Multiple threads efficiency...
 

I frequently run more than one calculation at a time... Basically I run a very low priority GMP-ECM job in the background at "nice -19" and then if I have a quickie I want to run I run it without nice...

It appears that running with those values gives the "nice -19" process 5% of the CPU and the regular process about 90%, with 5% being used by the system...

My question is how much of a loss in efficiency do I get doing this? I'm concerned with cache being swapped in and out all the time and with the cost of context switching... I've played in the past with using a larger quanta but it really messed up interactive performance...

I guess in an ideal situation, GMP-ECM would have a mechanism to pause when another program is running, like Prime95's "PauseWhileRunning" deal...

My big fear is having an idle processor, so by running something in the background all the time I don't have to worry about this... In fact, if I run a job for 100 curves I will frequently start a new job when I get close to finishing just to make sure I don't get any idle time...

Finally, how far can you go? Three concurrent jobs? More?

I guess I could benchmark all of this, but maybe someone already knows the answer and can save me the trouble...

Thanks!

Why don't you use ECMNet? It is easy to set up a server and the client can continue to get work for other composites if a factor is found. It is also great if you have a home network and have multiple computers doing ECM factoring. The new ECMNet (v2.5) also supports P+1/P-1 (assuming that you are using GMP-ECM 5.0.3 or above).