, the screensaver version can actually manage to run at speeds close enough to the text only/service client that it's not really a serious problem. Unlike SETI@home where the text client is significantly faster than the screensaver. :rolleyes:


Originally posted by bwkaz
Wow, we're dense sometimes. :p

I see what you mean now, though. It did take quite a while, but I get it. So you've got it working well enough then, on the lower quality / resolution settings?