The project wide back-off on uploads and downloads will be increased though. At this time it has a maximum of 4 hours, while (each backoff is multiplied by a random number 0..1, so the max average of 2 hours.

This will now be increased to possibly 12 hours, perhaps more, with what I hope is a project wide back-off that eventually stays at its maximum value, not resets itself to the wildest of variations as it does now.

Which means that at the end of a planned outage, when work-supply issues are being managed at the server (such as is currently implemented at SETI), free-running clients will be idle for up to an extra 12 hours because there's no way to give them a "you can come back in now" signal.

They should talk to Ned Ludd about his idea of using DNS as an out-of-band signalling mechanism.

Which means that at the end of a planned outage, when work-supply issues are being managed at the server (such as is currently implemented at SETI), free-running clients will be idle for up to an extra 12 hours because there's no way to give them a "you can come back in now" signal.

This doesn't hurt the project in any way, it makes it even better for them as it lowers the pressure on the upload server and the project bandwidth even further. It's also assuming that all people upgrade to the latest BOINC when available to them, which isn't true. Last the people active on the Seti forums will look at their system, look at the forums/server status page and click Retry. Easy as that.

My wish (list):
I guess a lot of people have heat problems on notebooks so adding a CPU temperature detection would be neat. Computation could be paused when CPU temp go over user-defined value.
You can find core temp dll here http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/developers.html.

My wish (list):
I guess a lot of people have heat problems on notebooks so adding a CPU temperature detection would be neat. Computation could be paused when CPU temp go over user-defined value.
You can find core temp dll here http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/developers.html.

You could also look at Automatic Temperature regulation on this very board.

The main problem is that there are very many different BIOSes and how they check for CPU/core temperature. Too many to generalize into one look-up. Even TThrotlle won't work on all computers, e.g. the older AMDs and Pentium 4s and before are not supported. That shows the difficulty in adding such a feature to BOINC.

i'd love to see a possibility for colorize backgrounds of status; or at least the active threads.

eg:
active = light-green background
active, high priority = green background
and so on...

Evil,
You mentioned use of MAX_AVAILABLE_THREADS MINUS NUMBER_OF_THREADS_GAME_USES. This is exactly what I want. Currently, I suspend processes when playing games because it kills the performance if I don't. How do I utilize that option? Is it an environment variable or in some configuration file? I can't see to find it in the GUI. I'm using Windows 7x64. Thanks.

On another note, it'd be real nice if there were an option to have boinc just "nice" itself to the lowest priority on Windows so that it could use all resources, but not hamper work and games.

Currently, I suspend processes when playing games because it kills the performance if I don't.

Use the <exclusive_app> and <exclusive_gpu_app> options in cc_config.xml. You will have to make such a file, it doesn't come with BOINC. The <exclusive_app> option will suspend both CPU and GPU applications, the <exclusive_gpu_app> option will only suspend GPU applications.

On another note, it'd be real nice if there were an option to have boinc just "nice" itself to the lowest priority on Windows so that it could use all resources, but not hamper work and games.

All science applications run at slightly above idle priority (showing as Low in Task Manager when you allow the Base Priority column to show). An exception is the QCN application (else it won't be able to catch any earthquakes).

BOINC and BOINC Manager will run at Normal priority, as they are only the managing program and the graphical interface. They don't need to run at any lower priority.

On another note, it'd be real nice if there were an option to have boinc just "nice" itself to the lowest priority on Windows so that it could use all resources, but not hamper work and games.

It already does, but that's not enough to make it nicely share the GPU with 3D programs.

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On another note, it'd be real nice if there were an option to have boinc just "nice" itself to the lowest priority on Windows so that it could use all resources, but not hamper work and games.

It already does, but that's not enough to make it nicely share the GPU with 3D programs.

Sommetimes not even with my mouse and text editor :-(

Peter

My wishlist:
1) "Start minimized". Lack of this setting is annoying because...
2) ...when I start manager, it loads, and hangs there with "Communicating with BOINC client" for some time. During this time I cannot close popup or main window. As I use maximized window of manager, it prevents me from minimizing the window AND using other programs for this small amount of time.
3) BOINC Manager never remembers its maximized window state after exiting.
4) It would be nice if About dialog showed which version, x86 or x64 of manager I have installed
5) Tooltip of tray icon always lies about percentage when main window is closed, because Manager updates percentage status only when it is open
6) "Run only one instance". I am very puzzled why it is not there in the first place, or why I cannot find it.
System: Win7x64

My wishlist:
1) "Start minimized". Lack of this setting is annoying because...
2) ...when I start manager, it loads, and hangs there with "Communicating with BOINC client" for some time. During this time I cannot close popup or main window. As I use maximized window of manager, it prevents me from minimizing the window AND using other programs for this small amount of time.
3) BOINC Manager never remembers its maximized window state after exiting.
4) It would be nice if About dialog showed which version, x86 or x64 of manager I have installed

I forwarded those to the developers.

Although 2 is because BOINC Manager starts the client, if it hasn't started yet. This can take some time, depending on which projects you're attached to, how much work is in cache and which science applications start up. A way around this is not to start BOINC when starting Windows, but to start it manually. Or to start the client only and to start BOINC Manager by hand.

To disable BOINC Manager starting up at Windows start-up, open BOINC Manager->Advanced view->Advanced->Options, uncheck "Start Manager at login?"->OK.

To start the client only, see the end of my post.

5) Tooltip of tray icon always lies about percentage when main window is closed, because Manager updates percentage status only when it is open

This is no longer used. The tooltip will now show "Computing is enabled. Network is enabled".

6) "Run only one instance". I am very puzzled why it is not there in the first place, or why I cannot find it.

Not a clue what you mean with this one, though. Run only one instance of what? The client?

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To start the client only:

Open Notepad, add into it C:\Program Files\BOINC\boinc.exe --detach
Save it as an All Files, Encoding ANSI, as Boinc.bat anywhere you like.
Make a shortcut of the Boinc.bat file and move that one to C:\Users\{your user name}\Menu Start\Programs\Startup
(you may have to change the permissions on the Menu Start folder, temporarily change the Deny on Everyone to Allow, before changing it back again to Deny after you're done).

Done. This way BOINC starts up when you log in, you can then start BOINC Manager by hand.

6) "Run only one instance". I am very puzzled why it is not there in the first place, or why I cannot find it.

Not a clue what you mean with this one, though. Run only one instance of what? The client?

I meant BOINC Manager. If accidentally I run it twice, I get two Managers with two tray icons, both display correct infromation. But if I close one of them, it takes down BOINC clients with it, so second Manager remains idle with red circle. To actually start computing I have to close second one too and carefully reopen only one instance of BOINC Manager.

Ah OK. Well, that's supposed to be fixed now as well in BOINC 6.11 (test versions). So wait for 6.12 for that to come to the recommended version.

Why can one run two or more BOINC Managers, though? To be able to monitor BOINC versions you run on other computers. The new thing when opening two BOINC Managers is this, the first will show the progress of the computer you start it on, the second one will immediately ask for the network name or IP address and password of the next computer you want to monitor.

I frequently close and reopen BOINC Manager to give games and other CPU-hungry stuff more memory and CPU. I know that there is enough settings to automate this, I just got used to i these actions.
Thank you for your help.

I'd like to be able to change the font size within the BOINC Manager.

These old eyes could use a bigger font.

Sometimes a Boinc task will stop with 2 or 3 minutes left as it flips to a different project. Once, there were only 10 seconds left. I would love to have a FORCE START option to finish these WUs. The only way I have managed it is by suspending other tasks, but a) this is cumbersome, and b) if you're not fast enough, other tasks get downloaded and start.

So my wish is a "force start" for a particular WU in order to let it finish sooner. Anyone agree?

Sometimes a Boinc task will stop with 2 or 3 minutes left as it flips to a different project. Once, there were only 10 seconds left. I would love to have a FORCE START option to finish these WUs. The only way I have managed it is by suspending other tasks, but a) this is cumbersome, and b) if you're not fast enough, other tasks get downloaded and start.

So my wish is a "force start" for a particular WU in order to let it finish sooner. Anyone agree?

I had something like this in mind when I asked for a "finish WU if time remaining is less than X minutes/seconds" option but I don't think I was clear about it.

I like the force start concept but mabye "force finish" would be better? Or even going back to the idea of having an option to always finish a WU if the time remaining is less than X?

Sometimes a Boinc task will stop with 2 or 3 minutes left as it flips to a different project. Once, there were only 10 seconds left. I would love to have a FORCE START option to finish these WUs. The only way I have managed it is by suspending other tasks, but a) this is cumbersome, and b) if you're not fast enough, other tasks get downloaded and start.

So my wish is a "force start" for a particular WU in order to let it finish sooner. Anyone agree?

I see the usual pattern of asking for a workaround instead of a solution.

Having a "force start" button will not help users who never look at the BOINC Manager. The real solution is to make the scheduler smarter to automatically recognize this situation and not switch WUs.

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I like that idea! A single line in the "other options" section of the preferences.
After all, the scheduler is basically there.

I wonder if it would require more programming resources than a force, and thus not get prioritized to get done. Not being a programmer, I have no clue.