User-adjustable maximum processor usage

[mgrahamg]

It would be useful to allow users to set the maximum processor usage of Foldit while playing. The game typically maxes out my processor making other programs run slower.

[LennStar]

You could try to decrease the priority of the fold.it task.

[Christoph]

Setting the process priority to "Low" does help indeed, but it's very inconvenient.

[Crashguard303]

I confirm this problem and also had known only the task-manager solution.

Resource-settings, maybe similar as they are made in BOINC would be nice.

But after some research, I got a workaround:
Create a FOLDIT.BAT textfile in the Foldit-directory containing this:

START /B /LOW FOLDIT.EXE

By starting this, FoldIt will always launch in low priority ;)

I tested it.

Best regards,
Alex

[Crashguard303]

In addition, I'm quite sure that there is an additional possibility to manually change the task priority before launching a task within the registry with the Value labeled PriorityClass, which is a value between 0-9 as I read, but I didn't test this.

Moreover, there are extra taskmanagers to download (they exist since 10 years), which can store task priorites for each task.

[spvincent]

When the protein is just sitting there on the screen (not wiggling or shaking or anything) the Activity Monitor (this is Mac OS X 10.6) shows that processor usage is about 60% of a single core, which is quite a waste of CPU time. Sampling the process reveals a whole bunch of OpenGL calls, suggesting its continually rendering the protein.

[Deleted user]

That's been exactly the problem - even "at rest", fold.it uses way too much CPU resources.

[Seth Cooper]

This will only work on Windows, but if you minimize the Window, it should reduce the processor usage a bit.

[Steven Pletsch]

You can get a program called Process Explorer from the MS website that actually allows you to set things like thread affinity, and maximum CPU usage for a thread/program.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx

[Crashguard303]

@spvincent:
"When the protein is just sitting there on the screen (not wiggling or shaking or anything) the Activity Monitor (this is Mac OS X 10.6) shows that processor usage is about 60% of a single core, which is quite a waste of CPU time. Sampling the process reveals a whole bunch of OpenGL calls, suggesting its continually rendering the protein."

This is what I say.
Just draw the things which change (Instead of black background use transparent no-drawing, only each x frame should be solid black.)

Or… release the source code to make graphics hardware accelerating possible.

taking BOINC as example again, there exist many good client expansions.
Why isn't it allowed here, although it's said that this game is for non-profit and the datas are accessible for everyone?