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| Mac OS X: Installing an Optimized SETI@Home Client | |
| These instructions show you how to install an “optimized” version of SETI@Home. An optimized version of S@H is specially-built to take advantage of CPU-specific instructions, with the goal of speeding up work unit analysis. Optimized applications produce good science that is validated by UC-Berkeley against other WUs. You can reasonably expect 20–30% reductions in processing (note that range depends on the characteristics of certain WUs; for some WUs, you may see greater speed increases but you could also see improvements of less than 20%).
Optimized apps are approved for use by Berkeley; in fact, many of the optimizations have been incorporated into the “stock” applications distributed by Berkeley. The only “cost” for using an optimized application is that they are not distributed by Berekely. Users have to obtain and install updated versions. The directions below assume that you’re already running SETI@Home on BOINC. If you’ve never done SETI/BOINC before, you can register here or transfer your Classic account. Be sure to keep your registration info! I would recommend saving it in some form (text, web archive, or pdf) instead of printing it, because you will have to enter your rather lengthy account key on every machine you want to run SETI/BOINC on. | |
| 1. | You’ll need to empty your cache of WUs that are pending on your machine. The best way to do this is to open BOINC Manager and click on the Projects tab. Click on SETI@home and then click on the button No New Tasks on the left (button could be called No New Work). Once all of your S@H units have processed, come back to these directions and start with the next step. |
| 2. | Be sure all work has been reported. On the Tasks tab of BOINC Manager, if any WUs are listed, check their progress. If the progress is less than 100%, you’ll have to wait until they finish. If the progress is 100%, you need to report the WUs. Click on the Projects tab. Click on SETI@home and then click on the button Update on the left. Once any remaining WUs have been reported, quit BOINC Manager. |
| 3. | Delete everything relating to previous S@H-installs from your system, particularly the files in the directory
~/Library/Application Support/BOINC Data/projects/setiathome.berkeley.edu/. |
| 4. | Download the latest and greatest version of BOINC Manager from UC-Berkeley. After installing it, let it it download one work unit and begin to process it. Quit BOINC Manager again. |
| 5. | Download the appropriate optimized SETI-worker from Alex Kan:
for Macs with PowerPC G4 CPUs
Note that there are two different Core 2 apps now, one for C2D machines, and one for Xeons. Alex Kan added the following in his release info: It was thanks to my pretesters that I recognized that the performance characteristics of Mac Pros are sufficiently different from iMacs and MacBooks to merit their own separate builds. As a second note, I have found that MacBookPros (Early 2008) are up to 5% faster using the Xeon version rather than the C2D version.
Note also that these optimized apps are listed as compatible with OSX 10.3.9 or later. Earlier versions of OS X and G3s are not supported. |
| 6. | Once you’ve downloaded it, decompress it and copy the contents of the resulting folder into:
~/Library/Application Support/BOINC Data/projects/setiathome.berkeley.edu/
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| 7. | The only slightly tricky part here is that you have to re-set the permissions on the optimized application. The most straightforward way to do this is to re-download BOINC Manager and install it again. |
| 8. | Start BOINC Manager, and you’re good to go! |