What's New: New Features in Version 15.x of Prime95

 

NEW FEATURES IN VERSION 15.x of PRIME95.EXE

New Features in Version 15.4 of Prime95

  1. Quit GIMPS choice moved to the Advanced Menu (so novice users do not confuse it with exit).
     
  2. A bug in httpnet.dll was fixed. It now works for even more proxy servers and firewalls.
     

New Features in Version 15.3 of Prime95

  1. More errors in detecting whether you are connected to the Internet have been fixed.
     
  2. Minor bugs fixed.
     

New features in Version 15.2 of Prime95

  1. A new primenet.dll that uses HTTP to communicate with the server is available. This should allow prime95 to work in environments that have firewalls installed.
     
  2. An option that allows you to write a progress line to the results file every N iterations is available.
     
  3. A dialog box lets you tell prime95 when you go on vacation. This will prevent the server from reassigning your exponents when you're on an extended vacation.
     
  4. Some errors in detecting whether you are connected to the Internet have been fixed.
     
  5. An option for you to initiate all contact with the Primenet server is now available (in case I didn't find all the problems mentioned in number 4 above!)
     
  6. Support for Windows 95 services has been added.
     
  7. To get Windows 95 service support to work, prime95 now changes its working directory to the same directory that prime95.exe is located. If you must run prime95 from a different directory than the rest of the files, then use new -W switch.
     

New features in Version 15.1 of Prime95

  1. Better support for dial-up users to the Internet.
     
  2. Prime95 no longer contacts the PrimeNet server at startup.
     
  3. Prime95 will no longer let you select Pentium Pro or Pentium CPU type unless your CPU supports the process-specific instructions.
     
  4. Bug where AMD-K6s were using the Pentium Pro factoring code (and crashing because of it) is fixed.
     

New features in Version 15.0 of Prime95

  1. Prime95 can now contact a central server to get exponents to test, report results, and change your email address. No database is required! The old manual reservation system is still supported. This has led to a major reworking of the user interface. See the readme file for more details.
     
  2. The Pentium factoring code (up to 60 bit factors) is about 4.5% faster.
     
  3. You can now change how often prime95 saves intermediate files to disk.
     
  4. You can now select one save file or two.
     
  5. The auto-continue option is gone. The program now does an auto-continue by default.
     
  6. -Q switch removed. The preferences dialog box lets you select whether the program should be quiet if a new Mersenne prime is found.
     
  7. -H switch removed. Use the Hide Icon menu choice instead.
     
  8. -P switch removed. The advanced menu now has a dialog box that lets you change the priority.
     
  9. -A switch added. This allows you to run multiple copies of prime95 from the same directory. This is useful on multi-processor machines.
     
  10. Prime95 no longer uses a prime95.ini file in the Windows directory. All information is kept in 3 local ini files: prime.ini, local.ini, and worktodo.ini. Eventually, all ports to other operating systems will use these same ini files.
     
  11. The CPU dialog box now has an entry for the AMD K6 and an entry for how many hours per day you expect to be running the program.
     
  12. The time estimate in the Status dialog box now takes into account the time you've invested in the current Lucas-Lehmer test. It also takes into account how many hours per day you are running the program. It also adjusts its time estimate if your computer seems to be running faster or slower than expected.
     
  13. Timestamps in the results.txt file.
     
  14. The results file is now named results.txt, not results.