Posted on 10/04/2007 9:20:01 AM PDT by texas booster
The PandeGroup has all been very excited about the great turnout of FAH donors over the last few weeks, allowing FAH to go over a petaflop. The PS3's have been cranking out some very useful scientific results due to the new scientific software present in v1.2. The PS3's are so fast, we've been looking at the results sometimes 2x to 3x a day (instead of a couple times a month). If all goes well, we're hoping to write up these results soon (maybe a few weeks) for peer reviewed publication.
It's also interesting to think about what we want to do post-petaflop. One idea we have is to make the calculation even more accurate. With the methods we have in mind, this normally would slow us down quite a bit (say 10x slowdown), but on the PS3, it's likely that we may get a lot of that for free, as the memory access is the challenging part and in many ways with that now addressed, we may get more flops for free.
This really changes how we think of the economy of doing these calculations and is pushing us to more and more accurate models. One upshot for FAH is that this would drive the PS3's GFLOP rate (now typically 35 GFLOPS on a new GB WU) even higher, closer to the peak. Since the peak is something like 200 for the Cell, we still have a lot of room to possibly grow (although it's unclear how close one can get to the theoretical peak -- my guess is that 70 to 90 per PS3 may be the max for us). Nevertheless, even 70-90 would mean FAH would start getting close to 2 Petaflops!
-- Vijay Pande
Thanks.
That table with clients is freaking amazing. They could dump everyone but the Playstations and not see much of a drop in computing power. I'm also amazed that just 723 GPUs can blow away 21k linux boxes!
I may try the SMP core again. The previous version was unstable on my box.
Electron for electron, most folks feel that the GPUs will reach the highest FLOPs per card compared to anything on the horizon.
Compared to a Cell processor, and more accurately, the video registers that the Cell uses for graphics, the GPU is still faster.
The problem arises in that neither a GPU nor a PS3 can yet do the broad range of molecular dynamics needed to complete a simulation of an entire protein. General purpose CPUs are required.
The speed difference that is seen shows how much the new fancy hardware does make a difference, and a little programmers trick called optimization. Well written, elegant custom code usually flies past code that relies on canned compilers.
OTOH, it looks like only 5% of PS3 have ever fired up F@H. If that could climb to 10% then that’s special.
I’m tempted to get a PS3 just to run a Folding program. One PS3 does the work of 15 desktops.
I’m running version 5.3. Do I need to upgrade?
However,
It wouldn’t hurt to upgrade, but since the F@H Forums are down I can’t get any feedback on how its working for folks.
When I last looked v6b1 seemed to be running fine. Keep in mind that this is a console version and sets up just a little differently.
Not being a gamer, I don't know the answer to this, but is there some kind of option on the PS3, where you just tell it to start folding?
The speed difference that is seen shows how much the new fancy hardware does make a difference, and a little programmers trick called optimization. Well written, elegant custom code usually flies past code that relies on canned compilers.
Indeed. For some time I've thought that PCs would really benefit from the addition of a good FPGA chip that could be utilized at the user's discretion. Maybe with something like that available, Vista wouldn't have to throttle down network performance to play a video.
Proud 2 b foldin’
We will need a PS3 professional to tell us (or someones 12 yo kid), but I believe that one goes to the PS3 store and downloads it like any other update.
One thing that I find fascinating, is how many people never change their user name or join a team! Check this out - I am pretty sure that this is the default for PS3:
.....Name.. Team..... Daily 24 hr Avg..... Total Points
1....PS3... Default..... 1,243,111........... 291,555,424
http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/individual_list.php?s=
That’s 291 million points since March 2007.
There’s a whole lotta folding going on!
If you have a USB keyboard you can plug into your PS3, some of this setup is made even easier...
My PS3 seems to complete a 300 or 320 point work unit every 6 and a half hours or so... Using it, plus my other two PCs and now getting even more points from my fathers, my son’s , and my brother's PCs, I’ve gone from position 66 in our Free Republic team, up to position 62 in just the last week. wysiwyg and IoCaster were catching up to me, but now they're no longer on my overtake threat radar... *waves* ;-)
http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/user_overtake.php?s=&u=185134&p=1=
http://kakaostats.com/usum.php?u=845082=
http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=userpage&teamnum=36120&username=EasySt=
Totally Cool. It will be a while before you pass me though. I’m something like #17 or so. :-)
Basically, about 250,000 people that realize that life doesn't last forever, have joined a medical research effort to find cures for Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and many other diseases.
Since we are not smart enough do not have time to code our own JMOL molecular dynamics and coordinate with others around the world, F@H stands in.
By downloading a small program here:
into its own directory you can run the program, enter your FReepname and our team number 36120 and away you go, folding proteins faster than you can by hand.
At first not much happens. Then you get your first points, the next work unit finished, then you compete with others that also just started, and soon you have converted every other computer in the house, at work and at strangers' homes into a folding empire with your FReep name.
It really becomes fun, and I find myself checking stats every three hours. One day when results are published that help find a treatment for Alzheimer's or other diseases, then I may not have to say that long goodbye as my father did.
Does this make any sense?
Congratulations! You’re the one person I have no hope of catching. Given enough decades I might catch Klutz, but you outperform me.
Great job.
Ahh, so that's how you left me in your dust! Looks like I need to start shopping eBay for a bargain PS3 now.
Wow, any way to make the other similar gaming systems (Xbox, etc) be able to fold?
I am guessing that I need to go somewhere else.
When I go to the site with the choices it is not good for downloading to my Linux command window.
I hope you can help because I have a machine that is not folding right now .... yikes
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