Folding@Home

[Rawhide]

Thanks to a prompt from StickMan, I have created a Giant in the Playground team for Folding@Home (http://folding.stanford.edu/)!

For those who don't know what Folding@Home (http://folding.stanford.edu/) is, here is a brief run-down:
In a nut shell, it is a distributed computing project working towards scientific research to prevent and cure disease. Basically, the researchers need a big giant computer to do some very complex mathematical calculations. That of course costs a lot of money, money they don't have as they are a non-profit organisation (http://folding.stanford.edu/faq.html#project.own) and all research will be published freely for everyone. So, instead, they organise thousands of people to have their personal computers run small fractions of the calculations in the computer's spare time, when it wouldn't be doing anything anyway.

A big shout out to marcus who was the first GitP folder to complete a work unit!

In order to begin folding for the Giant in the Playground team (http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=teampage&teamnum=82447), all you need to do is download and install the client, set up your username, and enter the Giant in the Playground team ID of 82447.

Links
Find out more about Folding@Home (homepage) (http://folding.stanford.edu/)
Results Folding@Home has already had (http://folding.stanford.edu/results.html)
Download Folding@Home (http://folding.stanford.edu/download.html)
The Giant in the Playground team page (team 82447) (http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=teampage&teamnum=82447)

Team information
Team Name: Giant in the Playground
Team ID: 82447
Team Page: http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=teampage&teamnum=82447

[Lucky]

Wow, these work units aren't small things... Says my first unit will be finished in 104 days... :smalleek:

Well, it's a good cause, so I can hope for some Karma Points.

[Khaldan]

You might want to check once you finish your first frame lucky. My WU time just went from 10 days to just under 3 :smallsmile:

[Exachix]

I think I'll join this.

I was going to do the SETI one... but this one's being tracked =D.

[Castaras]

I used to do the SETI one...Had the screensaver for it on the old computer, back when we had a windows 98 machine, I think...

*Goes to sign up and download*

[Akaziel]

I'm doing this as well.

Haven't heard of the SETI one, though.

[adanedhel9]

I'm signed up.

I've been doing SETI@home for years, but I've grown a bit weary with it. Lately it's seemed more of a pipe dream than anything as concrete as Folding@home. This team was all that was necessary to get me to switch.

I've got 3 computers for sure working on the team. I should have a forth, but my Slack box is currently acting up.

[Pyro]

This will be awesome. Once I get my computer back from repairs I'll download this and make a shirt that says "My computer: Saving the world one math equation at a time"

Of course there will also be the lives it saves...

[Arang]

It's useful and nerdy. I like it.

[Saithis Bladewing]

Count me and my awesomeness in.

[Were-Sandwich]

I would do this, but my dad is paranoid about anything that might just possibly slow the Pc down a tiny bit.

[Lilly]

Couple of things I figured out:
-You won't show up on the list of active computers until you've finished a work unit.
-It's far too fun to watch, espically when you have access to biochemistry text books to identify the amino acids and try to reverse engineer the DNA sequence. So far things of note- I saw a S and a phenol group. I bet ball and stick would be easier...

[Khaldan]

Dang, its gonna be another 2 days before i get on the list then, and thats assuming i dont run anything dir the 2 days. And the pictures that come up are always half-offscreen. Anyone know how to fix that?

[Nomrom]

I'm in on this. I've set up my laptop, and my family's computer. It will still be two days before I finish anything though. I have a problem with my laptop. It says it's working, but i don't get any of the cool folding images I get on the other computer. Anyone know what might be wrong?

[StickMan]

I love it when I suggest something that people get excited over. Good for stickman.


Now if only there forum worked so I could figure out what Core error means.... and get the program working

[Surfer99]

What a neat idea, i will join your team sometime tomorrow or the day after just need to get a few boxes moved around.

[Dihan]

I've joined.

[Archonic Energy]

i'm in...
*starts setting work PCs up*:smallamused:

[Dihan]

I'll find a way to get the computers in school on it :smallamused:

[Gygaxphobia]

I've been doing SETI@home for years, but I've grown a bit weary with it. Lately it's seemed more of a pipe dream than anything as concrete as Folding@home.

Um, there is an awful lot out there to process, and more being made all the time. I mean what did you expect? Aliens? Sheesh.
SETI is a fantastic project, literally. It might not have the same direct practical applications as many other (cheaper, terrestrial) projects but it's at least as important.

[adanedhel9]

Um, there is an awful lot out there to process, and more being made all the time. I mean what did you expect? Aliens? Sheesh.
SETI is a fantastic project, literally. It might not have the same direct practical applications as many other (cheaper, terrestrial) projects but it's at least as important.

Maybe I overstated myself with "pipe dream". I still think SETI is a good project, and I'll probably evenutally return my computing resources to it. But at the moment, I think folding@home deserves all the power it can get.

Oh, and, at least in the short term, I've only got 2 computers on this, not 4. My slackbox has a long-standing issue where it locks up under certain kinds of load (folding@home providing that kind of load). I think my laptop is a similar boat, though instead of locking up, it shuts down entirely.

[potatocubed]

I've been running F@H for months, but I joined up with the GitP team today. :smallsmile:

I've noticed it can crash my computer when I'm trying to do something that takes up a lot of system resources and it decides 'hey, now is a good time to upload my progress!' but that's very rare.

[Xerillum]

It can never hurt to gain some strategic karma.

[Zargon]

Great news! A Oots/GiTP folding team!
I'm in! :)
(and should be on the stats board in the next few hours)
I've participated with F@H before, so I should be able to answer many questions, and will try to help where I can.

[Vespe Ratavo]

I joined. Hooray and such.

[Exachix]

*sigh*

I'm still on my first Folding.. and it's taking ages...

[V Junior]

I would help, but computer A is too slow and computer B is broken.

[Bitzeralisis]

Ooh, anything that's for the good of science and requires that I just install something and keep my computer on I'll do. Because it doesn't deal with work. Well, at least not work for me. :smalltongue:

We should all list how long it takes for your computer to compute an entire Work Unit. This way we can compare computer speeds. My current WU is 9 hours.

[Saithis Bladewing]

I had to uninstall this, unfortunately. 95% of times I ran it it just crashed windows and the one time it did it predicted 500 or so years to do one freaking work unit.

[Rawhide]

I had to uninstall this, unfortunately. 95% of times I ran it it just crashed windows and the one time it did it predicted 500 or so years to do one freaking work unit.

I'm sorry to hear about the crashing. Perhaps someone who has used it a lot might be able to help you with that? As for 500 years... well, apparently it is inaccurate at first but drops down after the first frame.

[Zargon]

Here is the start of an FAQ for folding@home for our team.

Question: How does this work?
Ans: In folding at home, there are many different areas of research (related to figuring out diseases and to help figure out how to stop or cure them) that need computational help. The work is broken down into small pieces (work units) so that it can be given to volunteer computers around the world. Currently there about 200,000 computers from just about all countries participating in this project. Without this support, much of this research just wouldn't be possible. The work is non-profit and made public to everyone.

Qn: Will this cause me to get viruses or something similar?
Ans: This is a very secure project, everything is between your computer and their server and is highly encrypted. There are no others involved. Privacy is very strict, no information outside of the project itself is passed (not even email address). Google has done an in-depth security analysis of this project and it resulted that this was the only research project that was accepted into the Google bar. (Google has redone its Google bar but was unfortunately not compatible so Google suggested to use one of the available clients instead).

Qn: So how does it work?
Ans: After installing the client (see below for more info about clients), and answering some questions (e.g. what is your team number!!!), a project workunit is sent to your system. Your system does the calculation and then sends back the results of the calculation. Note that work units from different projects are different and cannot be compared to other project work units to see how fast it will complete it.
This, and other similar projects (e.g. SETI) are designed to work with your computer's idle time only. For example surfing on the internet usually uses just a little bit of the computer's capability (let's say 10% average), so the rest can be used for folding (90% in this case)!
You can specify how much of the idle you want left (it is called CPU usage %). I normally suggest around 80% instead of 100%. Folding goes a little bit slower, but I find that it becomes unnoticeable (and the benchmarks results are also just about identical with folding at 80% and no folding at all).

Qn: How will this affect my computer?
Ans: Folding does work the CPU harder (and so hotter), similar to when working with video files. This shouldn't have any significant impact on the computer life in just about all cases. Some exceptions are a) computers without a working exhaust fan, b) computers that are over-clocked without adequate cooling, c) computers that are chocked full of dust bunnies.
Those are many of the same reasons that folding can have trouble working on a system (see the comments below about the windows graphic client for the other main reasons). For those that do overclocking (otherwise ignore this sentence!) , prime stable isn't good enough - drop the FSB by just a little is usually all that is needed.
Adjusting the CPU usage % is also important if the computer gets too noisy while folding, or too warm, especially notebooks/laptop PCs. e.g. On my old notebook, I noticed that at 40% CPU usage the fan stays very quiet, but at 80% it is noisy.

Qn: How much electricity will this use?
Ans: The extra work above idle mean that the computer uses up a bit more power than idling. Two examples: on my old P3 computer, it is about 15 watts more than idle, on my newer computer X2 it is about 25 watts more than idle. Notebooks usually use less power, high-end system usually use more.
For my X2, running 24/7 even if it wasn't folding, at 0.06/kWh local power cost, this works out to be just over $1/month. As 95%+ of the power use goes to heat, in the winter months (5 months...) when heat produced is desired, the net cost is closer to $0.10 month. The P3 is only on a 4 hours a day average, so the cost is much lower ($0.07 per month).
Of course if use to have the computer on for 4 hrs a day and now want it to go 24hrs, then it is the difference between "off" (usually under 10 watts unless turn off by unplugging/power-bar) and full-use (for my X2 around 110 watts) so that would be much more noticeable.

Qn: There are many different programs available for download! What are the differences between them?
Ands: There are several different type of folding programs (called clients) available. Each have their own advantages & disadvantages. You only need to pick one, and you can change to a different one if you want. Here is the list:

A) The "Windows 2000/XP/Vista Graphical client" is often the first choice, but it has one significant issue for some people.
This issue is that this client uses 3D graphics to draw the molecules, Windows dislikes having two 3D programs running at the same time (including some screen savers), but it can be the graphics on the system that can be the problem. ATI 9600 series graphics are known to have serious issues (e.g. system crashes) so are not suggested with this client. For other cards, if they have a problem, it is usually a 3D graphic program (e.g. a game) trying to use the full screen that gets bumped back to a window or minimized. If that is the case, just use another folding client, or stop the folding program when using the 3D application.
A minor cosmetic problem (as some here already have noted) is that the estimate for time to completion is completely wrong whenever it starts working on a new project work unit (WU). Give it a bit of time and it should correct itself. Most WUs take at least 1 day, some can take several days.

B) Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista "No nonsense" text-only console client. Also available for Linux, BSD and older Mac PCs. This is a popular choice especially for those that are comfortable around computers. The downside is that it doesn't have a pretty interface (just text) and doesn't give easy display of how much it has completed (it is in another text file). There are however 3rd party applications to display information if desired. I'll provide more info on this client if anyone wants (or if we have a FAQ area).

C) Windows/Linux/Mac (new Macs with Intel only) SMP client. This is an intense beta client for dual core or more systems that requires the computer to be on most of the time and suggested only for those comfortable with computers.

D) PS3 client. If you have a PS3, I suggest running the folding client for it. The client works great and is very nice! And the PS3 is very powerful/fast for this type of work! If you need more info about this, let me know.

E) Windows XP/Vista GPU client. This is a high performance beta client that requires specific types of graphic cards. Right now only the X1600/X1650/X1800/X1900/X1950 series are supported. There are few issues with this client as mentioned in its FAQ. Like the SMP client, this beta client is also suggested only for those comfortable with computers.
If you want more info on any of these client, let me know and I'll help as I can (or point you to a link for more info).

More info to come :smallwink:
And happy 1 week anniversary to the GitP team!

[Bitzeralisis]

Finished my first 2000 frame WU! Now I'm working on one with 500 frames. My computer is quite fast, so I can run F@H at its highest and still have around 50% of my CPU left.

[Zargon]

Lilly - if you like the regular graphic client, you should take a look at the PS3 one! The FAQ on the PS3 is at http://folding.stanford.edu/FAQ-PS3.html
And for videos, check out some on youtube.com (just search for PS3 folding).
Note that unlike on PCs, on the PS3, folding pauses when playing games or using most other PS3 functions.

[Zargon]

Giant in the Playground Folding Team Update (#1)

After a week our team is now ranked 16,577th!
Our progress can be seen at http://kakaostats.com/t.php?t=82447
And once we reach the top 2000, our team will start being partially tracked by another statistics site, and fully tracked once we hit the top 800.

The GitP folding team has passed the 5,000 point mark!

Welcome to all the members that have contributed in its first week: adanedhel9, Archonic_Energy, Beaudoin, Bitzeralisis, Castaras, Dennis_Callesen, DoIhaveaname, Faust, Frizzlefryd, gaelbert, Heidee_LadyOfTheStick, Jackie, Khaldan, marcus, Philip_Stella, Pyro, Samiam303, tannish2 and zargon!.

DoIhaveaname and Frizzlefryd, the points you have received indicated that there is a problem with your system or an incompatibility with the graphic client and your graphics. If your computer is overclocked, try decrease the overclock first. Otherwise, consider another client such as the console client (ask me if you need help on that).

Next week's update will include team member progress and milestones reached, as well as any folding news that I know of. Let me know what you think about the update and what other sections you'd like to see! :smallbiggrin:

[Zargon]

About points:
Points are to give an indication of how much help has been done. Each time a project (e.g. project 2026) work unit (WU) is completed successfully, points are awarded.
How many points? It varies depending on the project number. The amount for a specific project is fixed and is based on how fast their benchmark computer (a P4 2.8GHz) has complete a WU of that project.
For each project, there are thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of WUs available.
BTW, no work is duplicated in this project, except in the case where the WU was not successfully completed before the deadline. Deadlines to complete a work unit for the regular windows and console client is usually a month or more so there is plenty of time to complete the project even with an old Pentium III.
So points is based on the amount of work done, not by how much time. And points are just points, not something that can be traded for something. :smallwink:

[Maxdibe]

Hi there...
I am not really into this "forum community life" but once in a while I come here and check some threads.
I read about this lovely project (I reaaaally like this kind of stuff: "I do something little, you do something little, we do something big :smallsmile: ) and decided to join with my old pc with 256 Mb RAM and something like 1.4 GHz processor... (not so fast but it's better than nothing!)
Tonight I've completed 950/5000 (points?) of a <insertthatlongnamehere> protein and I'm feeling very happy about doing something while sleeping :smalltongue: .

I wrote about this project on a few forums, and I decided to join your team because here is where I heard about Folding@Home.

Let's go folding some proteins!
:smallwink:

[Pyro]

Whooo I'm first out of all of you. (I got a couple of small work units). We're also moving up the list pretty quick. Hopefully we'll be in the top 5,000 by the end of October.

[Maxdibe]

Question:
now I have 2 indipendent pc running F@H with my username and our team code using the same wireless connection... Are they working on the same protein or are they working on two different proteins?

*take a look on the name of the protein*
pc#1 (windows ME -.-) -> p3040_supervillin-0
pc#2 (windows XP) -> p3040_supervillin-03 GROMACS core
I'm hoping that pc#1 isn't showing half of the same name of pc#2 -.-

EDIT
looking at the unitinfo.txt file, the name is the same... am I doing double work for nothing?
second and final EDIT
when in doubt :belkar: set something on fire
I get a second nickname for the second pc working every once in a while.

[adanedhel9]

Each computer operates seperately, but both will record stats with the same username. Two computers working on the same protein is expected, and has nothing to do with using the same username on both.

[Zargon]

Question:
now I have 2 indipendent pc running F@H with my username and our team code using the same wireless connection... Are they working on the same protein or are they working on two different proteins?
They are both working on the same project, but not on the same work unit for that project. A wild guess is that there are about 50 projects currently available to work on. Each of those projects have many thousands of work units.
To get more detailed information, check the fahlog.txt file to see something like
[13:50:45] Project: 2606 (Run 14, Clone 4, Gen 71) (that is what my PC is working on). The run/clone/gen should be unique and is a description of the specific WU.
To find out what the project is worth in points, and how long the deadline is for that project, check http://fah-web.stanford.edu/psummary.html

[Maxdibe]

Thanks for your answers, I think I'm understanding everything now :smallwink:
So I'm about to return to the same username (double work, wouble points :smallcool: )

[Bitzeralisis]

My processer is dual core, so it only uses 50% of my CPU at once... I know there's an SMP version (for multiple processers), but I'm not using it due to fear of errors and such. Still, I finished 3 WUs in less than half a week. I'm doing my third project 3040 WU.
Does anyone else here use the console version of F@H?

[Zargon]

Does anyone else here use the console version of F@H?
I do! :smallbiggrin:

Here are the installation steps:
First downloaded the file (FAH504-Console.exe) and place it in a directory by itself. If have a dual core computer, this means using any two directories (not the same one). e.g. I use c:\folding\client1 and c:\folding\client2 directories.

For each directory created, do the following:
A) Right click on the file (FAH504-Console.exe) and select to create a shortcut.
B) Right click on the newly created shortcut and select properties. In the window that pops-up, add at the end of the line called 'Target' all the following: -configonly -local and then click Ok. Use this shortcut whenever you want to change the configuration for the client in that directory. We need to use it at least once each directory to setup the configuration. So... (for each)
C) Double click on the shortcut. It will then ask you a few questions.
D) Here are the questions and suggested answers:
- Qn 1. User name? Answer suggested is to use your GitP forum name. Use the same name on any client you set up.
- Qn 2. Team Number? Answer 82447 (our GitP team number of course!)
- Qn 3. Launch automatically at machine startup. Answer suggested Yes - This will install the client as a service (runs automatically in the background). If it is already installed as service, this question will ask if you want to remove the service (that is how to uninstall this client as a service).
- Qn 4. Ask before fetching/sending work (no/yes)? Answer no.
- Qn 5. Use Internet Explorer Settings (no/yes)? Answer no.
- Qn 6. Use Proxy? Answer no, unless your network has proxies (it will ask about it if you answer yes).
- Qn 7. Allow receipt of work assignments ... greater than 5MB ... (no/yes)? Answer suggested No (unless you have lots of spare memory and bandwidth).
- Qn 8. Change advanced options (yes/no)? Answer Yes
- Qn 9. Core Priority (idle/low)? Answer idle
- Qn 10. CPU usage requested (5-100)? Answer suggested 80 (if a PC) or 40 (if a notebook). You can adjust this up or down as you like later on (e.g. if you find your system gets too noisy, lower it).
- Qn 11. Disable highly optimized assembly code (no/yes)? Answer no.
- Qn 12. Pause if battery power... (no/yes)? Answer yes for laptops, no for PCs.
- Qn 13. Interval in minutes, between checkpoints (3-30)? Answer 15
- Qn 14. Memory to indicate? Hit enter (or enter the maximum memory to use)
- Qn 15. Request work units without deadlines (no/yes)? Answer no
- Qn 16. Set -advmethods flag? Answer no
- Qn 17: Ignore any deadline information (no/yes)? Answer no
- Qn 18. Machine ID ( 1-8 )? On each computer, no two clients can use the same number. So set this to 1 for the first client, and 2 for the second client.

Then the window will close.
If installed as a service (question 3), it will start automatically in the background after rebooting the computer.
If not installed as a service, click on FAH504-Console.exe file (not the shortcut) to run it.
The unitinfo.log file (quick info) and fahlog.txt file (has lots of info) in the directory gives some details on what is happening, but you can also install a 3rd party program. My favourite for ease of use is fahmon (free) available at http://fahmon.silent-blade.org/ - just put it in your folding directory and right click in the window to tell it where your folding client(s) are located.

Although these instructions are for the PC console version, all the other console versions (Mac, Linux and BSD, ATI GPU) and the SMP clients are all quite similar.

Let me know if you run into any problems, or to correct/improve this post! :smallsmile:

[Bitzeralisis]

I think a computer nerd like me would've been able to figure that out on my own. :smalltongue:

But still, that's quite useful for any other people who decided to use the console version.

[Al'izh'dheg]

I've long lurked on these forums, and have never posted. I originally came to see if there was any news of how Rich was doing, and saw this particular thread. It's been years since I've played with Folding@Home, and it's much better than it used to be. I've joined the team, I hope that's okay.

On the console version... does it run faster because it doesn't use the 3D animations? I normally run mine minimized in the system tray (except when it runs as a screensaver after my machine's been idle), so I had thought the 3D piece wasn't running. If it is faster, I'd prefer running the console version, but I'm in the middle of a work unit. Any way to convert over to the console version, or will I have to uninstall and reinstall?

[Maxdibe]

...and another WU (my first :smallbiggrin: )completed for GITP team

[Bitzeralisis]

Fourth WU Completed.

I'm now starting to run two F@Hs at once ( with different machine IDs, of course ), to take full use of my dual core processor.

[Zargon]

I've long lurked on these forums, and have never posted. I originally came to see if there was any news of how Rich was doing, and saw this particular thread. It's been years since I've played with Folding@Home, and it's much better than it used to be. I've joined the team, I hope that's okay.

On the console version... does it run faster because it doesn't use the 3D animations? I normally run mine minimized in the system tray (except when it runs as a screensaver after my machine's been idle), so I had thought the 3D piece wasn't running. If it is faster, I'd prefer running the console version, but I'm in the middle of a work unit. Any way to convert over to the console version, or will I have to uninstall and reinstall?
Welcome to the forums! And welcome to the team!!
The graphics don't take that much CPU on modern computers, and when minimized it runs at almost the same speed as the regular console client. The work is the same, so you can just install the console client in the same folding directory (in Program files) and run it from there and it will continue with what has been done already. Of course don't run both the console and graphics client at the same time if it they are using the same directory!
For those with dual cores, as you can't run two graphic clients, just add a console client to use the second core.

[Zargon]

For those with a PS3, there is a significantly improved folding client (on top of an already great client) just released! Details are at http://folding.stanford.edu/news.html
If you have a PS3, I suggest trying out the folding client, even if it is only for a few hours a week - no need to keep the PS3 running all the time (e.g. some people run it only during the weekend). The folding client is a collaborative effort between Sony and Stanford University (that runs the research). By the way, the PS3 hardware can easily handle the folding client without any concern for getting to warm (I suspect that's why there is no XBox360 folding client... at least for the current generation).

[tannish2]

if only they made one for the wii... its always on anyway, or did they and i just didnt see it?

[Zargon]

if only they made one for the wii... its always on anyway, or did they and i just didn't see it?
Unfortunately game play isn't an indication of folding performance, it is CPU and/or graphic engine architecture that are the key.

For the PS3, it is the CPU architecture - its multiple cores do very very well for certain calculations (only the folding projects are well suited to that architecture run on the PS3 - other folding projects are better suited to regular PCs). The PS3 graphics engine, although having great gaming performance, does not have the architecture needed to quickly handle folding projects.

For the Xbox360, the graphics engine architecture is theoretically capable of working on some folding projects very quickly. Also, although the Xbox360 CPU is a somewhat less capable for folding than the PS3, it could handle more types of projects. Sadly, I doubt that there will be any folding client for the Xbox360 until the overheating problem goes away.

Similar to the PS3, the Wii doesn't have the graphics engine architecture that is suited to folding. But also the Wii has a fairly weak CPU for folding, so it would perform quite poorly, with (my guess) under 5% of the folding performance of a PS3. However with so many Wii units out there... all those 5% could add up. Still there doesn't seem to be any plans to bring out a folding client for the Wii.

[bosssmiley]

Eggy's in.
#Fold, fold, fold, fold the elaborate proteins#

Will also have a word with the IT manager at work after the Bank Holiday weekend. We have some under-utilized network capacity there and I think he (and the senior partners) will agree that researching a potential panacea for human suffering is a leeeeetle more important than some t*sser getting their Facebucket (http://www.facebook.com/) page open 1/2 second sooner or later...

edit: 5000 frame protein? Yeah, this may take some time. :smalleek:

And Zargon, you're more than welcome to copypasta the Elanism.

[Zargon]

Eggy's in.
#Fold, fold, fold, fold the elaborate proteins#

Will also have a word with the IT manager at work after the Bank Holiday weekend. We have some under-utilized network capacity there and I think he (and the senior partners) will agree that researching a potential panacea for human suffering is a leeeeetle more important than some t*sser getting their Facebucket (http://www.facebook.com/) page open 1/2 second sooner or later...
Good luck, it is usually quite hard to convince work to help out - I hope you are friends with the IT manager! I'd recommend just suggesting it to start it on a couple of computers to see how it works out. One possible tricky area is setting up proxy. In general installation at work has to formally approved (email minimum), so it might be his boss that gives the ok. Try to identify his concerns and questions and post them here and I and others here should be able to help. If you need a formal proposal, I can post some links.
For configuration, I recommend using console mode using the service option, answer no to large work units, answer no to advance work units and 80% cpu usage (or less if it makes the PC noisier). Can use windows task scheduler if want to do it only part of the day. Want minimal impact.

p.s. can I steal your Elan's quote!?
p.p.s. I wonder what everybody else would quote...
e.g. Belkar - Stabbity death to diseases!

[Zargon]

Giant in the Playground Folding Team Update #2

Our team rank this week has improved from 16,577th to 11,377th! We've also passed 10,000 points in total!
(points is the best indication of how much help has been given on this project)

Project related news this week:
New PS3 client released: http://folding.stanford.edu/news.html

In team news this week:
We have 9 new members on our team this week - They are Phoe, Alarra, Mobius_Stripped, Alizhdheg, MaxDibe, Exachix, potatocubed, Reina and VLendle! Welcome to the team!!

Team member point contributions: (stats gathered Saturday night)
Who has contributed to the team points this week? Here is the list (in alphabetic order):
adanedhel9, Alarra, Alizhdheg, Archonic_Energy, Beaudoin, Bitzeralisis, Dennis_Callesen, Exachix, gaelbert, Khaldan, MaxDibe, Mobius_Stripped, Philip_Stella, potatocubed, Phoe, Pyro, Reina, VLendle and zargon!
With the top 5 members in points gained in the last week being:
1 Pyro
2 gaelbert
3 Phoe
4 adanedhel9
5 Bitzeralisis

Team ranks:
All team members have changed rank this week! So I'll wait a few weeks for ranks to stabilize a little bit before adding this section.

Individual Milestones achieved (in points at 1K, 5K, 10K, etc.):
1,000 points: Pyro, zargon, gaelbert, adanedhel9, Bitzeralisis and Phoe
Congratulations to all those that have achieved a new milestone!

Link of the week:
Harvard Video - view the "Inner Life of the Cell" animation. This is a general information video so not directly related with this project (but take special note where they talk about what proteins do). It does give some insight on just how complicated this "inner" world is.
http://multimedia.mcb.harvard.edu/media.html

p.s. If you have suggestions on how to improve these weekly update reports or any corrections to this or my FAQ type posts, let me know via message or post
p.p.s. My posts will be edited quite often for corrections, due primarily to my nemesis - grammar!

[Bitzeralisis]

Woo-hoo! I was mentioned twice in that last post! ( And then I checked the team statistics: Now I'm only in 6th place. )

On a slightly related note, I can finish two 5000-frame work units ( 372 points based on the protein I'm folding now) in around 1.75 days. Anyone else want to post their computing speeds here?

[Simius]

Allright, I've joined.

[tannish2]

well, i personally dont HAVE a PS3 (insert why wii, or even 20 year old toaster oven is better than PS3 rant here) but i (and craploads of other people) have wii's... and um.... its discrimitation against people who dont have PS3's? does that work? if you know any of their programmers tell them this.

[The Evil Thing]

I signed up. I'm not sure just how much I can do seeing as the damn thing doesn't appear to recognise dual-core CPUs. That's probably Vista's fault, though, as it appears to report multi-core CPUs as single core. Oh well...

[Zargon]

Welcome to the team Simius and The Evil Thing!
Evil Thing - the windows graphical client and the console client all only use one core (they are single-threaded). Also the folding accelerated by a graphics card (X1600/X1650/X1800/X1900/X1950 only) also uses one core.
You can run a second client (a console client) to take advantage of the second core (and another two more console clients if you have a quad core!).
Or, if comfortable enough with computers, you can try the SMP client that works with two core and four core systems.

[Al'izh'dheg]

Tannish, by your post, I wasn't sure, but I wanted to make certain you knew you don't have to have a PS3 to participate. Any computer will work.

Edit: Any computer running a common OS, I mean. By that I mean Windows, OSX, Linux, and even a couple of flavors of UNIX I believe.

[Zaggab]

I can't get it to work on my laptop (Mac iBook g4). I have downloaded the client and all, but when I start it, it just says "Couldn't get work instructions"

Any ideas?

[Castaras]

Just to say, I've had to get rid of Folding@home. It was messing up my computer.

[Zargon]

Just to say, I've had to get rid of Folding@home. It was messing up my computer.
It is very likely that you have used the windows graphic client. For some people there is an issue because of the graphics (check post #31 in this thread for more info). In that case, just use the console client (see post #43 for instructions).
Now if the console client has problems, it is just about 100% likely that there is a problem with the hardware (e.g. bad RAM) or its configuration (e.g. OCed too high). (People have used this client to test their system). This is the client that is used by companies and universities for support of this project as it works everywhere.
I do hope you give the console client a try!:smallsmile:

[Zargon]

I can't get it to work on my laptop (Mac iBook g4). I have downloaded the client and all, but when I start it, it just says "Couldn't get work instructions" Any ideas?
I won't even ask if you are online when it tries :smallwink:
There are some options that might prevent you from getting work. The question about what type of project do you want - if you specify that you want project workunits without deadlines then that is a problem as there aren't any projects like that any more.

[Zaggab]

I won't even ask if you are online when it tries :smallwink:
There are some options that might prevent you from getting work. The question about what type of project do you want - if you specify that you want project workunits without deadlines then that is a problem as there aren't any projects like that any more.

I got it started. The problem was something about proxy servers (which I don't actually know what it is). I just typed something at random, and voila! It works.

At least at school...

[Al'izh'dheg]

Ah, finally something I know something about!

A proxy server is pretty much what it sounds like. It is a server that companies (or schools) put in place between yourself and the Internet. All traffic heading for the web must go to this proxy server in order to get out. This includes traffic like downloads from Folding@Home. They do this so they can filter the Internet (i.e. make sure you don't surf porn at work/school).

While you're at home, you won't have a proxy server (in 99%) of the cases. So if you have trouble downloading the work at home, it's because you have a proxy server set up in the client when you don't need one.

I hope that made at least a little sense. If you have further trouble with downloading (due to proxy), I can offer for specific help.

[Zaggab]

Everyhing seems to be working fine now, but thanks anyway.

The key to understanding what a proxy server is turned out to be finding "proxy" in the dictionary.

[Al'izh'dheg]

Glad you got it fixed.

On another note, I'm having a spot of trouble. I'm getting the following in my logs:

[15:17:11] + Attempting to send results
[15:17:42] Couldn't send HTTP request to server (wininet)
[15:17:42] + Could not connect to Work Server (results)
[15:17:42] (171.64.65.65:8080)
[15:17:42] - Error: Could not transmit unit 03 (completed August 28) to work server.

I don't know why. I'm working on work unit 5 now. So 1,2, and 4 appear to have transmitted just fine. I don't know what to do about this one. Worse, I think it already credited me with points for it, so I am loathe to just delete the work results file. Any suggestions?

[Bitzeralisis]

Just like this?




[10:56:11] + Attempting to send results
[10:56:32] - Couldn't send HTTP request to server
[10:56:32] + Could not connect to Work Server (results)
[10:56:32] (171.64.65.58:8080)
[10:56:32] - Error: Could not transmit unit 03 (completed August 22) to work server.
[10:56:32] Keeping unit 03 in queue.


[10:56:32] + Attempting to send results
[10:57:35] - Couldn't send HTTP request to server
[10:57:35] + Could not connect to Work Server (results)
[10:57:35] (171.64.65.58:8080)
[10:57:35] - Error: Could not transmit unit 03 (completed August 22) to work server.


[10:57:35] + Attempting to send results
[11:00:16] - Couldn't send HTTP request to server
[11:00:16] + Could not connect to Work Server (results)
[11:00:16] (171.64.122.76:8080)
[11:00:16] Could not transmit unit 03 to Collection server; keeping in queue.
[11:00:16] - Preparing to get new work unit...
[11:00:16] + Attempting to get work packet
[11:00:16] - Connecting to assignment server
[11:00:16] - Successful: assigned to (171.64.65.58).
[11:00:16] + News From Folding@Home: Welcome to Folding@Home
[11:00:17] Loaded queue successfully.


[11:00:28] + Attempting to send results
[11:03:00] - Couldn't send HTTP request to server
[11:03:00] + Could not connect to Work Server (results)
[11:03:00] (171.64.65.58:8080)
[11:03:00] - Error: Could not transmit unit 03 (completed August 22) to work server.


[11:03:00] + Attempting to send results
[11:10:10] - Couldn't send HTTP request to server
[11:10:10] + Could not connect to Work Server (results)
[11:10:10] (171.64.122.76:8080)
[11:10:10] Could not transmit unit 03 to Collection server; keeping in queue.
[11:10:10] + Closed connections



I had this happen once, the problem was my firewall was blocking it (until I marked it as "safe," of course). Either your internet was down, the F@H server was down, or your firewall was blocking it. Either way, if it showed up in the F@H site, then there's no problems at all.

[Al'izh'dheg]

Well, here's the rub... it keeps popping up. And that's bizarre because I've gotten work units since then and processed them and even uploaded them. It's just this one that won't go.

Edit: It's popping up every 6 hours. I guess that's the retry time.

[tannish2]

Tannish, by your post, I wasn't sure, but I wanted to make certain you knew you don't have to have a PS3 to participate. Any computer will work.

Edit: Any computer running a common OS, I mean. By that I mean Windows, OSX, Linux, and even a couple of flavors of UNIX I believe.

of course, but more processors working on it = wordidontrememberrightnow

[Al'izh'dheg]

Indeed so! I have 4 computers working on it round the clock. One is an old dual processor 933MHz processor server I had lying around doing nothing. It wheezes and chokes with it's 256 MB of RAM, but still manages to get some done every couple of days. I have one session running on each of the two processors.

So that's 5 instances running at the same time! Whee! Of course that server I mentioned above really is limping along. I was thinking about having it run the SMP version instead. See if maybe letting both processors bear down on one work unit would get them out faster. Then again probably not, as the lack of memory is likely the cause of its issue.

[ZombieRockStar]

So I signed up and got it to work. Looks interesting. I'm about 2/5 of the way through my first WU, after just two days. Apparently my computer sucks for processing speed. :smallyuk:

I am, however, interested in what exactly I'm seeing here. Light grey (Hydrogen), dark grey (Carbon), red (Oxygen) and blue (Nitrogen? The number of bonds on each atom—3—seems to fit, but I can't remember my colour coding from Grade 9 science). So...I'm guessing that what my computer is doing is processing the chemical formulas and physical structure of various proteins?

*goes off to read the Folding website for answers*

Hmm...interesting.

[Zargon]

With the project number (if using the console client, check the unitinfo.txt file for the project number), you can enter the project number into JMOL (Jmol is a molecule viewer for use in chemistry and biochemistry) to see more information. http://jmol.sourceforge.net/fah/
Also for details about a project, click the description link for the project at http://fah-web.stanford.edu/psummary.html (this link also shows how much a project is worth as well as how much time there is to complete it).
Some of the newer project might not be in JMOL or the description, but might be described in the support forum.
Other links that might be of interest:
http://folding.stanford.edu/FAQ-diseases.html
http://folding.stanford.edu/science.html
And aimed more for students:
http://folding.stanford.edu/education/molmodel.html
http://folding.stanford.edu/education/protein.html
http://folding.stanford.edu/education/diseases.html

[Zargon]

Giant in the Playground Folding Team Update #3

Our team rank this week has cracked into the top 10,000 teams (moved up from 11,377th to 8880th)! We've also passed 30,000 points in total!

In team news this week:
We have 7 new members on our team this week - They are _Simius_, Pwenet, rward30, The_Evil_Thing, ufo, Vespe and ZebTheTroll! Welcome to the team!!
rward30, check your system (and fahlog.txt) as your points indicate that there is a problem. If OCing, try reduce it by a little bit.

Team member point contributions:
Who has contributed to the team points this week? Here is the list (in alphabetic order):
_Simius_, adanedhel9, Alarra, Alizhdheg, Archonic_Energy, Beaudoin, Bitzeralisis, Dennis_Callesen, Exachix, gaelbert, Jackie, Khaldan, MaxDibe, Mobius_Stripped, Phoe, potatocubed, Pwenet, Pyro, rward30, Samiam303, tannish2, The_Evil_Thing, ufo, Vespe, zargon and ZebTheTroll!

Top 6 members in points gained in the last week:
1 Alizhdheg
2 Mobius_Stripped
3 Pyro
4 Phoe
5 Alarra
6 gaelbert

Changes in team ranks (in the top 20):
In the top 10: Pyro holds onto the lead! Alizhdheg jumps up from 15th to take 2nd! Mobius_Stripped moves up from 14th into 7th! And Alarra moves up 2 into 9th!
In the top 20: MaxDibe up 2 into 15th, tannish2 up 9 into 16th, Exachix up 3 into 17th and potatocubed up into 20th.

Individual Milestones achieved (in points at 1K, 5K, 10K, etc.):
1,000 points: Dennis_Callesenm, Khaldan, Archonic_Energy, Alarra, Mobius_Stripped and Alizhdheg
Congratulations to all those that have achieved a new milestone!

Link of the week:
(already posted just before this post!)

p.s. If you have suggestions on how to improve these weekly update reports or any corrections to this or my FAQ type posts, let me know via message or post.

[Al'izh'dheg]

Well done to everybody contributing! We are doing so well, and it's for an excellent cause. Thank you all.

[Bitzeralisis]

:smallbiggrin: lol... I raised to 5th place right after the update. As usual.

With they'd get the SMP version perfected fast.

[Al'izh'dheg]

I have an odd question. If I click on any of my certificates, it comes up saying that I've done 0 work. Why is that? Everybody else seems to work fine. Is it because when I created my accounts, I used illegal characters? I didn't know at the time that apostrophes aren't allowed.

[Exachix]

Have you completed any work units?

What is your name on it?

He he... I'm blind.

Could just be an error in their system. I don't think we can help.

[Al'izh'dheg]

Didn't think so. I seem to be the only one afflicted. And it's not affecting our (or my) score any.

[The Evil Thing]

Damn, I'm getting my arse kicked here. Curses. Now I'm going to HAVE to upgrade my computer again. :smallfrown:

[Pyro]

Wow a couple of posts ago I thought it would be a stretch to be in the top 5,000 by end of October, but at the rate we're going we may be in in the top 100 by that time.

[Al'izh'dheg]

Every little bit helps! And I'm proud to be on such a team as this. :)

[rward30]

rward30, check your system (and fahlog.txt) as your points indicate that there is a problem. If OCing, try reduce it by a little bit.

Not sure what type of problem you are referring to. I don't OC as general rule, since my system is not in the best ventilated of locations. Could be that I tend to pause the F@H process while I do my daily dose(s) of MMO games, which makes me slow my overall work on it? If you can tell me what to look for, I'll see what I can do. Used to do this a lllooonnnggg time ago, and was setup as an independent, might that also be an issue? *shrug* Anything I can do to help out, and I will though. Looking at getting another system here at home setup as well to add to the list.

[Zargon]

rward30 - your next work unit got the full points, so maybe the earlier one was just been a fluke. Pausing should not be a problem. (I stop & start my system often and haven't seen any problems). You can always check the fahlog.txt file to see what it says happened (sometimes it is just a workunit reaches an early end point). If problems start up again, we can check into it a bit further.

Pyro - top 100? NFL - a team like Penny Arcade with about 300 active members took almost 6 months to do that! Top 500 by the end of October maybe... but would need a lot of new members! And that means getting the word out (even a simple as adding a link to your signature can help) & especially if given help from the forum gods and above! Some ideas that I think would be a significant help:
- a folding faq or instructions thread besides this discussion/etc. folding thread.
- a mention in the GitP news
- some teams have special forum badges for their folding members e.g. reach a milestones like 10K, get a simple GitP folding team badge, 100K gets a nicer badge. That kind of thing is alway popular with us forum folks! :smallbiggrin:

Evil Thing - if need any suggestions for upgrades...

[Al'izh'dheg]

Those are some great ideas. We could also come out with an official signature like I've seen some others do on these boards. Make people official secretaries of the Folding club or something. I'm all for that.

[The 6th Side]

If I were to install this program how much would it slow down my computor?

[rward30]

If I were to install this program how much would it slow down my computor?

For general purposes, it doesn't. Only time I notice anything on my system is when I'm doing online games, or something along those lines, that is extrememly extensive use of system resources anyway. For most people, with standard day-to-day usage of the system though, no noticeable slow down. Also, if you do something that requires a lot of resources, you can always pause the F@H program (what I do when I start my MMO games) with no problem. Just remember to resume the work afterwards.

[Zargon]

For general purposes, it doesn't. Only time I notice anything on my system is when I'm doing online games, or something along those lines, that is extrememly extensive use of system resources anyway. For most people, with standard day-to-day usage of the system though, no noticeable slow down. Also, if you do something that requires a lot of resources, you can always pause the F@H program (what I do when I start my MMO games) with no problem. Just remember to resume the work afterwards.
Yes could pause it like rward30 mentioned (or stop it if it is one of the cards that has issues with two 3D apps from running at the same time - e.g. refuses to go to full screen on the second app). I can't say why for rward30 it is noticeable, perhaps adjusting some settings (e.g. slide the CPU selection to 3/4s and don't accept large projects) would clear things up or perhaps it is because of the client type used (as using the windows graphic client)?

However using the settings mentioned in the console installation instructions on the second page of this thread (and repeated below), it should have no impact whatsoever. i.e. can't tell if running or not, even using benchmarks.

Setting for minimal impact:
Use console client with service option and the following settings
80% cpu use (or less, especially if using a notebook)
Use idle priority
Don't accept large projects
Don't accept advance projects

With that configuration there would be no impact in just about all cases, even with an old PIII-550 with not much RAM.

Here is an article from Tech Report about this:
"Conclusions
The results of our testing couldn't be clearer, at least for the systems we've tested today. Quite simply, the impact of running Folding@Home in the background is negligible. Even the most discerning users won't notice it."
http://techreport.com/articles.x/4341/1
Note they are using higher settings (e.g. cpu use at 100% instead of my suggested 80%) and on older equipment than many people have.

Give it a try (with either client) and let us know how it goes!

[rward30]

I did have mine set to use about 95% processor, as well as accepting larger projects, and I run the graphical client instead of console, so that's probably why. Just switched to smaller projects on the main system, and going to drop the processor to what you just mentioned, see what happens. I have no real problems most of the time, it just when I start my MMO's *shrug*. Personally I'm not to worried about it. Only curious thing I notice, I run the larger projects faster than I do the small one, maybe that's just because I also dropped the priority. Getting ready to trade to the console client as well, see what happens there.

[The 6th Side]

Well I installed it and havnt noticed anytihng slowing down as of yet (Although vista has had to switch to the basic veiw for it to work >__>), im on 321/1500 as of this moment

[Exachix]

I run Dual Core, so It's set to Core 2, 100%. But Low Priority.
When I start a game I usually set it to core 1 anyway to allow the graphics to run properly and not accelerated.

[Zargon]

Giant in the Playground Folding Team Update #4

Our team rank this week has reach the top 7,000 (currently 6926th)!

In team news this week:
2 new members have joined our team this week - They are Coolwhoami and ZombieRockStar. Welcome to the team!

Team member point contributions:
Who has contributed to the team points this week? Here is the list (in alphabetic order):
adanedhel9, Alarra, Alizhdheg, Archonic_Energy, Bitzeralisis, Coolwhoami, Faust, gaelbert, Jackie, Mobius_Stripped, Philip_Stella, Phoe, potatocubed, Pyro, rward30, tannish2, The_Evil_Thing, zargon, ZebTheTroll and ZombieRockStar!
With the top 6 members in points gained in the last week being:
1 Alizhdheg
2 Bitzeralisis
3 Pyro
4 adanedhel9
5 Archonic_Energy
6 Mobius_Stripped

Moving up in team ranks (in the top 20):
In the top 10: We have a new leader! Alizhdheg has moved up to take the lead! And Bitzeralisis has moved up 5 to take 3rd! adanedhel9 move up to take 4th! And Archonic_Energy moves up 3 to take 9th!
In the top 20: ZebTheTroll moves up 18 into 13th! The_Evil_Thing moves up 13 into 15th! And potatocubed moves up 3 into 17th!

Individual Milestones achieved (in points at 1K, 5K, 10K, etc.):
5,000 points: Alizhdheg (the first member of this team that has reached this milestone!)
1,000 points: ZebTheTroll
Congratulations to all those that have achieved a new milestone!

Link of the week:
Wikipedia's F@H entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folding%40home (note the main page is fine but ignore the useless discussion page).

p.s. If you have suggestions on how to improve these weekly update reports or any corrections to this or my FAQ type posts, let me know via message or post.

[The 6th Side]

When I look at the team list my nane isnt on there, can anyone explain how to join? I've entered the team ID into the part its supposed to go in, and when i click the 'go to team home page' button it takes me to GitP

[bosssmiley]

When I look at the team list my nane isnt on there, can anyone explain how to join? I've entered the team ID into the part its supposed to go in, and when i click the 'go to team home page' button it takes me to GitP

I find the same 6th. I presume you don't get entered on the team roster until you've completed a work unit for them. Makes sense in a way as there would be nothing meaningful to measure until that point...

[Al'izh'dheg]

Indeed so. You don't show up on the rankings until you've completed a work unit. Those who are showing up on our list with 0 points are doing so because when they completed one, something was wrong with it and they ended up earning 0 points for it.

Also, I play EverQuest 2 with what some would call alarming frequency. I'm running the console app (found the pretty graphics of the normal app were making too much of an impact on my system, even when it was minimized). I have found that running Folding@Home has 0 impact on my game while running it. I'm running it at 100% CPU, accepting large projects AND advanced projects.

What happens is F@H is set to a minimum priority, and EQ2 runs at normal priority. So when EQ2 opens up, it takes all my system resources (damned program is a beast), leaving none for F@H. Since EQ2 has the higher priority, F@H just sits in the background waiting for me to finish so it can resume. That way I don't have to worry about manually pausing it, or anything like that.

I hope this helps.

Oh, have we decided how we're going to spread the word on the forums?

Edit: Rephrased my last comment to not sound rude (as it isn't meant to be)

[The Evil Thing]

Hmm, I can't upload results from the second client I'm running. It says "Error: Got status code 503 from server."

I've got 3 WUs sitting on my drive doing nothing because I can't upload them.


EDIT: Never mind, I appear to have solved the problem myself.

Ooooh, I'm in the top ten.

[menschenfresser]

i'm in too ! :smallcool:

[Zargon]

Giant in the Playground Folding Team Update #5

Our team rank this week has reach the top 6,000 (currently 5319th)!

In team news this week:
2 new members have joined our team this week - They are Amazon and frdougal - Welcome to the team!

Team member point contributions:
Who has contributed to the team points this week? Here is the list (in alphabetic order):
_Simius_, adanedhel9, Alarra, Alizhdheg, Amazon, Archonic_Energy, Beaudoin, Bitzeralisis, Coolwhoami, frdougal, gaelbert, MaxDibe, Mobius_Stripped, Philip_Stella, Phoe, Pyro, rward30, Samiam303, tannish2, The_Evil_Thing, Vespe, zargon, ZebTheTroll and ZombieRockStar!
With the top 8 members in points gained in the last week being:
1 Alizhdheg
2 The_Evil_Thing
3 frdougal
4 ZebTheTroll
5 Bitzeralisis
6 Mobius_Stripped
7 Archonic_Energy
8 rward30

Moving up in team ranks (in the top 20):
In the top 10: Bitzeralisis has taken 2nd! Mobius_Stripped has move up 3 to take 4th! And Archonic_Energy moves up 3 to take 6th! The_Evil_Thing moves up 8 into 7th! And ZebTheTroll moves up 3 into 10th!
In the top 20: New member frdougal is in 13th! rward30 moves up 12 into 14th! And Coolwhoami moves up 10 into 15th!

Individual Milestones achieved (in points at 1K, 5K, 10K, etc.):
5,000 points: Pyro and Bitzeralisis
1,000 points: frdougal, Coolwhoami, rward30, Philip_Stella, The_Evil_Thing, tannish2 and Beaudoin
Congratulations to all those that have achieved a new milestone!

Link of the week:
An older article on the PS3 & folding: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/5287254.stm
(note: almost everyone can help the research, PS3, Windows, Mac and Linux. Unfortunately at this time Xbox360 and Wii can't)

[Krursk]

Ok, I'm in, becuase I'm a sucker for stickies. Now, just have to wait the month until my computer calculates a GROMACS core, whatever that is

[Zeb The Troll]

Okay, I'm just curious. How the hell do I have 265 WU's done? According to my own little displays, here, I should have 10 as of this post.

[PhoeKun]

Clearly, there was some matter of dissention among your work units, Zeb. They must have revolted and seceded from the Work Unit Empire, creating 265 smaller "states" to your credit.

...Or, there's a glitch in the system. But that seems somehow less likely. :smallamused:

[The Evil Thing]

Somehow, I'm in the top five.

I notice occasional slowdown, especially when I try to play videos. I have to shut down on of the 'clients' for that. Also, Supreme Commander doesn't like it. But then, SupCom doesn't like anything much; it's a very greedy game.

[Zargon]

Somehow, I'm in the top five.
I notice occasional slowdown, especially when I try to play videos. I have to shut down on of the 'clients' for that. Also, Supreme Commander doesn't like it. But then, SupCom doesn't like anything much; it's a very greedy game.
What clients are you using? And what settings are you using?
Also if you have 1 GB RAM, that could well the reason as SupCom really wants lots of memory (also applies to BF2), and even a few MBs can make a difference in that case.

[Zargon]

Okay, I'm just curious. How the hell do I have 265 WU's done? According to my own little displays, here, I should have 10 as of this post.
I noticed that but wasn't sure when that had happened (when we reach the top 800, we'll have better stats) so didn't want to comment.
Check the fahlog.txt file to see what the error was. As different projects works different parts of the CPU, it could be that one type of project is having problems for whatever reason. If OCed, the usual reason is an OC is a bit too high (prime stable isn't good enough) and just a small drop in the OC will fix it.
However there can be other reasons such as marginal memory. Or in my case (I also lost a few work units this week) it was a bad wireless driver (random reboots because of the bad driver).

[The Evil Thing]

What clients are you using? And what settings are you using?
Also if you have 1 GB RAM, that could well the reason as SupCom really wants lots of memory (also applies to BF2), and even a few MBs can make a difference in that case.
One graphical, one text. Both are always minimized. And I have 2GB of RAM, I would never seriously attempt to play any game made after 2006 without that much.:smallcool:

Maybe I should swap out the graphical for another text. It doesn't make an awful lot of difference to me but I don't know how to import settings from one to another.

[Zargon]

One graphical, one text. Both are always minimized. And I have 2GB of RAM, I would never seriously attempt to play any game made after 2006 without that much.:smallcool:
Maybe I should swap out the graphical for another text. It doesn't make an awful lot of difference to me but I don't know how to import settings from one to another.
It could be the graphical client - two 3D apps at the same time might have an impact.
For the console client, you'd just need to copy fah504-console.exe into a new directory and then run the setup there. I wouldn't suggest importing settings as will have to adjust them anyway. Try it with lower settings (no to >5MB project, no advance projects, 80% cpu use, idle priority and a different machine ID than the other two folding clients) and see how that works (and with the graphic client off!).
Let us know how it goes!

[Zargon]

Giant in the Playground Folding Team Update #6

Our team rank this week has reach the top 5,000 (currently 4441st as of Saturday night)!

In team news this week:
3 new members have joined our team this week - Krursk, Earthstar and Elektro - Welcome to the team!

Team member point contributions:
Who has contributed to the team points this week? Here is the list (in alphabetic order):
_Simius_, adanedhel9, Alarra, Alizhdheg, Amazon
Archonic_Energy, Beaudoin, Bitzeralisis, Earthstar, Elektro
Exachix, frdougal, gaelbert, Jackie, Krursk, MaxDibe, Mobius_Stripped, Philip_Stella, Phoe, potatocubed, Pyro, rward30, Samiam303, tannish2, The_Evil_Thing, zargon and ZebTheTroll!
With the top 10 members in points gained in the last week being:
1 frdougal
2 Alizhdheg
3 ZebTheTroll
4 Amazon
5 gaelbert
6 Bitzeralisis
7 rward30
8 Pyro
9 Mobius_Stripped
10 zargon

Moving up in team ranks (in the top 20):
In the top 10: Two new in the top 10! First ZebTheTroll moves up 4 into 6th! And frdougal moves up 5 into 8th!
In the top 20: Amazon leaps up 15 into 15th! And potatocubed moves up 5 into 17th!

Individual Milestones achieved (in points at 1K, 5K, 10K, etc.):
10,000 points: Alizhdheg - congrats on being the first to 10K!
5,000 points: Mobius_Stripped, gaelbert, ZebTheTroll!,
1,000 points: MaxDibe, potatocubed, Samiam303, _Simius_ and Amazon
Congratulations to all those that have achieved a new milestone!

Link of the week:
There is a new website for folding project news at http://folding.typepad.com/

[StupidFatHobbit]

This is great. I hadn't heard of it before. I joined tonight and will see how it goes. Thanks for posting it!

[Zargon]

This is great. I hadn't heard of it before. I joined tonight and will see how it goes. Thanks for posting it!
Welcome to the team! and your first WU has been turned in! http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=userpage&teamnum=82447&username=StupidFatHobbit

[Zargon]

News: The client version has been updated to beta version 6 for most of the Windows, Mac and Linux clients. The other beta clients (Windows SMP and Windows GUI) have an updated version 5 release as well. No new updates for the PS3 client yet.
For more information check the FAQ at http://folding.stanford.edu/FAQ-v6.html
The download page is at the usual http://folding.stanford.edu/download.html
Note there is no requirement to change your existing non-beta clients if you don't want to (won't make much of a difference in most cases).

[StickMan]

I'm glad to see the group is doing so well. I'm going to try to download this new client to see if it will now work on my Com I hope it will.

[Zargon]

Giant in the Playground Folding Team Update #7

Our team rank this week has reach the top 4,000 (currently 3838th as of Saturday night)! And we've past 100,000 points!

In team news this week:
5 new members have joined our team this week - Micate, PS3, StupidFatHobbit, Bobnik and e_chuck - Welcome to the team!

Team member point contributions:
Who has contributed to the team points this week? Here is the list (in alphabetic order):
_Simius_, adanedhel9, Alarra, Alizhdheg, Amazon, Archonic_Energy, Beaudoin, Bitzeralisis, Bobnik, e_chuck, Elektro, Exachix, frdougal, gaelbert, Jackie, Micate, Mobius_Stripped, Phoe, potatocubed, PS3, Pyro, rward30, Samiam303, StupidFatHobbit, tannish2, Vespe, zargon, ZebTheTroll and ZombieRockStar!
With the top 10 members in points gained in the last week being:
1 frdougal
2 Alizhdheg
3 Mobius_Stripped
4 ZebTheTroll
5 rward30
6 zargon
7 Archonic_Energy
8 Amazon
9 Micate
10 gaelbert

Moving up in team ranks (in the top 20):
In the top 10: frdougal jumps by 3 and into 5th! adanedhel9 moves into 9th and into the top 10! And zargon returns back into 10th
In the top 20: rward30 moves into 12th and Beaudoin moves into 18th

Individual Milestones achieved (in points at 1K, 5K, 10K, etc.):
5,000 points: Archonic_Energy, frdougal, Phoe, adanedhel9 and zargon
1,000 points: Exachix, Jackie and Micate
Congratulations to all those that have achieved a new milestone!

Links of the week:
Ver 6 beta has been released. Not a required upgrade nor suggested (unless you want to keep an eye one it or if already using a beta client). For the FAQ check http://folding.stanford.edu/FAQ-v6.html
And as mentioned last week, for the lastest in folding news check http://folding.typepad.com/

[NisseBosseLasse]

Downloaded it earlier tonight, and it's been running for an hour or so (6 frames/100 completed, whatever that means... :smallsmile:).

[rward30]

And of course I made top 10, and broke 5000 points after you post the updates. :sigh:
Oh well, hopefully I'll still be there next week. :smallsmile:

[Al'izh'dheg]

Looks like you hung on to spot 8 there, rward. :)

[Al'izh'dheg]

Ack! Our summary is missing!

[Zargon]

Giant in the Playground Folding Team Update #8

Our team rank this week has push past the top 3,500 (currently 3,359 as of Sunday night)! (BTW, there are almost 14,000 active teams currently!).

In team news this week:
3 new members have joined our team this week - menschenfresser, Nemglan and NisseBosseLasse - Welcome to the team!

Team member point contributions:
Who has contributed to the team points this week? Here is the list (in alphabetic order):
_Simius_, adanedhel9, Alarra, Alizhdheg, Amazon, Archonic_Energy, Bitzeralisis, e_chuck, Elektro, frdougal, gaelbert, Jackie, Krursk, menschenfresser, Micate, Mobius_Stripped, Nemglan, NisseBosseLasse, Phoe, potatocubed, rward30, Samiam303, StupidFatHobbit, tannish2, zargon, ZebTheTroll and ZombieRockStar.
With the top 10 members in points gained in the last week being:
1 Alizhdheg
2 rward30
3 Mobius_Stripped
4 ZebTheTroll
5 Amazon
6 frdougal
7 Micate
8 Bitzeralisis
9 Elektro
10 e_chuck

Moving up in team ranks (in the top 20):
In the top 10: Mobius_Stripped has taken over the #3 spot, frdougal moves up into 4th and ZebTheTroll takes 5th! rward20 jumps up 4 spots and into the top 10 in 8th!
In the top 20: Amazon moves to 14th! New in the top 20 is Micate leaping up by 11 into 17th, Krursk up by 14 into 19th and Samiam303 taking 20th!

Individual Milestones achieved (in points at 1K, 5K, 10K, etc.):
15,000 points: Alizhdheg
5,000 points: rward30, Alarra and Amazon
1,000 points: Elektro, Krursk, StupidFatHobbit and e_chuck
Congratulations to all those that have achieved a new milestone!

Link of the week:
The list of current projects is at http://fah-web.stanford.edu/psummary.html (http://fah-web.stanford.edu/psummary.html) For more information about a project, click on the description link (although some don't have a description yet...)
If using the console client and want to see the 3D graphics of the project you are working on (listed in the unitinfo.txt file), check jmol at http://jmol.sourceforge.net/fah/

[Al'izh'dheg]

Yay! Thanks, Zargon. :)

[bingo_bob]

Great. Straight from one 5000-frame WU to another 5000-fram WU. Blargh.

[Simius]

Great. Straight from one 5000-frame WU to another 5000-fram WU. Blargh.

Well, for me the 1500 frame units take longer than the 5000 frame ones. I don't think the frame count matters much for the time it takes to finish a WU.

[Zargon]

Giant in the Playground Folding Team Update #9

In team news this week:
2 new members have joined our team this week - Colin and The_Mighty_Unknown - Welcome to the team!

Team member point contributions:
Who has contributed to the team points this week? Here is the list (in alphabetic order):
_Simius_, adanedhel9, Alarra, Alizhdheg, Amazon, Beaudoin, Bitzeralisis, Colin, e_chuck, Elektro, Exachix, frdougal, gaelbert, Jackie, MaxDibe, Mobius_Stripped, NisseBosseLasse, Phoe, rward30, Samiam303, StupidFatHobbit, tannish2, The_Mighty_Unknown, zargon, ZebTheTroll and ZombieRockStar.
With the top 10 members in points gained in the last week being:
1 Alizhdheg
2 frdougal
3 Elektro
4 gaelbert
5 rward30
6 ZebTheTroll
7 Bitzeralisis
8 adanedhel9
9 zargon
10 StupidFatHobbit

Moving up in team ranks (in the top 20):
In the top 10: frdougal continues to move up and have jumped up 2 to take the #2 spot!! rward20 moves up into 7th! adanedhel9 moves up into 9th! And zargon returns once again to the top 10 in 10th.
In the top 20: Elektro moves up 2 into 17th!

Individual Milestones achieved (in points at 1K, 5K, 10K, etc.):
20,000 points: Alizhdheg
10,000 points: Bitzeralisis and frdougal
Congratulations to all those that have achieved a new milestone!

Link of the week:
The main web site for the project has been updated: http://folding.stanford.edu/

[JT]

Well, I decided to jump on the bandwagon, now that it's a hit. :)

I chose "JT-GitP" to differentiate me from the other "JT" names out there.

My first frame should complete in another 5 minutes, at which point, I hope the WU end is estimated more accurately. Right now, it says it'll take 5-1/6 days.

I've got a dual core A64-4800 w/ 2GB of ram, and don't do much^H^H^H^H anything that taxes even one of them, so I don't notice that one of the cores is now in use, unless I look at the ASUS console.

...
Eh -- only 2 minutes left for the first frame. Let's wait before posting this. :)

Yay! Now it thinks there's only 2-1/2 days for the work unit to complete! And it got a 2nd frame done there somehow, too.

And... down to 1-2/3 days. Soon it'll be getting done before I downloaded it! :smalltongue:

[Al'izh'dheg]

100 Work Units completed! Yay!!

[Zargon]

Welcome to the team JT!
There are several projects that a WU can come from, some go quickly, some take quite a long time. With 2GB, there shouldn't be a problem accepting large projects (they can be up to 150MB is size) if you want.
For CPU use, folding only uses otherwise unused CPU time.
Since it seems you are using the windows graphic client, you may need to close the program while you are running 3D apps such as games.
To use both cores, add a console client or perhaps go to the beta SMP client (although I'd suggest holding off on the SMP client until the new release as it is quite beta)

[Simius]

100 Work Units completed! Yay!!

Pfft, Zeb has allready done ove 600 :smallwink:

ps. if you're starting to feel too good about yourself, have a look at the teams in the top 100. (http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=teampage&teamnum=33) :smallbiggrin:

[Micate]

100 Work Units completed! Yay!!

Hm... yes, 100. Clearly.

http://fah-web.stanford.edu/awards/cert.php?u=Alizhdheg&pts=100&t=wus&bg=3

:smallwink:

[JT]

Welcome to the team JT!
There are several projects that a WU can come from, some go quickly, some take quite a long time. With 2GB, there shouldn't be a problem accepting large projects (they can be up to 150MB is size) if you want.

Thanks for the welcome. I didn't know if it was standard to say you'd joined the team, but I didn't want to just show up the next time someone ran stats.

I configured the program to be pretty much "take what you want" :smallwink:
It's allowed to give me assignments >5MB, and can take up to 100% of the processor (since I have two cores, it doesn't really matter to me). I didn't up the core priority, because it isn't being interfered with.



Since it seems you are using the windows graphic client, you may need to close the program while you are running 3D apps such as games.
To use both cores, add a console client or perhaps go to the beta SMP client (although I'd suggest holding off on the SMP client until the new release as it is quite beta)
I've got some games, but I've been too busy with real life (and looking for updates to OOTS and Erf) :smallbiggrin: to play them, so it shouldn't be a problem. I should probably install the console client, since I don't tax even the single remaining core. Maybe I'll download the Linux client for my server, too... though that box is a little more important/busy.

I'd love to add this to my work servers, but I think my employer might be a tish upset if I were to do that.... It'd be cool to have another 70 cores working for the Giant's team, though.

[Al'izh'dheg]

Micate, the link you were looking for is: http://fah-web.stanford.edu/awards/cert.php?u=Al'izh'dheg&pts=100&t=wus&bg=3


:)

And yes, I realize that my 100 isn't all that big of a deal compared to those who have been around for a lot longer, but it's exciting to me! :)

[Zargon]

Too new for anything to be standard here! And I do secretly QUIETLY hope the forum gods will bless us with team upgrades :smallbiggrin:
Then we could have a formal welcome thread - but until then it's always good to have a hello post!
In the mean time I'll put together a FAQ thread in the near future (thanks for the suggestion Rawhide!).
For the stats, yeah... I try to keep them weekly, but sometimes (like last weekend) planets were misaligned and other excuses :smallredface:

As for games - hmmm... last time I played something heavily was back in the Baldur's gate/Torment days - I tried Oblivion and half-life but after a few hours just didn't get into it and stopped. I just got Fallout 2 (yes, very old) so will try that when I get a bit of time (ha!). I think short quirky games is all I can muster otherwise - Portal is the only recent game I think I'd be interested in (imagine Belkar with the portal gun!)... maybe

For even a busy computer, the console client with reduced settings (no large projects, idle priority, 80% idle cpu use max) should be able run on it with just about no impact on performance.

For companies, always need formal (email) permission... unless you own the company! Otherwise who you know is really important. If you or anyone needs some help writing up a brief summary, let me know.

[Eldpollard]

Right, I've just installed it. My old computer could not have coped with this at all. This one shoul;d do it fine though.

[Zargon]

Giant in the Playground Folding Team Update #10

In team news this week:
3 new members have joined our team for this update - JT-GitP, MacXimus and Morrinn - Welcome to the team!

Team member point contributions:
Who has contributed to the team points for this update? Here is the list (in alphabetic order):
_Simius_, adanedhel9, Alarra, Alizhdheg, Amazon, Beaudoin, Bitzeralisis, Bobnik, e_chuck, Elektro, frdougal, gaelbert, Jackie, JT-GitP, Krursk, MacXimus, MaxDibe, menschenfresser, Micate, Mobius_Stripped, Morrinn, Nemglan, Phoe, rward30, Samiam303, StupidFatHobbit, The_Mighty_Unknown, zargon, ZebTheTroll and ZombieRockStar.
With the top 10 members in points gained since the last update being:
1 frdougal
2 Alizhdheg
3 Micate
4 Elektro
5 Mobius_Stripped
6 ZebTheTroll
7 rward30
8 gaelbert
9 The_Mighty_Unknown
10 StupidFatHobbit

Moving up in team ranks (in the top 20):
In the top 10: Lots of moves for this update! Mobius_Stripped has moved up to take the #3 spot! ZebTheTroll has moved up into 4th! gaelbert has moved up into 5th! zargon has moved up by 2 and into 8th! And Phoe has also moved up 2 and into the top 10 in 9th!
In the top 20: Alarra moves up into 12th! Micate has jumped up by 5 into 13th! Elektro has moved up 2 into 15th! And new in the top 20 is StupidFatHobbit that has jumped up by 4 into 19th and e_chuck that has moved up 5 into 20th!

Individual Milestones achieved (in points at 1K, 5K, 10K, etc.):
20,000 points: frdougal
10,000 points: Mobius_Stripped, ZebTheTroll, gaelbert and rward30
5,000 points: Elektro and Micate
1,000 points: ZombieRockStar, menschenfresser, The_Mighty_Unknown, Morrinn and MacXimus
Congratulations to all those that have achieved a new milestone!

[JT]

The scope of the project becomes clearer when you've run things for a while, and only scratched the first layer of the outer shell's top coat, in one teensy tiny place. :smallsmile:

Still fun to watch the molecular display.

Anyone know whether the odd yellowish-green atom (I only saw one, and only in a couple of the shots) is something that's being modeled as the odd/incorrect/defective piece? (This was project 2416_Ribosomething_Cl or ...Na I think, so I'm wondering if it was a chlorine or sodium atom stuck in there.)

[Elektro]

It's most likely a sulfur atom. Generally, these are the atoms and their corresponding colors in amino acids:

black: carbon
red: oxygen
blue: nitrogen
white: hydrogen
yellow: sulfur

Sulfur is found in methionine (R-group: -CH2-CH2-S-CH3) and cysteine (R-group: -CH2-SH) - that one is most likely the thiol group of cysteine as methionine is only found at the first position in the protein chain/polypeptide.

See, I knew that BS in Biochemistry would come in handy someday! :smallbiggrin:

[JT]

It's most likely a sulfur atom. Generally, these are the atoms and their corresponding colors in amino acids:

black: carbon
red: oxygen
blue: nitrogen
white: hydrogen
yellow: sulfur

Sulfur is found in methionine (R-group: -CH2-CH2-S-CH3) and cysteine (R-group: -CH2-SH) - that one is most likely the thiol group of cysteine as methionine is only found at the first position in the protein chain/polypeptide.

Thanks. I was confident of the black (well, dark gray) and white (well, light gray), and was pretty sure that blue and red were, in some order, oxygen and nitrogen (I never got a molecular model kit to play with, though) :smallfrown:

The thing is that I've only seen the one yellowish-green, and only for a while (perspective / frame-size could account for that), so I figured that something that's "normal" wouldn't be so "rare."

Not that I'm gonna understand a thing about the program/projects, just by looking at pretty displays.... :smallbiggrin:

[Soups]

Hmmmm, this project intrigues me. I shall check it out. Hopefully it runs on OS X. Seems alot more meaningful than electric sheep :P

Edit: And I have installed and joined the GitP group, if it is ok. woot, go little dual core processor with 2 gb RAM.

[tirsales]

Oh, well, I joined too.
Couldn't stand not folding much longer (geez, I'm studying this kind of crap so ...). With any luck my first frame (...hurray to me...*sigh*) will be ready in about 15' (@Soups: Yeah, DualCore with 2GB Ram sounds about right ;) )

--
edit:
23' 7'' per Frame, at least on this project.

[Soups]

Maybe Im special in the head, but I entered the team number, but apparently, im not part of the team. Im running v6 on OS X.

[adanedhel9]

Maybe Im special in the head, but I entered the team number, but apparently, im not part of the team. Im running v6 on OS X.

Have you completed a work unit yet? I don't think you'll show up until then.

[Soups]

I was reading the FAQ and OS X doesnt get a visual or an idea on what is done unless you refresh the account page (user is : Soups), but i can't really read it. It all looks like gibberish to me.

[Elektro]

The thing is that I've only seen the one yellowish-green, and only for a while (perspective / frame-size could account for that), so I figured that something that's "normal" wouldn't be so "rare."


Well, you're only modeling portions of proteins. Probably 20-40 amino acids at a time. It's too hard to do anything else, especially as some multimeric proteins can have thousands of amino acids.

Methionine is rare. It's unique to the first amino acid position in the chain. You'll only ever have one of those, regardless of how big the protein is. Cysteine is pretty rare too - it's usually found in the active site, which makes sense why you'd see it in the folded "pocket" of the peptide. Most of the amino acids found in a protein (ala, leu, gly) have R-group hydrocarbons, which explains all those grey and white atoms!


Oh, well, I joined too.
Couldn't stand not folding much longer (geez, I'm studying this kind of crap so ...).

Lernst du Biochimie? Glueck! (du wirst es brauchen :smallbiggrin:)

[JT]

Maybe Im special in the head, but I entered the team number, but apparently, im not part of the team. Im running v6 on OS X.

My first WU took 2 days plus a bit to complete. And as was said, I don't know that you should up as part of the team until you've completed a WU that's for that team.
It also takes a while, after you submit the results, to get the credit to appear. The database is updated multiple times per day, but it is not updated for each and every completion.

Go to http://folding.stanford.edu/English/Stats and click on the "Donor Stats" link. Then, type your username into the search box and click on the search button.
You should show up, and your team-number is part of your record. At least, I think it is, even before you complete something. :smallsmile:

As an aside, if you decide to grab the console client (since you have a dual core) to run 2 copies of FAH, please read the info about running it in parallel (you need to configure it as "local" and put it in a different directory, or else it collides with the display client, or with an already existing console client. I screwed up some work that way (lost my work in progress... a miniscule drop in the ocean of total work).


Another aside... woo hoo! I'm 33 on the team! Look out numbers 27-32... I've got a big WU (I think) that should be complete in 5 hours! Of course, they probably have stuff running too.... :smalleek:

[Zargon]

Well, you're only modeling portions of proteins. Probably 20-40 amino acids at a time. It's too hard to do anything else, especially as some multimeric proteins can have thousands of amino acids.
How many atoms is 20-40 amino acids?
I took a quick look and saw that many of the SMP projects have over 120,000 atoms and there were other folding projects with over 300,000 atoms. There are also quite a few smaller folding projects (such as those run by the PS3s) with under 1000 atoms. # of atoms & description found at http://fah-web.stanford.edu/psummary.html
Can look at projects in 3D at http://jmol.sourceforge.net/fah/

[Elektro]

I took a quick look and saw that many of the SMP projects have over 120,000 atoms and there were other folding projects with over 300,000 atoms. There are also quite a few smaller folding projects (such as those run by the PS3s) with under 1000 atoms. # of atoms & description found at http://fah-web.stanford.edu/psummary.html

Wow, you're right. My previous statement was based on what my graphical output looked like. The graphical console must just show a portion of the whole peptide, since my project has 9700 atoms which is about 650 amino acids (average number of atoms per amino acid is about 15). There definitely weren't that many on the screen. Those ones with >10000 or so atoms are multimeric proteins or large protein complexes. Just goes to show I don't know anything about the computer science part of all this. :smallbiggrin:


Anyone know whether the odd yellowish-green atom (I only saw one, and only in a couple of the shots) is something that's being modeled as the odd/incorrect/defective piece? (This was project 2416_Ribosomething_Cl or ...Na I think, so I'm wondering if it was a chlorine or sodium atom stuck in there.)

JT, I read your project description and you are right about that being a Na/Cl atom. They're modeling small molecule binding to specific sites on the ribosome and determining loss of function. That yellow atom can't be sulfur, as the ribosome is rRNA, which only contains nitrogen, oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen. It seems strange to model the ribosomal interaction with an ion that is ubiquitous in the cell, but I'm sure they have a good reason.

[rward30]

I was looking over the current team stats and see a new person: steviefool. Out of curiosity, if you don't mind, what kind of setup are you running. 11 WUs in less than a week, and counting! All I have to say is this....WOW, and *drool* over the monster you must have running the client. Like I said, if you don't mind answering, what are the specs of the system you are running on?

[Zargon]

Looking at the stats of steviefool at http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=userpage&teamnum=82447&username=steviefool, I can see that it appears to be a PS3 as that are the projects being completed. Yes, PS3s do folding very very well on some types of projects!
e.g. one of the project is 4000 - from the description:
"A villin headpiece subdomain walks into a bar. "I'd like a 6 M solution of guanidinium hydrochloride, please," it tells the bartender. "My ..."
http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/fahproject?p=4000
:smalltongue:

[Zeb The Troll]

I just wish I didn't have to turn mine off in order to play games. I think it's my vid card, but whenever I try to play a game in full screen mode with this running I get dropped to desktop, even though I don't actually have the FAH display up.

[rward30]

I just wish I didn't have to turn mine off in order to play games. I think it's my vid card, but whenever I try to play a game in full screen mode with this running I get dropped to desktop, even though I don't actually have the FAH display up.

Have you tried running just the console client? I know when I was running the graphic client I had some issues, but switching over to the console took care of those. Just a suggestion.:smallwink:

[Zeb The Troll]

Have you tried running just the console client? I know when I was running the graphic client I had some issues, but switching over to the console took care of those. Just a suggestion.:smallwink:*blink* *blink blink* Who did what to whom in which barn? :smallconfused:

I'll have to go back and look but I only remember seeing a Windows client and a Windows beta client. I'll give that a try.

[rward30]

*blink* *blink blink* Who did what to whom in which barn? :smallconfused:

I'll have to go back and look but I only remember seeing a Windows client and a Windows beta client. I'll give that a try.

If you check way back to post #43 of this thread, Zargon gave some wonderful instructions on how to get the console client going.

If I knew how to link to the specific post, I'd do that, but I don't, so I won't.

[Zargon]

Giant in the Playground Folding Team Update #11

In team news this week:
4 new members have joined our team for this update - steviefool, Soups, ThunderEagle and Zorminster - Welcome to the team!

Team member point contributions:
Who has contributed to the team points for this update? Here is the list (in alphabetic order):
_Simius_, adanedhel9, Alarra, Alizhdheg, Amazon, Bitzeralisis, Bobnik, Colin, e_chuck, Elektro, frdougal, gaelbert, Jackie, JT-GitP, MacXimus, menschenfresser, Micate, Mobius_Stripped, Nemglan, Phoe, potatocubed, Pyro, rward30, Soups, steviefool, StupidFatHobbit, The_Mighty_Unknown, ThunderEagle, zargon, ZebTheTroll, ZombieRockStar and Zorminster.
With the top 10 members in points gained since the last update being:
1 frdougal
2 Alizhdheg
3 steviefool
4 Elektro
5 Micate
6 rward30
7 MacXimus
8 JT-GitP
9 ZebTheTroll
10 StupidFatHobbit

Moving up in team ranks (in the top 20):
We have a new points leader - congrats frdougal!!!
Other moves in the top 10: ZebTheTroll moves up again to take the #3 spot!! rward30 moves up 2 to take 5th! Elektro leaps up by 7 to take 8th! And Micate jumps up 4 into 9th!
In the top 20: Amazon moves up 2 to take 12th! New member steviefool blasts up into the charts in 16th! StupidFatHobbit also moves up 2 and takes 17th! And MacXimus zooms up by 17 into 19th!

Individual Milestones achieved (in points at 1K, 5K, 10K, etc.):
40,000 points: frdougal
30,000 points: Alizhdheg
15,000 points: ZebTheTroll
10,000 points: Micate and Elektro
5,000 points: StupidFatHobbit and steviefool
1,000 points: JT-GitP and Soups
Congratulations to all those that have achieved a new milestone!

Link of the week:
If interested in seeing some of the basics about folding and some of what is being researched, check the videos at http://fah-web.stanford.edu/talklets/index.html

[Zeb The Troll]

If you check way back to post #43 of this thread, Zargon gave some wonderful instructions on how to get the console client going.

If I knew how to link to the specific post, I'd do that, but I don't, so I won't.Woowoo! Hey, it worked. Sweet.

[Simius]

Also, the GitP team has joined the Top 2000.

Cheers!

@ Soups \/. When shut down, the folding program will just pause and continue where it left off when restarted. I don't know about sleep mode or laptops, though.

Ps. I always shut my computer down at night, or even when I leave the house. I don't think that folding is a good enough excuse to waste energy.

[Soups]

I honestly wonder how folding works on a computer when it is put to sleep or shut off. I run mine on my laptop, as I have to use ot for school. I wonder if i have been restarting proccesses, as i have not gained new work units in a week. I try not to shut mine off at night so it can run. Although, my "old" account did last wednesday, as I had to reinstall the foldingprogram. wierd.

[JT]

Well, working full time (on one of the cores), my Athlon-64x2 4800 takes 2-3 days for a work unit. If your computer is on for 1/3 to 1/2 the time (8-12 hours each and every day) that'd be around a week, with a respectable processor. (You could have a faster cpu... mine is about 18-24 months off leading edge... on the other hand, you have a laptop, which generally means slower.)

Some things to check, though...
1) You may want to do smaller projects.
2) You may be set to have FaH not run when the laptops on battery power. (This may be desired or essential, though).
3) Depending on how often you turn the laptop off/on, you might want to shorten the time interval for when FaH saves intermediate results. I'm not sure whether it saves on a shutdown request, or if it just saves every X minutes, and restarts from there.

[Soups]

Ah, sound advice. Too bad I run intel mac :P Its(folding) in beta(can't run AMD version reliably), so I don't get otpions other than on/off.

I like my brand new MacBook. This sucker is fast.

[Zargon]

As Simius mentioned, we've hit the top 2000 teams! (we weren't quite there yet when I did the last stats updated).
That means we are now finally being tracked by the most popular stats program http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/team_summary.php?s=&t=82447
It'll take about a week before the stats are accurate. Also we won't see individual member stats until we hit the top 800. But first, off to the top 1000 we go!!

[Exeson]

Hmmm, looks interesting, I'm in

[rward30]

I honestly wonder how folding works on a computer when it is put to sleep or shut off. I run mine on my laptop, as I have to use ot for school. I wonder if i have been restarting proccesses, as i have not gained new work units in a week. I try not to shut mine off at night so it can run. Although, my "old" account did last wednesday, as I had to reinstall the foldingprogram. wierd.

For the sleep mode, the program does still run. I put my desktops to sleep overnight, but still get work done on the project. This is in both WinXP and Vista. As stated earlier, when you shutdown the system, the project software writes a checkpoint file that it then uses to start back up from when the system gets going again.

[Lord Shplane]

I downloaded this onto my PS3 recently.

I only used it once though. Costs too much for the electricity. Still, doing it once is better than never at all.

[Gaelbert]

How can I get a second computer to contribute to the account I already have?

[Zeb The Troll]

How can I get a second computer to contribute to the account I already have?Just put the same user name and team name in when it asks for it.

[JT]

That means we are now finally being tracked by the most popular stats program http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/team_summary.php?s=&t=82447

We're being threatened!!! :smallfurious:

Quick... if you haven't been running the folding program lately, start running it again. We need to pick up the pace and remove the threat from our sheet.

(Besides... it'll help us break into the top 1500, then the top 1000, and then the top 800, where info on individuals starts being kept.) :smallwink:

[Arioch]

I feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

I've joined the team. What do I do now?

[JT]

You fold. Fold like your life depended on it. :smallwink:

[Simius]

Wow, now I've got a Work Unit of only 100 frames... it does take 17 minutes per frame though.

On another note, I'm going to make a GiTP Folding Team banner this weekend.

[Simius]

Hi all, sorry for double-posting but I made us a banner:
http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z265/_Simius_/FoldingBanner.png

feel free to copy it to your signature:


http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z265/_Simius_/FoldingBanner.png
(http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=53501)

[Rawhide]

That's very good. Do you mind if I change the banner on the folding site to that?

[Simius]

That's very good. Do you mind if I change the banner on the folding site to that?

No, go ahead.

PS. if anyone got a suggestion for a better slogun, let me know; it's easy to change.

[Elektro]

That banner is really nice. I'd only suggest changing the text to "help scientific research by folding proteins." Makes more sense grammatically then.

It's really well-done though, and I'll display it proudly. :smallbiggrin:

[Rawhide]

Ok, the banner is up on the main folding page (http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=teampage&teamnum=82447). I like the slogan just the way it is, but I do agree that it doesn't make much grammatical sense. Make the "f" of "fold" a capital, change to "Fold proteins", and it will flow better.

[Simius]

Yeah, at first there was a comma after the "help scientific research" so it was:
Help scientific research, fold proteins!

But it didn't look right from the artistic PoV. Made the text look all asymmetric. I'll play around a bit with it and see if I can come up something better.

EDIT: ok, I changed it. It's the same URL, so you may have to ctrl-F5 in order to see it.

[Dispozition]

Does this eat up much cpu usage? If not, I'm totally in. If it does, I might run it on my laptop instead of my pc (it being a gaming one and all, I want full use of my quad core). Also, do you need to be connected to the internet with said computer folding?

[Rawhide]

Yeah, at first there was a comma after the "help scientific research" so it was:
Help scientific research, fold proteins!

But it didn't look right from the artistic PoV. Made the text look all asymmetric. I'll play around a bit with it and see if I can come up something better.

EDIT: ok, I changed it. It's the same URL, so you may have to ctrl-F5 in order to see it.

I liked it the way it was. Just make the f in fold a capital. Don't put any punctuation in.

I should have saved it, can anyone who has the old one in their cache please save a copy before refreshing.

[Simius]

Ok, I took Rawhides advice to heart and changed it again. Full refresh should do it.


Does this eat up much cpu usage? If not, I'm totally in. If it does, I might run it on my laptop instead of my pc (it being a gaming one and all, I want full use of my quad core). Also, do you need to be connected to the internet with said computer folding?

It's a low-priority program, so I think it only eats up the CPU you're not using for anything else. As for the laptop, there is an option to only allow folding if you're plugged in to a power source, so yes, it's possible. However, if you download the text-only console client (see Zargon's post a few pages back) there's shouldn't be any problems while playing games (the folding would just go slowing if you're gaming).
And yes, I believe you need internet connection.

[Dispozition]

It's a low-priority program, so I think it only eats up the CPU you're not using for anything else. As for the laptop, there is an option to only allow folding if you're plugged in to a power source, so yes, it's possible. However, if you download the text-only console client (see Zargon's post a few pages back) there's shouldn't be any problems while playing games (the folding would just go slowing if you're gaming).
And yes, I believe you need internet connection.

Well, I've set it up on my laptop, and it seems to keep working in hibernation, so it's going to get a good 8 straight weeks of processing power, which I'm sure will help.
And since it doesn't seem to bother the cpu that much, I'll set up the multi-gpu client on my pc. That should kick out some serious folding.

Well...I hope I help out :D

[Rawhide]

I believe you only need an internet connection to upload and download.

As for hibernation mode, read this and tell me if you think it'll work...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibernate_(OS_feature)

It basically saves the contents of your RAM to the hard disk before turning off the computer completely.

[Dispozition]

I believe you only need an internet connection to upload and download.

As for hibernation mode, read this and tell me if you think it'll work...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibernate_(OS_feature)

It basically saves the contents of your RAM to the hard disk before turning off the computer completely.

according to that, it shouldn't work, but it does...For some reason...

[Zargon]

Giant in the Playground Folding Team Update #12

In team news this week:
- We have a great looking new banner! Thanks Simius!!!
- Eight new members have joined our team for this update! Arioch, BingoBob, Edward, Exeson, Icwer, Scott_B Surmuck and Tirsales - Welcome to the team! (BTW Edward, check your system as the stats reported there were errors)

Team member point contributions:
Who has contributed to the team points for this update? Here is the list (in alphabetic order):
_Simius_, adanedhel9, Alarra, Alizhdheg, Amazon, Archonic_Energy, Arioch, Beaudoin, BingoBob, Bitzeralisis, Bobnik, e_chuck, Elektro, Exachix, Exeson, frdougal, gaelbert, Icwer, Jackie, JT-GitP, MacXimus, MaxDibe, Micate, Mobius_Stripped, Nemglan, Phoe, potatocubed, Pyro, rward30, Samiam303, Scott_B, steviefool, StupidFatHobbit, Surmuck, The_Mighty_Unknown, Tirsales, zargon, ZebTheTroll, ZombieRockStar and Zorminster.
With the top 10 members in points gained since the last update being:
1 frdougal
2 Alizhdheg
3 ZebTheTroll
4 JT-GitP
5 rward30
6 Micate
7 Mobius_Stripped
8 Elektro
9 MacXimus
10 gaelbert

Moving up in team ranks (in the top 20):
Moves in the top 10: rward30 moves up into 4th!! Micate jumps up 3 into 6th!! JT-GitP zooms up from 23rd all the way into 10th!!
In the top 20: Alarra moves up into 13th! StupidFatHobbit moves up into 16th! And e_chuck moves into the top 20 in 20th!

Individual Milestones achieved (in points at 1K, 5K, 10K, etc.):
75,000 points: frdougal
40,000 points: Alizhdheg
20,000 points: ZebTheTroll, rward30
15,000 points: Mobius_Stripped, gaelbert, Micate
10,000 points: adanedhel9, Phoe and JT-GitP
5,000 points: MacXimus and e_chuck
1,000 points: Bobnik and Scott_B
Congratulations to all those that have achieved a new milestone!

[FrDougal]

Thanks for the update, Zargon.

And Simius, love the banner. :smallsmile:

[Pyro]

Cool banner Simius. It makes my signature so pretty now. :smalltongue:

[Lord Tataraus]

Thanks to my nerd friend, I'm in! (not that I'm not a nerd myself :smalltongue: )

I really like the banner though I have my own advertising to do so it probably won't stay for long...

[Eldmor]

I was looking for my computer to do something instead of idly sitting at night and displaying my Vista-tan wallpaper for my roommates to gawk at. :smallwink: Eldmor's on the Folding Train to Karmaville.

[Ceika]

I'm in! Loading the program now...

[Eita]

Free karma? Count me in.

[AngelSword]

Alright, I've set up my PS3 to do the processes. Current project is set to run for 6 hours.

[TorJin]

Downloaded and running.

It says 104 days and 4 hours. We'll see if that changes.

[Korias]

Ok, silly problem. I forgot to input the GITP Code, so how do I go back to my configuration pannel to input the code?

[JT]

If you're running the Windows graphic version, you should be able to right-click on the FaH icon in the task bar (normally on the far right side at the bottom of the screen) and select "configure."

If you're running a console or Linux version, you might have to stop it and then run the program with the "-config" option to reconfigure things.

I have no idea what you need to do to get the configuration up if you're running on a PS3, GFX card, etc etc.

[TheLogman]

I downloaded it, registered, joined the team, and started it running. Glad to be part of something great like this.

[StickMan]

Yea go team were now ranked at 1366 of 91524.

I'm adding the banner to my signature.

I've also reloaded the program for the 4th time I hope it works this time.

[Zargon]

Giant in the Playground Folding Team Update #13

In team news this week:
- After overtaking 300 teams since the last update, our team is in striking distance of the top 1000! We have also reached 5 million points total!
- 17 new members have joined our team for this update! _, Andrew_Waddie, AngelSword, Ceika, Darion_Fenix, Dispozition, Eldmor, goffisbored, Gorbash_Kazdar, homestar3.14, Jacob_Wojciechowski, Kongming, Lord_Tataraus, Mman, MrEdwardNigma, OnnaOtaku, Roger and Xiagu - Welcome to the team!

Team member point contributions:
Who has contributed to the team points for this update? Here is the list (in alphabetic order):
_, _Simius_, adanedhel9, Alarra, Alizhdheg, Andrew_Waddie, AngelSword, Archonic_Energy, Beaudoin, BingoBob, Bitzeralisis, Bobnik, Ceika, Darion_Fenix, Dispozition, e_chuck, Eldmor, Elektro, Exachix, frdougal, gaelbert, goffisbored, Gorbash_Kazdar, homestar3.14, Icwer, Jackie, Jacob_Wojciechowski, JT-GitP, Kongming, Krursk, Lord_Tataraus, MacXimus, menschenfresser, Micate, Mman, Mobius_Stripped, MrEdwardNigma, OnnaOtaku, Phoe, potatocubed, Pyro, Reina, Roger, rward30, Samiam303, Scott_B, steviefool, StupidFatHobbit, Surmuck, The_Mighty_Unknown, Xiagu, zargon and ZebTheTroll.
With the top 10 members in points gained since the last update:
1 frdougal
2 steviefool
3 JT-GitP
4 Alizhdheg
5 AngelSword
6 Elektro
7 ZebTheTroll
8 Mobius_Stripped
9 rward30
10 Micate

Moving up in team ranks (in the top 20):
Moves in the top 10: JT-GitP jumps up by 3 into 7th!! And steviefool leaps up by 8 to enter the top 10 in 10th!!
In the top 20: Alarra moves up into 12th! StupidFatHobbit moves up into 15th! MacXimus moves up 2 into 17th! And new member AngelSword blasts all the way into the top 20 and into 19th!

We have our first member to reach 100K - Congratulations frdougal!!

Individual Milestones achieved (in points at 1K, 5K, 10K, etc.):
100,000 points: frdougal
50,000 points: Alizhdheg
20,000 points: Mobius_Stripped, Micate, JT-GitP and Elektro
10,000 points: Alarra, Pyro, StupidFatHobbit, zargon, steviefool and MacXimus
5,000 points: The_Mighty_Unknown and AngelSword
1,000 points: Eldmor, Xiagu, Darion_Fenix, Kongming, goffisbored, homestar3.14, Mman, Reina, Surmuck, Icwer and BingoBob
Congratulations to all those that have achieved a new milestone!

[Diva De]

Just joined - sounds great. I've installed at work, where the comp runs 24/7, so hopefully some progress will be made soon.

[Elanya]

My computer is already used to calculations and proteins so it can handle some more in it's off-time. Signed up and installing now.

[Diva De]

Maybe this is a dumb question, but how do I see how long it will take to complete a WU?

[TheLogman]

Why aren't my work units counting? I've contributed 3 so far, but I don't see my name on the list. My internet connection is always established, and the program is always running fine.

[Simius]

Maybe this is a dumb question, but how do I see how long it will take to complete a WU?

Do use the Graphic Client? If so, then double-click on the red Folding-Icon in the task bar. This will open a window with all kinds of stats, including the estimated time to finish the current Work Unit.
If you're using the Console Client, you can't see it directly (though you open the file named FAHlog where you can see how many of the total number of steps have been completed.


Why aren't my work units counting? I've contributed 3 so far, but I don't see my name on the list. My internet connection is always established, and the program is always running fine.
Are you sure you've inserted the proper Team Number (82447) in the configuration?

[Kawaii]

I just joined the team as Kawaii_Neko, Kawaii was taken.

[greecetrap]

I am joinded. :B

This is such and awesome thing. To think, lots of work done with the only labor being my installing. Pshyeah I'm doing it. :D

[JT]

Why aren't my work units counting? I've contributed 3 so far, but I don't see my name on the list. My internet connection is always established, and the program is always running fine.

I see them. Check this link -- http://vspx27.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=teampage&teamnum=82447

At the time I ran it, you had 3 WUs, 1012 points, and were #58 on the team list.

[AngelAndrius]

sounds neat, can't wait to see what comes of it

[JT]

That means we are now finally being tracked by the most popular stats program http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/team_summary.php?s=&t=82447
...Also we won't see individual member stats until we hit the top 800. But first, off to the top 1000 we go!!

Looks like they track individuals for the top 1200 now. We're in!

Well... some of us are, anyway. My first WUs since we cracked the 1200 won't be done until late tonight or early tomorrow, so right now, I'm not listed there as an individual. :smalleek:

[Kawaii]

Blah, I entered the team info when I signed up, but apparently it didn't take, so my work so far has gone to the default team ; ;

How can I make sure I joined the right team? Under the config on my computer itself or on the site somewhere?

[Oblomovism]

sounds neat, can't wait to see what comes of it

Indeed. Anyway, at least we've contributed to the sum-total of human knowledge!

[JT]

How can I make sure I joined the right team? Under the config on my computer itself or on the site somewhere?

It's done on your computer.

If you're running the Windows GUI client, then in the bottom-right corner of your Windows screen, you should have the red "folding" icon. Right-click on it, and select the "configure" menu pick (it might be a sub-menu, but I don't think so).

Make sure you put in the right team, and save the changes.

You may have to quit your Folding session, and then restart it, in order to get the change to occur (for future work units that are completed).

[Kawaii]

It's done on your computer.

If you're running the Windows GUI client, then in the bottom-right corner of your Windows screen, you should have the red "folding" icon. Right-click on it, and select the "configure" menu pick (it might be a sub-menu, but I don't think so).

Make sure you put in the right team, and save the changes.

You may have to quit your Folding session, and then restart it, in order to get the change to occur (for future work units that are completed).

hmm... That's weird, it is set for the 82447, but when I look up my profile on http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=userpage&username=kawaiineko it says I'm on the default profile. I've already restarted the session several times.

[JT]

I don't think that the FaH website will know about your team number change until you complete a work unit under that team number.

As I understand it, when you configure your profile, it's just stored locally on your machine (in fact, if you run multiple instances of the FaH console, each one has its own configuration which could have different team numbers), and then sent up to the FaH site when the work unit is completed and results are sent.

Have you completed a WU since changing/setting your team number?

[Icewalker]

Well, I need to figure out how to join the team with F@H on my PS3. I just downloaded it.

[greecetrap]

Sorry for being obnoxious/annoying, but does anyone know how long WUs are generally supposed to take? I think I've been folding for a week or so now, and I'm still not even half done with my first WU - I've done 465/1500. I just want to know if my computer is doing something wrong, if I'm not benifiting the team at all in this small rate, and if there's anything I can do to get some WUs done!

Thanks for the patients. :smallsmile:

[AngelSword]

Sorry for being obnoxious/annoying, but does anyone know how long WUs are generally supposed to take? I think I've been folding for a week or so now, and I'm still not even half done with my first WU - I've done 465/1500. I just want to know if my computer is doing something wrong, if I'm not benifiting the team at all in this small rate, and if there's anything I can do to get some WUs done!

Thanks for the patients. :smallsmile:

It really depends on your machine. You're not the only one who spoke of excruciatingly long work unit time. The only reason my times are incredibly short is because it's running on my PS3 when I'm not gaming on it (which, let's be honest, is pretty often :smallsigh:).

[JT]

Sorry for being obnoxious/annoying, but does anyone know how long WUs are generally supposed to take? I think I've been folding for a week or so now, and I'm still not even half done with my first WU - I've done 465/1500.

A lot of it depends on what you're doing, but also what sort of computer you have, and how often it's able to fold.

Could you post:
1) What your cpu type, speed, and amount of memory are? (Assuming Windows, ControlPanel->System "general" tab will report this.)

2) About how often your computer is on, but not doing something else for you that's highly CPU intensive?

3) What project you're working on? (Assuming the graphical client, it'll be in the display.)

4) Whether the assembly-boosts are on and active? (Assuming the graphical client, right click on the Folding icon in the toolbar, and select Status->Log to view the log file. Scroll up in the logfile until you see some lines like this:
[04:40:41] Assembly optimizations on if available.
...
[04:41:07] Extra SSE boost OK.
If you don't see both of those, FaH has determined that it can't use the sped-up routines, which will cause about a 3x-4x slowdown, in my experience.
You may be able to get it to use them by stopping, and then re-starting, FaH.

[Kawaii]

Have you completed a WU since changing/setting your team number?

Yar, but now it's being really weird, I keep getting a cord downloading error message over and over. I uninstalled, restarted, reinstalled and still got the same message. I don't think it's uninstalling correctly though, the Folding@Home folder is still in my Start Menu after I uninstalled, so I downloaded again and I tried it again, still getting the same message. :smallconfused:

[bugsysservant]

There, despite my great hatred for all people and humanity as a whole, I've signed up with my (crappy) laptop, and my family's (slightly less crappy) desktop. I'll hold off on stealing the banner for my sig. till I finish a WU though. (Nine hours left for the desktop)

Edit: Can this be run from a flashdrive? I wouldn't mind running it at school when I have free time. Also, has anyone covertly installed it on their school's system?

[Halfpunch]

I've been folding on my own for some time now on my PS3 when it's not active, but (alas!) never noticed that there was a team for GitP! I'm gonna sign up as soon as I get off work and get home.:smallwink:

[Zargon]

Giant in the Playground Folding Team Update #14

In team news this update:
- 21 new members have joined our team for this update!! Andrew_Morris, Bugsysservant, Dassrat, Enigma1337, Jellylu, Juron_Pilo, Kawaii_Neko, Kilian, Maadneet, Mantlet, NeSSEsqa, Oblomovism, Robert_Noble, Sric, Sungmanitu, TheLogman, TopDawggamer, vorpalbunny, Wabbajack, WalrusFly and WillOWisp - Welcome to the team!

Team member point contributions:
Who has contributed to the team points for this update? Here is the list (in alphabetic order):
_, _Simius_, adanedhel9, Alarra, Al'izh'dheg, Andrew_Morris, Andrew_Waddie, AngelSword, BingoBob, Bitzeralisis, Bobnik, Bugsysservant, Ceika, Darion_Fenix, Dassrat, e_chuck, Eldmor, Elektro, Enigma1337, Exachix, Exeson, frdougal, gaelbert, Gorbash_Kazdar, homestar3.14, Icwer, Jackie, Jacob_Wojciechowski, Jellylu, JT-GitP, Juron_Pilo, Kawaii_Neko, Kilian, Kongming, Lord_Tataraus, Maadneet, MacXimus, Mantlet, MaxDibe, menschenfresser, Micate, Mman, Mobius_Stripped, MrEdwardNigma, NeSSEsqa, Oblomovism, OnnaOtaku, Phoe, potatocubed, Pyro, Reina, Robert_Noble, rward30, Samiam303, Sric, steviefool, StupidFatHobbit, Sungmanitu, Surmuck, The_Mighty_Unknown, TheLogman, TopDawggamer, vorpalbunny, Wabbajack, WalrusFly, WillOWisp, Xiagu, zargon and ZebTheTroll.
With the top 12 members in points gained since the last update being:
1 frdougal
2 JT-GitP
3 AngelSword
4 Al'izh'dheg
5 vorpalbunny
6 Micate
7 Phoe
8 rward30
9 Reina
10 ZebTheTroll
11 Mobius_Stripped
12 Kilian

Moving up in team ranks (in the top 50):
In the top 10: JT-GitP leaps up by 4 into 3rd!!! AngelSword leaps up by 11 into 8th!!
In the top 20: Phoe moves up into 12nd! New member vorpalbunny leaps up all the way into 20th!!
In the top 30: Reina leaps up by 6 into 21st! New member Kilian leaps into 29th! Eldmor leaps up by 5 into 30th!
In the top 40: homestar3.14 leaps up by 16 into 35th! Kongming leaps up by 10 into 38th! New member TheLogman leaps into 40th!
In the top 50: BingoBob jumps up by 2 into 41st! Mman leaps up by 9 into 44th! Ceika leaps up by 20 into 45th! And new member Sric leaps into 48th!

Individual Milestones achieved (in points at 1K, 10K, 25K, 50K, etc.):
25,000 points: JT-GitP, Micate, Mobius_Stripped, AngelSword
1,000 points: vorpalbunny, Kilian, TheLogman, Ceika, Sric, Jacob_Wojciechowski, Sungmanitu, Gorbash_Kazdar, Enigma1337, Andrew_Waddie, OnnaOtaku
Congratulations to all those that have achieved a new milestone!

[King_of_GRiffins]

Edit: Can this be run from a flashdrive? I wouldn't mind running it at school when I have free time. Also, has anyone covertly installed it on their school's system?

I don't know if it would run from a flashdrive (excellent idea though!), but I have succesfully installed it on my schools computer despite it blocking downloads of anything. Haven't touched it after that, but it's there. All it takes to get past my blocking, once the page loads to say 'Blocked File Extension', is change the url from 'http://www.folding-etc...' to 'https://www.folding-etc...'.

Only done one computer so far, but once I set it up at home, I'm going to come back and set it up on the rest of the school computers. Not like they're used for anything but poor attempts at getting on myspace.

[bugsysservant]

I've tested it, and so far the console seems to be able to run from a flashdrive. Haven't finished a WU yet though, so it remains to be seen if it will be able to do everything.

I've also spoken to my Bio teacher about putting Folding@Home on our school computers. She seemed to be rather clueless about the actual computer science behind it, but its not to improbable that I will be able to get it put on all, or most of them, either through my Bio teacher or as a community service project the national honor society. Unfortunately, these won't run for the GitP team, , but still...

[Zargon]

Make sure to get permission (email/written) to run this (or any other program) on computers that aren't yours (e.g. work, school, friends, etc.)!
Irregardless that it something that for everyone's benefit, people have gotten into a lot of trouble (suspended, fired, etc.) for installing it without permission!
For more info about the project can point them to such pages as
http://www.stanford.edu/group/pandegroup/folding/FoldingFAQ.pdf
http://folding.stanford.edu/English/Science
http://folding.stanford.edu/English/FAQ-Press
http://folding.stanford.edu/English/FAQ-Diseases
If they are unsure, can say will put it just on one PC for a week to show how it goes before putting it on more systems. (and I suggest no more than 80% cpu use and don't accept big projects) Also in the beginning keep an eye on it to make sure it downloads & upload projects ok (there might be proxy setting adjustments, etc.) and that they system doesn't get to hot/noisy.
Again, get an email with their ok - verbal sadly isn't as good as it use to be...
Good luck!

[bugsysservant]

Well, if it is being run from a flashdrive, it shouldn't be installing anything (I say no to the service), so its just using CPU time that I have anyway. And I think verbal should suffice. We only have about 400 people at our school. If I get permission from the authorities, there aren't too many people who can contradict them.

[JT]

Wow... I sure hope the estimates on my latest graphical one are wrong.

0/25 frames completed
16210 m/frame
11d:05h:56m:40s to next frame end
281d:10h:11m:37s to WU end

Wow. I mean, the 9+ months isn't so bad, except for that nagging 37 seconds at the end. That's a deal breaker! :smallwink:


I've never seen a job with that long an estimate. (It's IBX in water, if anyone cares.)

(It's got a deadline of April 16. so if the estimates don't get better by tomorrow, I may have to abort it.)

[Felixaar]

would join if my computer spent much time in stationary mode. I might anyway. Get the feeling it'd be to slow...

[Zargon]

Wow... I sure hope the estimates on my latest graphical one are wrong.

0/25 frames completed
16210 m/frame
11d:05h:56m:40s to next frame end
281d:10h:11m:37s to WU end

Wow. I mean, the 9+ months isn't so bad, except for that nagging 37 seconds at the end. That's a deal breaker! :smallwink:


I've never seen a job with that long an estimate. (It's IBX in water, if anyone cares.)

(It's got a deadline of April 16. so if the estimates don't get better by tomorrow, I may have to abort it.)

Estimates are always loopy for the first couple frames with that client. I really should say "not available".

But could check the log file (IIRC fahlog.txt) to see if there are any error messages.
Also, if there were unexpected reboots (system crashes, power failures, etc.) the client could switch to a "safe" mode. That makes it significantly slower! (depends on the project but I've seen it taking twice as long in safe mode). To override safe mode, add -forceasm in the shortcut. Otherwise I'm not sure, but think that once a project is completely successfully it will return back to regular mode...?

[thevorpalbunny]

Any other mac users running Folding? I'm pretty sure it's running, but I only know I've done anything by checking my status page. Is there any other way?

[JT]

It figured out its estimate was a bit off. Instead of 281 days, it now thinks the remaining 60% of the WU will be done in just over 12 hours.
A slight error in estimating. ;)



On the Mac, you should be able to go to wherever it's installed, and look for a file similar to FAHlog.txt or unitinfo.txt.

If you use the underlying Unix commands, you could do a "tail -f" on the logfile to see progress as it's written to there. You could also just view it to see the current file (w/out updates as they're written).

You can view the unitinfo.txt file and see the current status as a 6-line summary.

The above guessing is based on the way the Linux version works. Since MacOS is unix with a really fancy GUI on top, it should be similar.

[greecetrap]

A lot of it depends on what you're doing, but also what sort of computer you have, and how often it's able to fold.

Could you post:
1) What your cpu type, speed, and amount of memory are? (Assuming Windows, ControlPanel->System "general" tab will report this.)

2) About how often your computer is on, but not doing something else for you that's highly CPU intensive?

3) What project you're working on? (Assuming the graphical client, it'll be in the display.)

4) Whether the assembly-boosts are on and active? (Assuming the graphical client, right click on the Folding icon in the toolbar, and select Status->Log to view the log file. Scroll up in the logfile until you see some lines like this:
[04:40:41] Assembly optimizations on if available.
...
[04:41:07] Extra SSE boost OK.
If you don't see both of those, FaH has determined that it can't use the sped-up routines, which will cause about a 3x-4x slowdown, in my experience.
You may be able to get it to use them by stopping, and then re-starting, FaH.

1) I don't really know which numbers go to where, so I'll just write what I see when I see the words CPU on that "general" screen:

Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.20 GHz
2.19 GHz, 256 MB of RAM

Hope that helped.

2)Is using the internet very CPU intensive? My computer isn't usually on without someone doing something on it - mostly, using the internet. The longest time it's been on without us using it was about 6 hours, though even that much is VERY rare.

3)p3652_Seq22_Amber03_,
GROMACS core

There are about 450 frames left (about 1/3 of the whole project) left, but apperantly it'll be done in 2 days. Strange, since the other 2/3 took about hald of December and 13 days of January.

4) In today's log file:
Assembly optimizations on if available.
[15:14:36] Entering M.D.
[15:15:02] (Starting from checkpoint)
[15:15:03] Protein: p3652_Seq22_Amber03_Extended
[15:15:03]
[15:15:03] Writing local files
[15:16:19] Completed 198513 out of 1500000 steps (13)
[15:16:21] Extra SSE boost OK.

However, in the log files of earlier ones (such as December 29, as a random example):
Assembly optimizations on if available.
[22:48:39] Entering M.D.
[22:48:45] Protein: p3699_Seq16_Amber03_Native
[22:48:45]
[22:48:45] Writing local files
[22:49:34] Gromacs error.

Did that have anything to do with it?

[Zargon]

1) I don't really know which numbers go to where, so I'll just write what I see when I see the words CPU on that "general" screen: Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.20 GHz 2.19 GHz, 256 MB of RAM
Hope that helped.

2)Is using the internet very CPU intensive? My computer isn't usually on without someone doing something on it - mostly, using the internet. The longest time it's been on without us using it was about 6 hours, though even that much is VERY rare.

3)p3652_Seq22_Amber03_, GROMACS core
There are about 450 frames left (about 1/3 of the whole project) left, but apparently it'll be done in 2 days. Strange, since the other 2/3 took about half of December and 13 days of January.

4) In today's log file:
Assembly optimizations on if available.
[15:14:36] Entering M.D.
[15:15:02] (Starting from checkpoint)
[15:15:03] Protein: p3652_Seq22_Amber03_Extended
[15:15:03]
[15:15:03] Writing local files
[15:16:19] Completed 198513 out of 1500000 steps (13)
[15:16:21] Extra SSE boost OK.

However, in the log files of earlier ones (such as December 29, as a random example):
Assembly optimizations on if available.
[22:48:39] Entering M.D.
[22:48:45] Protein: p3699_Seq16_Amber03_Native
[22:48:45] Writing local files
[22:49:34] Gromacs error.
Did that have anything to do with it?

First, I apologize in advance that I have answered more extensively than needed as I'm aiming it for all readers (and hopeful inclusion of the FAQ that I've been unable to complete so far).

1) although not the fastest, your P4 2.2GHz system should be able to handle projects fairly quickly (I'd say on average about 100 hours). If the computer is only on about 30 hours a week, that means it could take several weeks.
BTW PIII/Athlon/Duron 600MHz are about as slow as I would suggest to run this project if those systems are usually on (e.g. file server) and those could take up to 4 times longer than P4. PII and K6-III+ or slower should not bother running this project as they will often not be able to make the preferred deadline.

There are many different areas covered by folding @ home. Although the end goal is disease research, part of the work is to do basic research so to be able to attack certain aspects of some diseases. As there are many different areas being researched at the same time, there are several different tools available to do that. From our point of view, we can see different tools (namely cores) being used.
Here is a list of all the current projects running, including what core they use (listed in the code column). http://fah-web.stanford.edu/psummary.html
One thing to note is that the various projects have huge differences in points and in deadlines (in general that isn't correlated). By the way, preferred deadline is the important deadline.
The various cores (code) use different parts of the CPU. For example:
The Gromac core uses SSE (or 3DNow+) extensively. This runs very quickly on a C2D, quite quickly on a P4 and fairly quickly on an AMD CPU (K10s should be better).
Amber use double precision numbers. This runs very quickly on an AMD CPU, quickly on a C2D and slowly on a P4.
So different projects work better on different types of computers.
Note the current general client doesn't recognize CPUs. The new beta client however does try to better match project to CPU type.
For details on the various cores http://fahwiki.net/index.php/Cores

256MB RAM is tight on Windows XP. So I'd suggest only accepting the smallest projects (up to 5MB). That should help keep the whole thing (code and project) as small as possible to minimize memory swapping.
To reduce memory even further there is also the console version (preferably with the service option).

2) Internet usage (bandwidth usage). Except when getting a new project (and possibly the related core with it) and sending back the results, there is no Internet usage at all.
By not accepting large projects, the bandwidth usage for receiving a project and sending back the results will be very small. (this is the suggested setting for those with a modem, slow Internet connection or limited bandwidth)
Using the Internet is normally not that CPU intensive, although if have quite a few tabs or windows open (especially with flash or other encoded media), watching videos, etc. it can use quite a bit of the CPU especially on an older CPU like the P4.

3) Different parts of the project can take different times. But the most likely explanation is that the method to calculate how long it will finish the project is not taking into account how busy the computer will be and how long the computer will be on.

4) That log look good - especially the SSE boost! Despite the project name including the word "Amber", this is Gromacs SREM (GROST) core based project so that does use the SSE.
This is a fairly large project so it most likely will take more than average amount of time complete.
However the log file with the error (for project 3699 that is also a GROST core/code based project) is worrisome. It is possible that your system switched to safe mode for a while (runs the project much slower) so that could have been why it was taking so long.
Now the reason why that happened is a concern. Any chance your system is overheating? (e.g. too many dust bunnies!?) Or that someone has overclocked the computer? One suggestion is to reduce the cpu usage to around 80% (about 3/4 the way to the right edge of the cpu usage selection bar if using the windows graphical client).
If run into errors again, let us know and if you want, we can walk you through some diagnostics.
By the way, what is the folding name you have used?

[JT]

What he said. :smallsmile:

The only thing I'd correct (maybe) is about internet usage. I think you were asking whether your using the internet on the computer should count toward my question of how often you are using the cpu intensively.

If that's what you were asking, the answer is "not normally." Viewing e-mail, and browsing the web, are normally very cpu non intense. There can be exceptions, but I doubt you're using the cpu heavily enough so that Folding would be reduced much, if at all.

[bugsysservant]

Well there is an easy way to check. When doing your normal everyday tasks, bring up the task manager (ctrl-alt-del) and go to processes and see how much idle CPU you have. If you're just browsing the internet, my guess would be something around 90-99%, though as the above posters have said, that can change.

[greecetrap]

Wow, thanks for all the information, guys!


That log look good - especially the SSE boost! Despite the project name including the word "Amber", this is Gromacs SREM (GROST) core based project so that does use the SSE.
This is a fairly large project so it most likely will take more than average amount of time complete.
However the log file with the error (for project 3699 that is also a GROST core/code based project) is worrisome. It is possible that your system switched to safe mode for a while (runs the project much slower) so that could have been why it was taking so long.
Now the reason why that happened is a concern. Any chance your system is overheating? (e.g. too many dust bunnies!?) Or that someone has overclocked the computer? One suggestion is to reduce the cpu usage to around 80% (about 3/4 the way to the right edge of the cpu usage selection bar if using the windows graphical client).
If run into errors again, let us know and if you want, we can walk you through some diagnostics.
By the way, what is the folding name you have used?

Hmm, I can't think of any reason why my computer would switch to safe mode. It might be overheating (no one's cleaned it in a while, if that's what you mean. :D). And I don't think anyonw in my household knows what the term 'overclocked' means, so I don't think it was that. I set the CPU usage to 80, though, and hopefully that will do some good.
My folding name's greecetrap. :D


Well there is an easy way to check. When doing your normal everyday tasks, bring up the task manager (ctrl-alt-del) and go to processes and see how much idle CPU you have. If you're just browsing the internet, my guess would be something around 90-99%, though as the above posters have said, that can change.

Apperantly, I'm using 100% of my CPU, counting F@H. Is this something to worry about?

Also, I've been wondering about these deadlines; if your project doesn't have a deadline, will in not say anything about deadlines on the display, or is the deadline under that "WU end" heading? I don't think I have a deadline, but I'm really not sure. :/

Thank you all so much for your helping the confused-ish person! :D

[xwd]

As long as I'm farming out my spare CPU cycles for science, I might as well do it with a bunch of people I'm okay associating with. All spare cycles of my 1.4 GHz processor are now adding points to the GitP team. It's not much, but I'll be leaving my computer on overnight. My dad's aware F@H'll be on and it doesn't play nicely with full-screened programs (sometimes he plays Diablo 2, I'll solve that by putting a shortcut for the windowed version up on the desktop), so the only thing which should be stopping me is a power outage.

[bugsysservant]

Apperantly, I'm using 100% of my CPU, counting F@H. Is this something to worry about?

Also, I've been wondering about these deadlines; if your project doesn't have a deadline, will in not say anything about deadlines on the display, or is the deadline under that "WU end" heading? I don't think I have a deadline, but I'm really not sure. :/

No, not necessarily. F@H eats up excess CPU, so the thing to look at is how much CPU is taken up by the other programs. If you are using all of your CPU, and only a small amount is going to FAHCore_80, or whatever the F@H .exe is called, then your computer may be too slow to run F@H to any good effect. Also, I don't believe they make projects without deadlines anymore. If you are using the GUI version, "WU End" is the time it predicts that remains to your protein.

[JT]

I'm not at home right now, so I can't check, but I'm almost positive that one of the status selections (unit info?) -- right click on the red FaH gear icon in the lower-right corner, and then select from the menu) will give you information on the job being run, including the deadline.

[greecetrap]

I'm not at home right now, so I can't check, but I'm almost positive that one of the status selections (unit info?) -- right click on the red FaH gear icon in the lower-right corner, and then select from the menu) will give you information on the job being run, including the deadline.

Ahh, okay. Thank you very much. :D The due date is April 3, but my project will apperantly be done the 23 of January, so I don't think I have anything to worry about.

Also (and I'll try and make this my last question, thank you all for being tolerant!), does F@H run in Sleep Mode? Because I want to leave my computer on overnight, but my mom would get all, "You're wasting energy! AHHH!" so I was wondering if I could trick her by putting my computer in Sleep Mode, and running F@H.


No, not necessarily. F@H eats up excess CPU, so the thing to look at is how much CPU is taken up by the other programs. If you are using all of your CPU, and only a small amount is going to FAHCore_80, or whatever the F@H .exe is called, then your computer may be too slow to run F@H to any good effect.

Hmm, well, on the Task Manager (Processes), under the heading "CPU," it says that Internet Explorer is using 2 (2 what? I have no clue. I'm OBVIOUSLY not a computer person.) while F@H is using 98. I'll take this is good.

[Rawhide]

That number is a percentage, the percentage of CPU usage.

[Tass]

Count me in

[Elektro]

Congratulations everyone! The GitP Folding team has broken the top 1000 and shows no sign of slowing. Everyone keep up the good work! Next stop top 500!

[thevorpalbunny]

Also (and I'll try and make this my last question, thank you all for being tolerant!), does F@H run in Sleep Mode? Because I want to leave my computer on overnight, but my mom would get all, "You're wasting energy! AHHH!" so I was wondering if I could trick her by putting my computer in Sleep Mode, and running F@H.

I'm pretty sure it does on my computer, but then again I have a Mac, so that doesn't mean anything.
I'd just turn the screen off. That's the main energy sink anyway, especially if the processor isn't doing much. On that subject, you could get the F@H screensaver, guaranteeing that the processor won't do much.

[Zargon]

Giant in the Playground Folding Team Update #15

In team news this update:
- We've reached the top 1000 teams! Congrats team!
- 30 new members have joined our team for this update!! Adghar, Administrator, DaMidgetSays, DivaDe21, Draewn, Eita2, emmabim, FinalDuality, Firestar27, Forthork, greecetrap, hardwidg, Job, KaiMaster, KingofGriffins, Kitanin, Kyace, Mars, OgRib, Psykopig, Randalor, Savickas, Soulus101, Taran_Moltu, Tass, Thorn, Tsitra, Tyrmatt, WontonSoup and xwd - Welcome to the team!
- If anyone is using a beta client, there is a new version now available at http://folding.stanford.edu/English/Download

Team member point contributions:
Who has contributed to the team points for this update? Here is the list (in alphabetic order):
_, _Simius_, adanedhel9, Adghar, Administrator, Alarra, Al'izh'dheg, Andrew_Waddie, AngelSword, Archonic_Energy, Beaudoin, BingoBob, Bitzeralisis, Bobnik, Bugsysservant, Ceika, DaMidgetSays, Darion_Fenix, Dassrat, DivaDe21, Draewn, e_chuck, Eita2, Eldmor, Elektro, emmabim, Enigma1337, Exachix, FinalDuality, Firestar27, Forthork, frdougal, gaelbert, Gorbash_Kazdar, greecetrap, hardwidg, homestar3.14, Icwer, Jackie, Jellylu, Job, JT-GitP, KaiMaster, Kilian, KingofGriffins, Kitanin, Kongming, Kyace, Lord_Tataraus, Maadneet, MacXimus, Mantlet, Mars, MaxDibe, menschenfresser, Micate, Mman, Mobius_Stripped, MrEdwardNigma, Oblomovism, OgRib, OnnaOtaku, Phoe, potatocubed, Psykopig, Pyro, Randalor, Reina, Robert_Noble, Roger, rward30, Samiam303, Savickas, Soulus101, Sric, steviefool, StupidFatHobbit, Sungmanitu, Surmuck, Taran_Moltu, Tass, TheLogman, Thorn, Tsitra, Tyrmatt, vorpalbunny, Wabbajack, WalrusFly, WillOWisp, WontonSoup, Xiagu, xwd, zargon, ZebTheTroll and ZombieRockStar.
With the top 12 members in points gained since the last update being:
1 JT-GitP
2 vorpalbunny
3 frdougal
4 AngelSword
5 Kilian
6 Al'izh'dheg
7 KaiMaster
8 ZebTheTroll
9 Micate
10 Reina
11 rward30
12 steviefool

Moving up in team ranks (in the top 50):
In the top 10: AngelSword leaps up by 4 into 4th! vorpalbunny leaps up by 12 into 8th!
In the top 20: Kilian leaps up by 15 into 14th! Reina leaps up by 4 into 17th!
In the top 30: New member KaiMaster superleaps up into 26th! Surmuck leaps up by 4 into 30th!
In the top 40: Beaudoin moves up into 31st! homestar3.14 jumps up by 3 into 32nd! Sric leaps up by 12 into 36th! Ceika leaps up by 7 into 38th!
In the top 50: Enigma1337 leaps up by 13 into 46th! And new member DaMidgetSays leaps up into 50th!

Individual Milestones achieved (in points at 1K, 10K, 25K, 50K, etc.):
150,000 points: frdougal
75,000 points: Al'izh'dheg
50,000 points: JT-GitP
25,000 points: vorpalbunny, Elektro, steviefool
10,000 points: Kilian, Reina
1,000 points: KaiMaster, DaMidgetSays, Maadneet, Jellylu, MrEdwardNigma, DivaDe21, KingofGriffins, WillOWisp, Oblomovism, OgRib, Roger, Administrator, Mantlet, hardwidg, _, WontonSoup, Kyace
Congratulations to all those that have achieved a new milestone!

[thevorpalbunny]

:smalleek: Didn't realize I was getting so much done. Yay, I guess.

[JT]

:smalleek: Didn't realize I was getting so much done. Yay, I guess.

What's your hardware (other than "Mac")? You've got such a weird production graph... I gotta know.
:smallcool:

[mport2004]

A few questions
What type of computers do you have and can it be ran on a dual core machine with out any problems, will it take up my internet?
Ive got about 2-3 computers that are fairly good and are almost never used but almost always on and 1-2 very good computers that are used slightly more often.
also how much will it help the gitp team if i join?

[thevorpalbunny]

What's your hardware (other than "Mac")? You've got such a weird production graph... I gotta know.
:smallcool:

A mac mini. Don't remember the version of it. but I know it's an Intel processor. Also, what is this "production graph" of which you speak?

[Zargon]

A few questions
What type of computers do you have and can it be ran on a dual core machine with out any problems, will it take up my internet?
Ive got about 2-3 computers that are fairly good and are almost never used but almost always on and 1-2 very good computers that are used slightly more often.
also how much will it help the gitp team if i join?
How much will it help? It all helps, but of course varies on the type of computer (e.g. a C2D would be considerably faster than a PIII) as well as client type (regular/non-beta clients versus the more tricky but faster beta clients).
It only accesses the internet when downloading a project (varies, but average is once every couple of days) and uploading a project (same frequency as downloading). If have limited bandwidth (e.g. modem or low download quota), don't accept large projects (one of the options asked).
On a dual core machine, unless using the SMP client (beta), the regular client only uses 1 core, so if want to use both cores, would need to install another client (the 2nd client has to be a console client regardless of what the initial client is).
Hope that helps and if have more questions, just ask!

[AngelSword]

Are there any other PS3 folders who have (or have had) a work unit that was over 1 million? This is the first time I've had an estimated end time of over a day.:smalleek:

[JT]

A mac mini. Don't remember the version of it. but I know it's an Intel processor. Also, what is this "production graph" of which you speak?

If you go to the ExtremeOverClocking site (now that we're one of the top teams, outside sites report stats on us) here -- http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/team_summary.php?s=&t=82447 -- you'll see production stats for the team. Down near the bottom of the page are stats/links for the top producers. Click on your link, and you'll get a production history graph. You get a job done about every 36 hours (2 out of every 3 days, one completes.Those jobs are worth a tremedous number of points... more than I'd expect from a "normal" day-and-a-half job. So I was wondering if you were running a quad- or eight-core box, and the SMP client, or something.


mport2004 asks:
What type of computers do you have and can it be ran on a dual core machine with out any problems, will it take up my internet?
Ive got about 2-3 computers that are fairly good and are almost never used but almost always on and 1-2 very good computers that are used slightly more often.
also how much will it help the gitp team if i join?

Zargon covered most of what you asked. I'm running on a quad-core now, and have run on a dual-core, with no problems, other than self-imposed ones. It took me a while to get the switches set right so the multiple sessions didn't fight... it's all in the documentation, but I think documentation is a crutch for the weak-minded. :smallbiggrin:


AngelSword asks:
Are there any other PS3 folders who have (or have had) a work unit that was over 1 million? This is the first time I've had an estimated end time of over a day.
I'm not sure whether it was over a million (frames, I assume), but I've had a PS3 job take more than a day. Most of them seem to run about 6-9 hours, but every now and again, a real long one comes in. You'll get more points for it when the WU completes.

[thevorpalbunny]

Looks like I have a Core 2 Duo, nothing else special I can see.
It's probably the new model seen here. (http://www.apple.com/macmini/)

[Pagz]

I just signed up and have it running... I'll have to read everything later on :smallbiggrin:. Next frame ends in half an hour... this is slightly addicting.

EDIT: Woo! finished one WU! Estimate time for the next one to finish is... 17 years.

I'm sure I'll manage :smallbiggrin:(yeah, I realize that the first frame estimate is always wacky, I just find it funny how wacky they are).

[Taran Moltu]

Love folding at home, makes me feel like I'm doing something worthwhile :D

[Zargon]

We are getting close to the top 800!

If you have a dual or quad core CPU and it is on most of the time, you can also consider trying the SMP client! The SMP client is available for Macs (Intel CPUs only), Linux (64 bit only) and Windows (all versions of Win2K, XP, Vista).
This client is a bit trickier to setup, but offers a big boost in research performance (and the corresponding points)!
Download page is at the usual http://folding.stanford.edu/English/Download (instructions, FAQ links are there too).

[thevorpalbunny]

There's a client other than the SMP?


Oh yeah, there is. Well, that explains why I was unusually productive. It still doesn't explain why my computer has done nothing for the past week.