Just recently I have noticed that when Rosetta is running, my PC's cursor action is severely slugged. Mouse movement is not reflected in cursor movement for several seconds. I tried disabling GPU - no difference and CPU usage is already limited to 25%. Has anyone else seen this issue?

I know it's Rosetta because as soon as I suspend it, cursor behaviour immediately returns to normal

Win 8.1 Core i7 8GB RAM

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While the BOINC project processing tasks run at low priority, they still compete for memory with the rest of what you have running. Since your machine has 8 cores, and only 8GB of memory (never thought I would hear myself say that), I suspect that memory contention is the cause of the sluggishness.

Since you are posting and asking about this, it suggests that you would prefer a better user experience with your computer over the highest possible BOINC credits earned. So, I'll suggest a few ways to get that:

Limit BOINC to 80% of your available CPUs, still may contend for memory, and when you are NOT using the computer, it would still not be using one of the CPUs.

Limit the amount of memory BOINC is allowed to use, especially when computer is in use. If BOINC exceeds this threshold, it will suspend tasks in order to meet the preference, so you will see periods of time when not all CPUs are actively working on BOINC, but it should result in a better user experience. If not, further reduce the amount of memory you allow BOINC to use.

Add additional BOINC projects that are less memory intensive than Rosetta. I often suggest World Community Grid because they have humanitarian projects, and typically very low memory footprint. You control your preference as to how much to work on each project via the resource shares you define via the project website preferences. So, for example if you set Rosetta's resource share to 300, and WCG to 100, BOINC Manager will attempt to devote about 25% of your available processing to WCG. On average, that would mean 6 Rosetta tasks running with 2 WCG tasks. That might be about enough memory reduction to eliminate the sluggishness you observed, at least most of the time; yet still allow you to run BOINC on all CPUs all the time. If still sluggish, try increasing the resource share to WCG. Just be aware that BOINC thinks of these resource shares as an average over time. So it may take time to reflect changes in resource share. You might also limit the amount of memory you allow BOINC to use. This may tend to guide it to run WCGs tasks during periods when Rosetta tasks are taking more memory.

Install more memory if you have trouble parting with totally full time x8 CPUs devoted to Rosetta. That may also be helpful for other applications that you purchased such a powerful processor to run.

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Rosetta Moderator: Mod.Sense

Also I think BOINC "hard limits" the CPUs, so it will run all 8 threads at 100% for a while then coast for 3X as long (at 25% CPU setting).

I may be wrong but have a look at Task Manager to see what's happening. I think this feature was designed to limit heat build-up or battery drain in laptops.

Also I think BOINC "hard limits" the CPUs, so it will run all 8 threads at 100% for a while then coast for 3X as long (at 25% CPU setting).

I may be wrong but have a look at Task Manager to see what's happening. I think this feature was designed to limit heat build-up or battery drain in laptops.

I don't think that's right - it should run at 100% on as many cores as specified, unless it's hitting one of the limits e.g. RAM usage. Have you set BOINC to use fewer cores when the comptuer is in use? Or maybe you're seeing tasks initialising, during which there is more disk activitiy and less CPU use...

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What version of BOINC are you using? I recently downgraded from 7.2.xxx to 7.0.65 on my ubuntu desktop because it was making my system unresponsive in much the same way (despite 12GB ram for 4 cores)

There are two CPU settings. One is for the percentage of CPU time to use, the other is the percentage of the CPUs to use. So, 75% of CPU time would run 8 tasks at a time (and thus consume just as much memory), but run for 3 seconds out of every 4. My suggestion was to use the other setting, to indicate, for example, to use 75% of the 8 available CPUs, which would result in 6 tasks running and leave two CPUs available for other work. You can use both settings for example to run 6 CPUs 50% of the time (one second out of every two).

I also forgot to point out that you should select the memory option to keep tasks in memory (this is a reference to virtual memory). Not doing so can result in many restarts of the task without reaching a point where work can be preserved.

Also, I forgot to point out that when using CPU settings such as described, you'll want to select the option from the activity pulldown menu to "run based on preferences" rather than "run always".

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Rosetta Moderator: Mod.Sense

Thanks for all the suggestions, which I will take a look at

What version of BOINC are you using? I recently downgraded from 7.2.xxx to 7.0.65 on my ubuntu desktop because it was making my system unresponsive in much the same way (despite 12GB ram for 4 cores)

7.2.31. I'll try some of the memory and cpu suggestions before I downgrade

Problem has been resolved. It was the number of cores. I guess I won't earn credits so fast but that's OK, I am not in for the race, I just want to contribute to something worthwhile.