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World Community Grid Forums
Category: Support
Forum: Suggestions / Feedback
Thread: Does the graphical display in the screensaver use processing power that could be used to generate points? |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 4
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bmurphy017
Cruncher Joined: Jan 28, 2006 Post Count: 2 Status: Offline |
Don't get me wrong, I love the look of the graphical display on the screensaver, but I assume this is using processing power... similar to how several years ago it was determined that people using the "3d pipes" screensaver were using too much utilization for servers.
----------------------------------------Has this been discussed already? If so, can someone point me to the discussion? Regards, Brad  |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
The answer is: no, but it depends.
The 3dpipes screensaver has a high frame rate, and on a server without a graphics accelerator, it will be running in OpenGL software mode - taking up 100% of your CPU to get the highest frame rate possible. The WCG screensaver has a very low, fixed frame rate. So, even doing the entire graphics calculation on the CPU, the performance hit is small. Then, a modern computer will have a good graphics card, and much of the work is offloaded to the accelerator instead of slowing down the CPU. So, better not to use the screensaver - but you may find it hard to measure the difference. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
The original screensaver released back in November 2004 did have a substantial impact on slower computers. This was updated to reduce the impact, but a lot of people prefer 'blank' to eliminate any slowdown at all.
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bmurphy017
Cruncher Joined: Jan 28, 2006 Post Count: 2 Status: Offline |
Thanks all... I appreciate the responses. :)
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