How does it work?: You download a safe, tested program (see link below) that is certified by Stanford University. It gets work from Stanford, runs calculations using your spare computer power, and sends the results back to the University.
Is it safe? Yes! Folding@Home rarely effects computer performance in any way and won't compromise your privacy in any way. It only uses the computing power you aren't using so it doesn't slow down other programs.
How do I get started folding for Team FreeRepublic?:
1.) Download the folding program from Stanford University's folding download page (Folding@home Client Download). Type in your desired user-name.
2.) Type in 36120 for the team number. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT - if you get the number wrong, you won't be folding for team FreeRepublic!
3.) The third question asks, "Launch automatically at machine startup, installing this as a service?" - We recommend you answer YES. Otherwise you will have to manually start the program after every reboot.
How can my computer help? Even if they were given exclusive access to all of the world's supercomputers, Stanford still wouldn't have as much processing power as they get from the supercluster of people's desktop systems Folding@home relies on. Modern supercomputers are essentially a cluster of hundreds of processors linked by fast networking. But Stanford needed the power of hundreds of thousands of processors, not just hundreds.
There's no reason to not get involved! It's free, easy, and you can know you're helping every minute without lifting a finger.
*******************************************
List of Relevant Folding Links
Why Fold - Watch This !!
Extreme Overclockers Stats for FreeRepublic
*******************************************
Competition (Not!!) Dummies ..Daily Kos
Dummie Folding Threads #7 #8 #9#10#11 #12
Hey DUmmies, can't ya'll post a new thread at least once a year?
**************************************************
Other Useful Stuff - Links
How much are those work units worth? And what are they?
All Projects Listed
Point Summary for Workunits
Fahmon Third Party Monitoring Software
**************************************
Past FreeRepublic Folding threads
#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 #9 #10 #11 #12 #13 #14 #15 #16 #17 #18 #19 #20 #21 #22 #23 #24 #25 #26 #27 #28 #29 #30 #31 #32 #33 #34 #35 #36 #37 #38 #39 #40 #41 #42 #43 #44 #45 #46 #47 #48 #49
done =)
| Client statistics by OS |
| OS Type | Current TFLOPS* | Active CPUs | Total CPUs |
| Windows | 199 | 208960 | 2131833 |
| Mac OS X/PowerPC | 7 | 8237 | 118705 |
| Mac OS X/Intel | 20 | 6444 | 58504 |
| Linux | 62 | 36232 | 325123 |
| ATI GPU | 288 | 2615 | 5731 |
| NVIDIA GPU | 1075 | 9775 | 15557 |
| PLAYSTATION®3 | 1115 | 39547 | 581294 |
| Total | 2766 | 311810 | 3236747 |
| Total number of non-Anonymous donators = 1052933 |
| Last updated at Sat, 16 Aug 2008 06:04:22 |
| DB date 2008-08-16 06:00:02 |
| 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. |
That's really cool but I need a textbook to go along with it.
"Most researchers won't go quite that far. David Baker of the University of Washington, Seattle, believes that such notions are "dangerous" and could undermine interest in the field. But all agree that long standing obstacles are beginning to fall."
- August 8th issue of Science, p. 784.
Ill have to check this out. I leave my puter running all the time.