"Crunch as if you were in the early days of a better nation!"
What is BOINC? "BOINC is a software platform for distributed computing using volunteered computer resources". In other words it lets you use your computer's spare processing power to be part of what is effectively a vast global supercomputer consisting of over a million people in over 200 countries helping out.
How does it work? You download the Boinc Manager Software. Then you sign up to & attach to 1 or more projects & that's it. Thereafter, until you stop, it your software will connect to base, download bits of work, process them , upload them, repeat ad infinitem & then Robert is your parent's male sibling as the cliche has it.
What spare processing power? Modern PCs are powerful beasts; Unless you're playing some heavy duty games or doing some serious maths the chances are that for 99% of the time your CPU is just sitting there bored out of its socket and feeling a bit like Marvin the Paranoid Android depressed at having brain the size of planet going to waste. You can cheer up your computer by giving it something worthy of all that finally wrought silicon by running Boinc.
Won't it slow down my PC? No, it works in the background giving priority to anything else you choose to do. Your PC will instantly leap to do your puny bidding as soon as your finger hits the keyboard or mouse button.
What sort of projects can I run on Boinc? All sorts. The biggest project is still SETI which processes data from radio telescopes to look for evidence of far distant civilisations. Another biggie is CPDN which runs models of climate change. There are also biomedical and Mathematical projects and others which defy all classification. Not everyone will consider every project worthwhile but there is something there for everyone.
So what's in it for me?Just the satisfaction of contributing to worthwhile work that otherwise wouldn't get done or that would only get done by using other expensive resources. And there's the credits of course.
Credits- What they?For each work unit you do get so many points (officially called Cobblestones, although usually people just call them credits) whichreflect the amount of processing your computer has done for it. Each project keeps track of what each user has done for it and there are various sites that will add them up across projects so that individuals or teams can compare their scores. There are about 1,500,000 Boinc Users & 77,000 teams. Most of us think it's good fun to compete with other users and teams .
Do I have to join a team?;No, but it's more fun if you do.
If I join a team what happens to my credits? Nothing. An important point is that joining or leaving a team never affects your individual statistics so you can join and leave as much as you want without affecting you own standing (although your team-mates might not appreciate your fickleness). For most projects the way it works is that if you earn any credits while a member of a particular team that teams account gets the same number of credits. If you then leave your credit doesn't change & the team keeps whatever you
To Be Continued.
More information is available from
or the Unofficial Boinc Wiki will give you more information than you could ever need.
If you have particular problems/questions you can post on the forum and we will try to help.
