[Gate-users] Tip for Mac users!

[Marc Chamberland]

Hi Gate users!

I have a tip for Mac users. This works on Leopard and Snow Leopard (possibly on previous versions too). It may be applicable to other platforms, but I have not tested it.

This may not be immediately obvious to everyone, but if you have a Mac with multiple core processors (such as a Core 2 Duo or a Core i7), you can take advantage of the cluster tools to run Gate faster.

Use the jobsplitter as described in the Gate documentation (you can select as many splits as you have cores; for example, my Core i7 processor has 4 (virtual) cores) and use "openmosix" as the cluster platform. To see if Gate is running once your jobs are submitted, simply launch Activity Monitor.

I hope this helps someone! Since all Macs come with at least a dual core processor, all Mac users can decrease their simulation time by half quite easily.

Cheers!
Marc Chamberland, MSc
PhD candidate (Medical Physics)
Department of Physics
Carleton University
Ottawa (ON)

mchamber at connect.carleton.ca