Folding@Home - Turning Up the Speed!

Departments of Chemistry and of Structural Biology, Stanford University ^ | August 4, 2008 | Dr Vijay Pande

[texas booster]

With the 6.20 (classic & GPU) and 6.22 (SMP) clients out, we (Dr. Pande and the F@H team) can start looking forward to the next steps in client development. We still have some last bits of work to completely unify the clients, but the hard part is already completed there for the most part.

The 6.2x series introduces several new features for donors, but in time, the clients have been getting gradually more and more complex to use. The Win/SMP and multi-gpu setups are examples of very challenging setups. Our primary plans for the future are to make setup much easier, especially for the very challenging clients (Win/SMP, multi-gpu). Our dream client install would be a single installer that would install either the classic, SMP, or GPU client based on donor choices during the install process, and the installer would take care of complex install situations (such as multi-gpu).

It may take a while to get to a client installer like that. In the mean time, we are looking to improve our installation instructions to make the process easier with existing clients.

We have spent a lot of effort developing these new clients and putting all of our effort into getting them to run well (the GPU2 client/core has gotten a great deal of effort, which has paid off in the transition from GPU1 to GPU2). It's now time to concentrate on usability and ease of installation.

Our hope is that with this completed, we will have a very advanced set of clients, but with very easy installation. That's easier said than done, but that's where we're headed.

[texas booster]

Good link, tho I may have to register to get colors I can see without suffering a seizure.

Yah, DU picks up a couple folders every so often, but they have been dormant every since ... well ... less than a year after they started.

All that braggadicio about stomping us never panned out too well. Guess their trust funds could afford new computers, but not the brain power to install a simple program like F@H.

[papasmurf]

History shows us that the Dems never could compete without being able to manipulate the process and control the outcome.

It must be an inheritable trait.

[E.G.C.]

BTTT

[GRRRRR]

[houeto]

Welcome to the team!

[houeto]

Thanks for the ping.

BTTT!

[houeto]

All that braggadicio about stomping us never panned out too well.

...and, of course, they also said we were cheating. lmao!

[houeto]

Came in to work early a.m. on the weekend, stepped outside to have a smoke, and it was game over.

Reminds me of the time the wife locked herself out of the house to get the mail one morning. I'm at work, kids are at school.

The garage door was locked and so was the privacy fence to the back yard.

She was in a skimpy pair of panties and a cut-off tee shirt! (dumba$$)

Anyway, it was three doors down before she found a neighbor lady to let her inside to hide till I got there. Too funny! I laughed for weeks.

[astyanax]

I guess I should consider myself lucky I was appropriately dressed!
(Of course, if I showed up at work in a pair of panties I might get some funny looks...)

[texas booster]

Folding@home is now the first computer system of any kind (DARPA excluded) to sustain 4 PetaFLOPs of computation. Many thanks to the FReepers who have supported us as we advance to Team #55!

Client statistics by OS

OS Type	Current TFLOPS*	Active CPUs	Total CPUs
Windows	207	217288	2191266
Mac OS X/PowerPC	6	7455	120622
Mac OS X/Intel	23	7580	64552
Linux	57	33374	333719
ATI GPU	494	4490	11195
NVIDIA GPU	1518	13802	32137
PLAYSTATION®3	1716	60867	621405
Total	4021	344856	3374896

Total number of non-Anonymous donators = 1085872

Last updated at Sun, 28 Sep 2008 05:04:09

DB date 2008-09-28 05:00:01

Active CPUS are defined as those which have returned WUs within 50 days. Active GPUs are defined as those which have returned WUs within 10 days (due to the shorter deadlines on GPU WUs). Active PS3's are defined as those which have returned WUs within 15 days.

*TFLOPS is the actual teraflops from the software cores, not the peak values from CPU/GPU/PS3 specs. Please see our main FAQ, PS3 FAQ, NVIDIA GPU FAQ, or ATI GPU FAQ for more details on specific platforms.

 

[colinhester]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26914730/

Not sure how to post to all in the Folding Group, but I thought this was pretty cool: a new Mersenne prime was found by a distributed computing group.....C

[TheMightyQuinn]

I recently started folding again, and I got a question about an old pc I have. Are there any special tips for ancient PCs? It takes a week to complete a single WU. Is there anyway to request smaller WUs or to optimize FAH on that PC to increase my output?

[texas booster]

The best speed improvement is to add a new video card that supports folding. Both NVidia and ATI have excellent cards that will fold very fast, for not much money.

You need to know if you have an AGP slot or a PCI slot to add the video card. I would also check to see how big your power supply is.

Take a look at this chart as a reference tool. Just be sure that you choose the slot type correctly, and that you don't get a card that pulls too much power.



I would go for a 3850 if you could find one on sale. IMO you need at least 120 shaders and DDR3 memory to get decent speed, and therefore points. Your old system should work fine, but stay away from cards that need additional power.

[texas booster]

If you can't get a good video card then lets do this.

Completely uninstall your existing F@H. Use Add/remove from the Control Panel.

Download the new CPU console version 6.20 (not the GUI version).

During installation select all the normal stuff - your name, team 36120, run as a service Yes.

You will have a choice of work unit sizes. Depending on the memory installed you will choose “small” or “normal”. Under 368 MB then choose “small”. 512 MB to 1 GB choose “normal”. With slow processors I don't use big even if it runs.

When you see “change advanced setting” then select Yes. Under advanced settings:

Core Priority is Low

Checkpoint is 30 minutes

and just leave the rest as is. The guide for installing the console F@H is here, about halfway down:

http://www.stanford.edu/group/pandegroup/cgi-bin/edit/English/WinUNIGuide

Please ping us if we can help.

[TheMightyQuinn]

I’d love to upgrade my video card in both my desktops (one is ten years old and the other is four years old), but both would require an update in PSU. So I don’t think it’s probably worth it for my 10 year old PC, I may do it for my 4 year old PC.

Thanks.

[TheMightyQuinn]

Thanks for the info. I will do this on my 10 year old PC when I get home. On second thought, maybe I’ll wait a couple of days for it to spit out the WU it’s been crunching for 5 days before I install the new client. If I uninstall my existing F@H client and install the console version, will it be kill off my current WU or will it be able to resume it?

Thanks again for all your help.

[texas booster]

Uninstalling will probably kill the WU so wait until it finishes.

If reinstalling 5.04 then you can save the WU, but I think a jump from 5.04 to 6.20 will mangle the data of the WU.

[EasySt]

Congrats astyanax, on reaching 200,000 points today, as you go zipping right up the charts!

At the moment, you are also Free Republic’s top producer in points per day!

http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/team_summary.php?s=&t=36120

[astyanax]

Thanks!
I’ve been playing with an .11n router at home, so I added a cpu/gpu folder to the mix.
Not sure how permanent it is, but I might try to add another machine or two to the setup before the whole thing comes down.
Although my point total is sorely lacking, it’s good to be king! (if only a day...)

[TheMightyQuinn]

I installed the console version and specified small WUs. It looks like it’s gone from 7 days per WU down to 4, which I guess is an improvement. Thanks.