It's probably been asked a few times already, but is SETI optimised for 64 bit and if not, are they planning on doing so? Seems a logical step if most peeps have 64 bit Athlons (yes I have one) and also if Intel (boo hiss) are going 64 bit in the near future too

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<img border="0" src="http://boinc.mundayweb.com/one/stats.php?userID=515&amp;prj=1&amp;trans=off" />

> It's probably been asked a few times already, but is SETI optimised for 64 bit
> and if not, are they planning on doing so? Seems a logical step if most peeps
> have 64 bit Athlons (yes I have one) and also if Intel (boo hiss) are going 64
> bit in the near future too

There is no advantage to compile any of the BOINC components with 64-bit extensions at this time. The only part that might benefit from the 64-bit CPUs and compiling to 64-bit executables would be the MySQL database.

Sorry. :)

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Like Paul said, strangely, 64-bit processing won't do SETI faster.... cant tell you exactly why, but try usong AMD's dual-cores :)

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True that simply compiling the SETI app for 64 bit won't gain much, but optimizing it for AMD processors does show an improvement.

In this thread:
http://setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=13068#100676 , Ned Slider reports that AMD optimized 32bit SETI runs around 13% faster, and 64bit perhaps a further 5%.

Granted that these are under Linux, but I don't see why a similar benefit shouldn't be seen under Windows - 64bit Windows that is. Looking forward to trying it, although I've not yet seen an available version. (Is there a 64bit C compiler for Windows yet?)

Never the less, the biggest SETI speed gains available are from large L2 cache, high FSB speed and dual chanel memory.

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> True that simply compiling the SETI app for 64 bit won't gain much, but
> optimizing it for AMD processors does show an improvement.
>
> In this thread:
> http://setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=13068#100676 , Ned Slider
> reports that AMD optimized 32bit SETI runs around 13% faster, and 64bit
> perhaps a further 5%.
>
> Granted that these are under Linux, but I don't see why a similar benefit
> shouldn't be seen under Windows - 64bit Windows that is. Looking forward to
> trying it, although I've not yet seen an available version. (Is there a 64bit
> C compiler for Windows yet?)
>
> Never the less, the biggest SETI speed gains available are from large L2
> cache, high FSB speed and dual chanel memory.
>
>
>
Yup, I got the optimized version for my Linux.

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>
> In this thread:
> http://setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=13068#100676 , Ned Slider
> reports that AMD optimized 32bit SETI runs around 13% faster, and 64bit
> perhaps a further 5%.
>

While the above is true (actually, we're now getting 30-35% performance increases), hardly any of this appears to be due to optimizing for AMD arcitectures. About half is from using -ffast-math and the other half from using improved fast fourier transform routines.

Chris Bosshard has more data on x86_64 than I do, and I'll certainly be working closely with him do make sure we have a fully optimized 64-bit client for seti (linux) shortly.

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*** My Guide to Compiling Optimised BOINC and SETI Clients ***
*** Download Optimised BOINC and SETI Clients for Linux Here ***

OK, I've just spoken with Chris (and Triton_b5) and we have confirmed the following:

A true 64-bit seti client running on 64-bit linux is faster than a 32-bit seti client running on the same OS.

Relative to the standard berkeley linux client, we have:

Berkeley Reference 0%
Athlon XP 32-bit +31%
AMD64 (64-bit) +39%

We don't have any data for a x86-64 seti client for AMD64 processor running on 32-bit linux. It might be the case that these extra benefits are only seen when running a 64 bit OS. Perhaps someone will be able to confirm this.

Ned

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*** My Guide to Compiling Optimised BOINC and SETI Clients ***
*** Download Optimised BOINC and SETI Clients for Linux Here ***

> OK, I've just spoken with Chris (and Triton_b5) and we have confirmed the
> following:
>
> A true 64-bit seti client running on 64-bit linux is faster than a 32-bit seti
> client running on the same OS.
>
> Relative to the standard berkeley linux client, we have:
>
> Berkeley Reference 0%
> Athlon XP 32-bit +31%
> AMD64 (64-bit) +39%
>
> We don't have any data for a x86-64 seti client for AMD64 processor running on
> 32-bit linux. It might be the case that these extra benefits are only seen
> when running a 64 bit OS. Perhaps someone will be able to confirm this.
>
> Ned
>
>

Nice work Ned :)
Are you sure that it is possible to run a 64-bit client process under a 32-bit operating system? Seems to me that something there is gonna not work - or the OS itself would strangle the client.
>

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> > OK, I've just spoken with Chris (and Triton_b5) and we have confirmed
> the
> > following:
> >
> > A true 64-bit seti client running on 64-bit linux is faster than a 32-bit
> seti
> > client running on the same OS.
> >
> > Relative to the standard berkeley linux client, we have:
> >
> > Berkeley Reference 0%
> > Athlon XP 32-bit +31%
> > AMD64 (64-bit) +39%
> >
> > We don't have any data for a x86-64 seti client for AMD64 processor
> running on
> > 32-bit linux. It might be the case that these extra benefits are only
> seen
> > when running a 64 bit OS. Perhaps someone will be able to confirm this.
> >
> > Ned
> >
> >
>
> Nice work Ned :)
> Are you sure that it is possible to run a 64-bit client process under a 32-bit
> operating system? Seems to me that something there is gonna not work - or the
> OS itself would strangle the client.
> >
>

Hi,

I guess what I meant is a seti client compiled and run on a 32-bit version of linux but using -march=k8, opteron, athlon64, or athlon-fx (ie for the x86-64 instruction set). Not everyone with a 64-bit processor is running a 64-bit OS.

Ned

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*** My Guide to Compiling Optimised BOINC and SETI Clients ***
*** Download Optimised BOINC and SETI Clients for Linux Here ***

you got it faster with -march=athlon64? mine ended up 10x slower than with -mcpu=i686. this is with 64 bit gentoo

> you got it faster with -march=athlon64? mine ended up 10x slower than with
> -mcpu=i686. this is with 64 bit gentoo

-march=k8 is the recommended setting for Gentoo, afaik. Anyway, in 2 days I'll be setting up 64-bit Gentoo on an AMD64 4000 so I'll be able to experiment. ;)

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Be lucky

Neil

> you got it faster with -march=athlon64? mine ended up 10x slower than with
> -mcpu=i686. this is with 64 bit gentoo

I just did a bit of Googling and came across this page. You might want to give it a try. ;)

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Be lucky

Neil