[MPlayer-users] How to pause mencoder

[D Richard Felker III]

On Fri, Dec 26, 2003 at 09:02:41AM -0800, rcooley wrote:
> [Automatic answer: RTFM (read DOCS, FAQ), also read DOCS/bugreports.html]
> On Thu, 25 Dec 2003 14:07:47 -0500
> D Richard Felker III <dalias at aerifal.cx> wrote:
> 
> > As for seti/distributed.net/etc., you should think about
> > whether you really want to pay a higher electric bill 
> 
> > "Spare" cycles aren't spare; when they're not used, the cpu powers
> > down and conserves a lot of energy.
> > 
> > Rich
> 
> That's true for something like a notebook, but I haven't seen anything
> like that with desktops.

It's called the HALT instruction. Completely different from notebook
powersaving features like APM and stuff. It's been there at least
since the original pentium.

> I've thoroughly tested my Athlon XP 2000+, and
> the difference between completely idle vs. a maxed-out processor is a
> matter of less-than 5 watts.

Very strange. Is this Linux, or Windows?? Early versions of Windows
were known not to make use of HALT; I don't know if newer ones fixed
it. In any case, the difference is much more noticable with my K6. The
cpu fan actually shuts off when using HALT, and the heat sink is cold.

> Considering that the system is using
> nearly 90watts just sitting around idle, I wouldn't consider that 5W "a
> lot of energy."

Again, this isn't my experience. I suspect something is _very_ wrong
if your idle Athlon is using 85/90W...

> That's not to say that I encourage use of
> seti/distributed.net/etc at all.

Yes, for all you know, you're really helping them process profiling
databases for tracking suspected 'terrorists', or processing every
known riaa song so that their computers will eventually be able to
identify a song just by hearing a short segment, in order to persecute
file sharers. The point is: all their software is closed-source and
secretive, and you have no way of knowing that it's actually trying to
find extraterrestrial life and not just acting as malware...

Rich