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To: texas booster
How do video cards help? I keep my folding apps minimized most of the time so the CPU isn't wasting cycles even sending video update requests to the video card.

I have one additional machine running at home but it is so old and slow it might take close to a year to do one folding task unit. It is good enough for the kids to do homework research on though.

I hate having to be a responsible adult too.

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)

LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

54 posted on 12/11/2006 8:00:32 AM PST by LonePalm (Commander and Chef)
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To: LonePalm

Video cards do not help regular folding. Speed is determined by CPU power and memory.

F@H has released a special GPU version of F@H that runs on ATI video cards that have a lot of pixel shaders. These pixel shaders, 48 of them on an X1900, can significantly increase the processing speed of WUs written for it. The same basic process was used to write F@H for the Playstation 3.

The new graphic processors are best thought of as very high speed custom chips, which they are. GPUs do not do general processing, though.

If you will load the F@H console on the slow machine then you will complete a WU every few weeks. The Stanford servers try not to send out massive WUs to older systems. Running the GUI version will work but it is not as fast.


55 posted on 12/11/2006 8:48:36 AM PST by texas booster (Join FreeRepublic's Folding@Home team (Team # 36120))
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