Why isn't it using all of it? What programs are you running? The software here is designed to run at low priority and get out of the way for normal processes. My computers run 24/7 at 100%. If I use 20%, BOINC uses 80%. If I am using 50%, BOINC uses 50%. If I am not doing anything, BOINC runs at 100%.

Games are intensive enough that they may interfere. The processes also run at higher priority when they are actually uploading/downloading. You have control of that in BOINC because you can suspend network activity until you actually want to transmit.

If you are running BOINC, it can even run 2 workunits simultaneously on your dual core processor.

I have one program that uses 99% when doing a sort. BOINC simply backs out and stops until it is done, and then resumes.

I thought twilyth had left, since he simply deinstalled BOINC without explaining the problem?

http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/forums/wcg/viewthread?thread=14048

There were a lot of problems, some probably due to boince and some probably not. Had no intention of wasting time creating a laundry list only to have everyone say "oh THAT COULDN'T BE THE PROBLEM" and then tell me to start uploading logs, tweak this, twaddle that, yada, yada, yada. It gets old real fast.

The fact of the matter is that boinc can barely be considered beta software. WCG is just lucky that most of the members are willing to deal with the inconvenience. Even I'm willing to do some troubleshooting - I'm just not going to spend several hours on each of 6 or 7 machines to fix one problem only to have another one pop up a day/week/month later when the underlying science project changes.

Like I said - it gets real old, real fast.

The features you mention don't work as advertised. If they did, that would eliminate a lot of problems. As a former programmer, here are some ideas for program improvements.

1. teach the software to recognize it's environment and eliminate incompatibilities before they occur. This is the programmer's job, not the user's.

2. IMPORTANT - make agents unload themselves from memory, not just go idle when not in use. This will eliminate drain on systems with fewer than normal resources such as RAM and virtual memory. And, make it do it immediately, not whenever it gets around to it - even if it means lost work.

3. teach the agents not to run when there is either
a. high cpu usage by other programs
b. high i/o activity
c. high page file activity.
d. make these parameters default to safe values and make easily user configurable.

4. beta test primarily on machines that have real firewall software - such as Zone Alarm or Norton and real spyware software such as spysweeper or spyware doctor. These are memory and processor intensive programs. If you get the agents to behave well in these environments, they should work anywhere.

5. limit the amount of memory the agent or its slaves can allocate based on total system ram - NOT total memory which includes both RAM and virtual.

6. limit disk space allocation to a reasonable percentage of free disk space - 5% max.

BOINC is open source. So, if you're not happy, and you claim to know what you're talking about - stop whinging and get stuck in!

This isn't a shaft at you, twilyth. The points you raise are mostly sensible, but nearly all of them are supported already. BOINC calculates physical memory and virtual memory seperately. BOINC can unload the science application from memory. The beta testing is done on real computers, with all sorts of firewall software and hardware. Disk space is already limited to a percentage of free space.

I could go on. But the bottom line is this: if you want more BOINC features, ask the BOINC developers about them. Offer to help. If not with programming, then you can join the alpha testers, and make sure that the release software really is bug free.