screensaver

crash893 · 2003-07-17, 21:45

is there a screensaver version of prime ( not that crappy win3.1.1 version )

Orgasmic Troll · 2003-07-17, 23:15

Why? Are you using a monochrome monitor?

eepiccolo · 2003-07-18, 12:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by crash893

is there a screensaver version of prime ( not that crappy win3.1.1 version )

Short answer: no

A screen saver version does not exist because a screen saver eats up CPU cycles. In theory one should try to devote as much CPU time as posible to Distributed Computing projects they are working on.

I heard that the only reason a screen saver version ever existed was that it was the only way to get the program to work in Win 3.1. I guess you couldn't run things in the background easily back then.

Old man PrimeNet · 2003-11-24, 15:46

I want to revisit the screensaver question, because I think there still exists here a possible gem for GIMPS.

More than once I've come across feedback that suggested a more engaging visual representation of activity and/or progress as a screensaver could positively impact GIMPS participation for both recruiting and retention. In terms of visibility and viral marketing potential, a sexy screen saver would be hard to beat.

I no longer agree with the 'save the CPU for the app' argument. A well-designed screensaver may usurp no more than a few percent of CPU time, which in terms of overall project gains can be easily compensated through the addition of a single new computer to the project's machine cloud. In business-like terms, it's a cost-of-sales strategy that plays out clearly in favor of a snappy screensaver implementation.

In 1998 I met with Dave Anderson to discuss the network and server management experiences and challenges I had getting PrimeNet going and check out the screen saver his group was working upon, plus a few related items (we later became competitors at commercial companies we independently founded). At that time, the SETI screen saver looked pretty raw, having just the 3D perspective landscape portion - no context, no status fields, no updating progress bars - nothing else, and I didn't then grok how users would would gravitate to its use. Later, the polished result was great: a star-trek-like console that related erstwhile mundane details, facts and steps in a catchy, high-tech looking way.

The screensaver concept has come up a few times in the old email Mersenne list forum. I recall (hopefully accurately) the idea of a GIMPS screensaver was quenched primarily due to the lack of clearly identifiable progress or status details suitable for a catching screensaver.

But I'm not so sure this is true. Much of the SETI screensaver progress was incremental work of an otherwise boring FFT calculation. It did however have the benefit of showing radio peaks typical of stellar sources in a form people could readily visualize. After my visit with Anderson I spent a few years working on data mining products having N-dimensional data analysis tools, and the principle lesson I got from those products was that a good visualization matters - a lot.

So I can't help but wonder, conceptually at least, where GIMPS client testing might be mapped, in varying degrees of phase, progress, etc., to a compelling visualization, if we looked past the current LL iterations progress alone.

Paulie · 2003-11-24, 16:19

Something I haven't seen, might be interesting:

A visual representation of the CPU you are running on (AMD Athlon/Duron/XP, Intel P2/P3/P4/Centrino), showing the core, cache, cacheline size, r/w to from cache and memory, etc.

Then chart something like % of work done in each area of the CPU, or number of millions of cache reads/writes, loads, status line showing iteration/work to go. Have it update every 10 seconds or so.

Might need some sort of performance analyzer to get the approximations for the % in each area.

As I said, might be interesting, might be very hard to do. :) Maybe simplify it to something actual codeable. :D

garo · 2003-11-24, 17:06

The FFT processing that the SETI screensaver shows is pretty meaningless as far as the overall result is concerned.

How about using the interim residues during an LL test to create pretty but meaningless pictures? The residues will provide us with good random data that can be used as raw material for a nice visualization app.

Old man PrimeNet · 2003-11-24, 23:57

Paulie has some good ideas (Entropia's E2K product had a similar resource/progress concept), but I think garo is headed more closely where I'm taking this question. A good visualization is not necessarily about technically useful data, it's about engaging and keeping human interest, even if abstract.

There seems to be plenty of 'activity' material to draw upon. Example test activities include:
(a) factoring sieves
(b) factoring P-1
(c) factoring ECM
(d) LL iterations
(e) server/project-wide exponent 'landscapes'
(f) something else?

To add to garo's LL test intermediate residues pictures/maps:

Check out how prime-related data (or any data, actually) can be mapped for display: http://yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au/~bunyip/primes/

What if we could 'see' a factoring sieve - is there a fractal tree, or factor density plot to traverse? Can the progress be mapped on a giant Ulam's prime spiral chart? (see http://www.lactamme.polytechnique.fr...D/display.html )

For a P-1 pass, is there a N-D surface to visualization here?

What might a 2-D or 3-D slice of a 4-D ECM elliptic curve look like? An oval or 3-D donut with lines jumping across its interior or surface? Or filling up?

LL iterations may be 'dry' in terms of visible changes during progress, but then again so is a disk defragger and even MSFT did a nice basic defragger display. Are there other thresholds in scale, theory, or computability, etc., that LL iteration counts can transit as intermediate LL test milestones for display purposes?

For the project-wide landscape, I can easily envision a 3-D graph of various test states and counts for color and height, etc.

Overall, I think there's a lot of room for artistic license in terms of how to show data and progress.

RMAC9.5 · 2003-11-25, 00:54

Having a screen saver version of Prime95 is an excellent idea especially if it can be added to the default screen savers included with Windows 9x, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, etc.

Here is why it is a good idea.

At my work location, I am required by the "security folks" to have a password protected screen saver activate within XX minutes of no terminal or mouse activity. The rational is to keep strangers from being able to access the corporate network from my PC and user id while I am temporarily absent from my desk.

The security folks don't care which screen saver I use as long as I make it password protected when I select it. Having a "really neat" Prime95 screen saver at my work location would do the following:
1. Help me legitimately borg other computers (i.e. look at this really neat screen saver, would you like this to run on your PC?).
2. Help me legitimatize any questions about the use of Prime95 on my PC (.i.e. the security folks told me to run a screen saver but they did not specify which one to run.).
3. Solve any resource contention problems between Prime95 and other screen savers in general.

2003-07-17, 21:45	#1
crash893 Sep 2002 2³·37 Posts	screensaver is there a screensaver version of prime ( not that crappy win3.1.1 version )

2003-11-25, 00:54	#8
RMAC9.5 Jun 2003 3²·17 Posts	Having a screen saver version of Prime95 is an excellent idea especially if it can be added to the default screen savers included with Windows 9x, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, etc. Here is why it is a good idea. At my work location, I am required by the "security folks" to have a password protected screen saver activate within XX minutes of no terminal or mouse activity. The rational is to keep strangers from being able to access the corporate network from my PC and user id while I am temporarily absent from my desk. The security folks don't care which screen saver I use as long as I make it password protected when I select it. Having a "really neat" Prime95 screen saver at my work location would do the following: 1. Help me legitimately borg other computers (i.e. look at this really neat screen saver, would you like this to run on your PC?). 2. Help me legitimatize any questions about the use of Prime95 on my PC (.i.e. the security folks told me to run a screen saver but they did not specify which one to run.). 3. Solve any resource contention problems between Prime95 and other screen savers in general. Last fiddled with by RMAC9.5 on 2003-11-25 at 00:58

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2003-07-17, 23:15	#2
Orgasmic Troll Cranksta Rap Ayatollah Jul 2003 641 Posts	Why? Are you using a monochrome monitor?

2003-11-24, 15:46	#4
Old man PrimeNet Jan 2003 Altitude>12,500 MSL 1100101₂ Posts	I want to revisit the screensaver question, because I think there still exists here a possible gem for GIMPS. More than once I've come across feedback that suggested a more engaging visual representation of activity and/or progress as a screensaver could positively impact GIMPS participation for both recruiting and retention. In terms of visibility and viral marketing potential, a sexy screen saver would be hard to beat. I no longer agree with the 'save the CPU for the app' argument. A well-designed screensaver may usurp no more than a few percent of CPU time, which in terms of overall project gains can be easily compensated through the addition of a single new computer to the project's machine cloud. In business-like terms, it's a cost-of-sales strategy that plays out clearly in favor of a snappy screensaver implementation. In 1998 I met with Dave Anderson to discuss the network and server management experiences and challenges I had getting PrimeNet going and check out the screen saver his group was working upon, plus a few related items (we later became competitors at commercial companies we independently founded). At that time, the SETI screen saver looked pretty raw, having just the 3D perspective landscape portion - no context, no status fields, no updating progress bars - nothing else, and I didn't then grok how users would would gravitate to its use. Later, the polished result was great: a star-trek-like console that related erstwhile mundane details, facts and steps in a catchy, high-tech looking way. The screensaver concept has come up a few times in the old email Mersenne list forum. I recall (hopefully accurately) the idea of a GIMPS screensaver was quenched primarily due to the lack of clearly identifiable progress or status details suitable for a catching screensaver. But I'm not so sure this is true. Much of the SETI screensaver progress was incremental work of an otherwise boring FFT calculation. It did however have the benefit of showing radio peaks typical of stellar sources in a form people could readily visualize. After my visit with Anderson I spent a few years working on data mining products having N-dimensional data analysis tools, and the principle lesson I got from those products was that a good visualization matters - a lot. So I can't help but wonder, conceptually at least, where GIMPS client testing might be mapped, in varying degrees of phase, progress, etc., to a compelling visualization, if we looked past the current LL iterations progress alone.

2003-11-24, 16:19	#5
Paulie Aug 2002 223 Posts	Something I haven't seen, might be interesting: A visual representation of the CPU you are running on (AMD Athlon/Duron/XP, Intel P2/P3/P4/Centrino), showing the core, cache, cacheline size, r/w to from cache and memory, etc. Then chart something like % of work done in each area of the CPU, or number of millions of cache reads/writes, loads, status line showing iteration/work to go. Have it update every 10 seconds or so. Might need some sort of performance analyzer to get the approximations for the % in each area. As I said, might be interesting, might be very hard to do. :) Maybe simplify it to something actual codeable. :D

2003-11-24, 17:06	#6
garo Aug 2002 Termonfeckin, IE 2²·691 Posts	The FFT processing that the SETI screensaver shows is pretty meaningless as far as the overall result is concerned. How about using the interim residues during an LL test to create pretty but meaningless pictures? The residues will provide us with good random data that can be used as raw material for a nice visualization app.

2003-11-24, 23:57	#7
Old man PrimeNet Jan 2003 Altitude>12,500 MSL 101 Posts	Paulie has some good ideas (Entropia's E2K product had a similar resource/progress concept), but I think garo is headed more closely where I'm taking this question. A good visualization is not necessarily about technically useful data, it's about engaging and keeping human interest, even if abstract. There seems to be plenty of 'activity' material to draw upon. Example test activities include: (a) factoring sieves (b) factoring P-1 (c) factoring ECM (d) LL iterations (e) server/project-wide exponent 'landscapes' (f) something else? To add to garo's LL test intermediate residues pictures/maps: Check out how prime-related data (or any data, actually) can be mapped for display: http://yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au/~bunyip/primes/ What if we could 'see' a factoring sieve - is there a fractal tree, or factor density plot to traverse? Can the progress be mapped on a giant Ulam's prime spiral chart? (see http://www.lactamme.polytechnique.fr...D/display.html ) For a P-1 pass, is there a N-D surface to visualization here? What might a 2-D or 3-D slice of a 4-D ECM elliptic curve look like? An oval or 3-D donut with lines jumping across its interior or surface? Or filling up? LL iterations may be 'dry' in terms of visible changes during progress, but then again so is a disk defragger and even MSFT did a nice basic defragger display. Are there other thresholds in scale, theory, or computability, etc., that LL iteration counts can transit as intermediate LL test milestones for display purposes? For the project-wide landscape, I can easily envision a 3-D graph of various test states and counts for color and height, etc. Overall, I think there's a lot of room for artistic license in terms of how to show data and progress.