With Rosetta almost the only application running on my Mac Pro I was averaging over 4,000 credits. Something happened March 23 rd. and I am now averaging 1,000 credits. Re-started the computer, re-installed BOINC, and still at 1,000. My ranking is dropping like crazy.
Activity monitor shows 16 cores maxed out with 95+ percentage of each devoted to rosetta. This is unchanged from before.
HELP!

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The question has been raised on the number crunching boards and Rocco Moretti has replied here:

Unfortunately, it probably isn't going to get resolved in the foreseeable future. The problem is there's a complex interaction between the Rosetta@home code base and a compiler bug which means that trying to compile with full optimizations just doesn't work (the compiler gets stuck in an infinite loop). While the bug has been fixed in the latest versions of the compiler, using them means that we lose compatibility with all but the most recent MacOS versions.

We've been banging on this multiple ways, and have tried *numerous* settings on multiple machines (you name it, we've probably tried it), and haven't been able to come up with anything which simultaneously allows compiling with optimizations and support for the full range of MacOS versions currently being used. We've made the decision to provide a working, albeit slower, R@h to all Mac users, rather than forcing everyone to update to the latest OS version.

It sucks, but unfortunately it's the position we're stuck with for the foreseeable future.

So it's nothing on your end. With the recent call for more computer resources in the lead up to this years CASP it must be particularly galling to suffer such a dramatic loss in throughput from already committed computers. In the past they have struggled to get an efficient Mac application but managed in the end so despite Rocco's rather gloomy forecast I refuse to give up all hope that they will improve the situation.

Best,
Snags

Does it not make sense then to offer new / old OS compatible compilers?
Beats loosing all that computing power due to frustration, does it not?
Running 16 effective cores 24/7/365 costs me in computer wear & electricity.
Do I wish to continue when the fun reward of seeing Rank climb is removed & replaced with the disappointment of seeing it drop daily?
Don't know yet.
Wm. Staman

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Rocco posted again here:

We have some leads now on the issue, so <deity of your choice (or absence thereof)> willing, we may be able to correct things by the next release, though no promises.

Having been here since 2006 you will have weathered a few difficult passages; I hope you hang in through one more.

Best,
Snags

Excellent news from Rocco:

Posted 28 Apr 2012 19:25:47 UTC

Version 3.30 also fixes the MacOS slowdown issue people were seeing with versions 3.24 and 3.26.