distributed.net and RISC OS

The RC5 project is a global initiative run by the non-profit making organisation distributed.net which utilises the otherwise unused power of hundreds of thousands of ordinary computers around the world to illustrate the power of distributed processing.

The Acorn users distributed.net effort

My space CPU cycles currently count towards the Acorn Users Group - Team 4266. If you own an Acorn or other type of RISC OS machine, feel free to join us! This team has been going for years, at one point reaching the top 60 (out of tens of thousands of teams), and now hovering in the top 150.

(Historical!) client information

The GUI client that was on the official distributed.net web site on Sat 27th February 1999 was version 2.7104.428, which provided an increase in keyrate performance by several percent compared to 2.7100.413, but was slightly slower than 2.7100.417 (CLI only). A more recent CLI-only client (version 2.7105.432) included the RC5PC module which utilised any PC-card 2nd processors fitted to Risc PCs.

Clients with version 2.7104.428 (and greater) dynamically allocate the keys/timeslice value, with the aim of maximising the keyrate whilst keeping the impact on desktop performance to a minimum. However, it is still advisable to run the client in single-task mode when the computer is idle for a long period of time (i.e. overnight), as a substantial improvement in keyrate can be achieved (I can achieve an average of 359kk/s on a 279MHz StrongARM). RISC OS 4 helps substantially with cracking in multitasking mode - from an average rate of 270kk/s, I now get around 330kk/s in the desktop.

The problem with the keyrate graph not working with 2.7100.417 has been resolved thanks to Kevin Bracey. (NB The logs produced by version 2.7104.428 is again slightly different.) The icon bar RC5 cow / DES Monarch logo has also been fixed.

RISC OS users can still take part in the latest contests (e.g. RC5-72) with version v2.9005.483 of the d.net client