You may also be interested in having nFoldMan start like a screen saver. That is, it normally does not run, but after the computer has been idle for a period of time, it starts up and starts the folding processes. The, when the computer becomes active again, the application and the Folding processes stop.
There is no direct support for this in nFoldMan, but you can accomplish this behaviour in two ways:
- You could leave nFoldMan running all the time, but not have it start the Folding processes right away. Instead, the Folding processes can be instructed to start only after an idle period. With this option, you must still have nFoldMan running, but it won't be taking up any resources. You can also instruct nFoldMan to stop the Folding processes when the computer becomes active again. This is much like a screen saver, except for the requirement of having the nFoldMan application running.
- To get the precise behaviour of a screen saver, nFoldMan needs to be run as a screen saver. To accomplish this, you can use a special screen saver module called AppStartSaver, available separately. It is a true screen saver, starting when the computer is idle and stopping when the computer becomes active again. When this screen saver starts, it will launch a separate application of your choice. If you have it launch nFoldMan, you get exactly the effect described above.
Once nFoldMan is running and has opened settings documents corresponding to one or more Folding processes, you can start and stop those processes in a number of ways:
| Manually |
You can manually start or stop a Folding process by clicking on its status window to bring it to the front, then using the Process menu, as described in more detail below. |
| Automatically |
If you select a process's status window and then select Process/ Edit Process Settings, you will find a Control tab where you can set a number of options about control of the process:
| Start automatically |
Selecting this option will cause nFoldMan to launch the Folding process whenever this settings document is opened. This is usually what you want. |
| Start when computer idle |
This option will cause nFoldMan to launch (or un-pause) the Folding process whenever the computer is idle (no mouse or keyboard activity) for more than the specified time period. nFoldMan must be running to do this -- this option launches a Folding process, not nFoldMan itself. This is useful, for example, to make sure that after you temporarily pause a process to dedicate cycles to some other computing task, you don't forget to un-pause it. |
| Stop when active again |
If the Folding process is started because the computer is idle, this option will cause it to be stopped when the computer becomes active again. Running the "start when idle" and "stop when active again" options together simulates the effect of a screen saver. |
| Stop when closed and but only if I started it |
If you select this option, nFoldMan will stop the Folding process whenever this setting document is closed (including when the nFoldMan application is quit). Turning on both this option and the "Start Automatically" option effectively equates running nFoldMan with running the Folding process, so the combination is often useful.
If you are using nFoldMan to monitor a process that it didn't start (for example, you may be using inCrease, or may have the process set up as a root-level Startup Item), you might wish to select "But stop client only if I started it" so that nFoldMan doesn't try to shut down a process that it didn't start. |
| Advmethods and other options |
This area allows you to pass additional options to the Folding@Home command line client. The "advmethods" option is highly recommended, as it allows the client to accept more advanced (and often faster) work units. Other options can be specified in the text box. These options are not checked in any way - they are merely passed on to the Folding client.
Note that the "-local" option is required in order to use nFoldMan, so you don't need to specify it. In fact, nFoldMan will supply this option and you cannot tell it not to. |
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When a Folding process is first starting up, the computation subtask will be momentarily paused a couple of times, and this will be reflected on nFoldMan's process status window, by the status icon temporarily turning to the yellow "paused" state. This is normal interaction between the starting process and the operating system's process status checking. Wait a minute or so after starting a process and the status indicator will stabilize in the "running" state.
You control the Folding processes from nFoldMan's Process menu:
Pausing vs stopping
Running processes can be "paused" or "stopped". These are quite different, and each has its advantages.
| Method |
Advantages |
Disadvantages |
| Pausing |
Pausing a running process is very fast. The process simply stops getting cpu cycles, but it is still kept in its running state in memory. This means you can resume processing instantly, without waiting for the process to go through its startup phase again. |
A paused process does not write a checkpoint to disk, and will be lost if there is a system crash or power failure, so you may lose the amount of work done since the last checkpoint (usually 30 minutes). |
| Stopping |
Stopping a process does a complete, clean, shutdown. All work is saved, so you are guaranteed to lose nothing, even if there is a failure. |
Stopping a process shuts it down completely. When you try to start it again later, it will take several minutes of startup activity before useful work is being done. |
Generally you should use Pause if you are trying to briefly suspend Folding in order to dedicate CPU cycles to some other task, but you should use Stop for any lengthy periods. Note that you use Start to resume a process, whether it was Paused or Stopped.
Single, local, and all controls
Start, Stop, and Pause commands can be sent to one or several open settings documents and their associated processes:
| "Process" |
The menu items referring to a single "Process" will send the stop, start, or pause command only to the process associated with the front status window - the one you just clicked on or selected via the Window menu. |
| "All Processes" |
These menu items will send the command to all open processes, including those on remote machines. |
| "All Local Processes" |
Normally you wouldn't want to pause processes running on remote machines, since there would be no benefit, on your local machine, to doing so. So the "All Local Processes" menu items are more useful - they will start, stop, or pause all Folding processes running on your machine, but will not send any commands to any processes you are monitoring on a remote machine. |
Local processes you don't own
It is possible to set up an nFoldMan document to point to a Folding process that is running on your machine but that you don't own. (For example, you may have a /Library/StartupItems script set up to run a Folding process as a startup process. Such a process runs all the time, even when no one is logged in, and runs owned by user "root".) You can use nFoldMan to monitor such a process -- just point a document at the client in the relevant folder (inside /Library/StartupItems in this example).
However, you will not be able to control (start, stop, or pause) such a process. You can control only a process that is owned by your UserID (Exception: if you are logged in as root -- not recommended -- you can control any process.)
Full path names for processes
This is a fine point of interest only to unix-savvy command-line (terminal) users.
For nFoldMan to monitor, and possibly control, a process that it didn't start, the process in question must have been started by typing the full path name to the executable, not just the local name. For example, if you have the executable "fah4" in directory "/Users/richard/fah" then you must start the client by typing "/Users/richard/fah/fah4", not by cd'ing to /Users/richard/fah and then typing "./fah4". If you don't start the process this way, nFoldMan will not be able to find it, and will report status incorrectly.
nFoldMan automatically starts any processes it manages this way, so this applies only to things you do yourself, such as through a /Library/StartupItems script.
Application Avoidance
The Folding@Home client runs at a very low system priority and should not, in theory, interfere with the CPU demands of any normal application. However, some users prefer to pause their folding processes when certain other applications are running, to ensure the computing cycles are available.
nFoldMan allows you to specify applications to be "avoided". Whenever any avoided application is running, all folding processes are automatically paused. Folding will be automatically resumed when any avoided applications are terminated.
See the Preferences section of these help files for information on how to specify applications to avoid, and see the documentation for the Process Menu for a way to temporarily override this specification.