Hi...this may be an old question. I realize that work units are now developed specifically for an operating system. I'm considering dropping the CPDN project on my Mac, since there has been no work unit developed or available for quite some time. Any insight appreciated.

Oddly enough the most recent batch of 200 models, batch #759, used the HADCM3S application, which still runs on the Mac. However, hardly enough models to keep a Mac user properly loaded: I likewise turn my Mac off when I'm not using it - I don't mind consuming a few Watts but there does have to be a reasonable prospect of getting a model ...

The work is now done according to a different set of thinking - by selecting the existing program that best suits the research being done.

At present, this is the Weather At Home 2 (wah2) model.

If you look at the Projects page, Weather@Home is about Regional climate modelling, which most, if not all of the research centers, seem to be doing.

I'm not sure why the HadCM3 model is occasionally used.

Art Masson wrote:

I'm considering dropping the CPDN project on my Mac, since there has been no work unit developed or available for quite some time. Any insight appreciated.

I've considered detaching from this project too, since no-one there seems capable of developing a Mac app that works. But I've been put off by CPDN's purge of no-long-active users a year or two back, which essentially disassociated them from their CPDN credit (eg. https://stats.free-dc.org/userdate/bcpdn/14734). At least having my Macs ask for tasks every now and then seems to be keeping them "active" in my account, which hopefully will protect it from similar purges in the future. The inconvenience to me and my computers is minimal.

This shouldn't be an issue if you're also running other platforms on your account (as I see you are).

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NG

I believe there are some new model types being tested. Not sure yet which platforms they will be available for.

Just a thought, for what it's worth. Have you considered running a virtual machine?

I started doing this a few years ago when tasks for Macs were running a bit scarce.

I was running Snow Leopard at the time and after some research, bought VMWare Fusion on a special offer. It was exceptionally good and completed tasks in pretty much the same time as using native OSX. Also, it didn't interfere with my normal usage.

Thinking of moving to High Sierra meant I needed the new version of Fusion but since I had a very old version I had to pay the full price, so I retried the free Oracle VirtualBox.

I didn't find this very good since there appeared to a very high background overhead but it did work and was easy to install and setup.

To cut a long story short, I kept with Snow Leopard for some time but having finally decided to move to High Sierra, I bit the bullet and bought the latest VMWare Fusion.

I know it looks a bit expensive but given what we pay for decent hardware, for me at least, it's worthwhile.


PS One can always suspend/stop Fusion, if necessary, after suspending BOINC, and I've never had any problems with restarts or task failures.

Hi Dave -- I currently have 5 Windows 10 machines processing CPDN work units. I plan to remove the CPDN project from my Mac Book Pro, since it is also processing a number of other projects (and I don't expect to see any more CPDN work units for Mac-OS). I can always put the project back on the Mac if any work units appear!