Thread: SETI@Home group
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Old 09-08-2002, 12:09 AM
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At the beginning of each work unit, it runs really fast for me. It completed about 1.5% in about minute and a half. It was searching for pulses and triplets. At that rate, it would finish a work unit in under 2 hours, probably breaking records. But then, it slowed down dramatically to the point where its at about 4%/hour. So, I did some reasearch and now I've got it worked out (I think):

Your processor is mainly used when searching for Pulses, Triplets and Gaussians. This is because those things are calculated on 2D graphs to choose the best formulas to follow for analyzing the 3D graphs. Mathematicians have developed specific ways of finding formulas from data* and so its dependent on your processor rather than grahics card.

Your graphics card, however, is mainly used in the Fast Fourier Transform passes. What those are for is to determine whether to do further processing on the Gaussian curve fitting. This is done using 3D processing and is therefore dependent on your video card.

*And you thought there was no point to math! Look at all the ET's we've found!
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