View Full Version : Folding@Home
tabacco
03/26/2007, 03:45 pm
If anyone is interested, I created a Telltale Games team for the Folding@Home project. If you're not familiar with Folding@Home, it's a distributed computing effort that uses lots and lots of volunteers' CPUs to process large volumes of data quickly. In this case, it's used for scientific and medical research. The whole thing runs at the lowest priority setting, so it should never interfere with or slow down your own work on the computer. You can learn more at http://folding.stanford.edu/
Our team is number 58833, and you just need to plug that team number in when you install the program if you want to join. right now, it's just me, and is sort of sad:
http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=teampage&teamnum=58833
I signed up but my name isn't showing up on the list...
tabacco
03/26/2007, 05:06 pm
It doesn't show up until you submit a work unit, which can take awhile. If you look at the client while it's running, there's a pie chart in the lower left showing the progress of the current frame (which is a smaller unit, of which there are a couple thousand per official work unit). to the right of that is a second pie chart showing the progress of the whole work unit. Alternatively, under "WU End" you should see an estimate of when the client will finish that work unit.
I'm going to have to try and get it working later (I installed it on my school computer and I'm off for the next 6 days). I got as far as double clicking on install.bat but the name and password I used weren't accepted. Although now thinking on it, I wasn't logged in as the Administrator.
It's a really neat idea. I had never heard of this before. :)
tabacco
03/26/2007, 09:03 pm
Er... if you're installing on Windows, I think you grabbed the wrong installer. You want the first one in the list, the "2000/XP/Vista Graphical client"
sirilluminator
03/26/2007, 09:44 pm
On the bright side, I'm doing my part to help fight scary diseases.
On the brighter side, I found a new way to crash my computer!
Er... if you're installing on Windows, I think you grabbed the wrong installer. You want the first one in the list, the "2000/XP/Vista Graphical client"
That was the first one I tried. My computer at school is weird and it started to install and all the install windows flashed up and went away so I tried the no-frills one (which didn't work either) then the SMP beta.
I installed the first one at home and it went like clockwork. It's running now. :) The silly question I have, do you need to be online for it to do its thing?
tabacco
03/26/2007, 10:10 pm
SMP is for multiple processors :)
You need to be online for it to grab work, but not for it to actually work on it.
Thanks. :)
I'm working on Supervillin (http://www.bms.ed.ac.uk/research/others/smaciver/Encyclop/Abp-s/Supervillin.htm)!
:D
tabacco
03/26/2007, 10:17 pm
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/Villianc.jpg
fhqwhgads
03/27/2007, 05:03 am
I'm in!
Glad they have a linux client. My university machine can start to be useful for a change ;)
Haggis
03/27/2007, 06:01 am
I'm going to install this and join the team. Distributed computing is cool. :)
Badwolf
03/27/2007, 08:21 am
I found this the other day, just joined the TTG team now.
The wait til the end of the current work unit keeps randomly changing from 9 days to 99 days though =/. How long is it taking everyone else?
At first my WU was going to take 104 days :eek: then it went down to 4 and has counted down from there.
That's an awesome picture Doug! :D
fajerkaos
03/27/2007, 09:09 am
Ok, why not... I'm in! :)
tabacco
03/27/2007, 09:41 am
I think it takes a couple hours to work out an average speed, which is why the estimate goes nuts for a bit
Buuga
03/27/2007, 01:04 pm
It's running
ShaggE
03/27/2007, 06:35 pm
That is cool as hell, I wonder how much processing power they've accumulated so far?
tabacco
03/27/2007, 06:49 pm
http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=osstats has some info on total Tflops.
ShaggE
03/27/2007, 07:07 pm
That is incredible! This may actually hit Pflops soon...
JK1985
03/28/2007, 04:33 am
I liked this idea. I'm in! :)
fhqwhgads
03/30/2007, 05:34 am
http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=teampage&teamnum=58833
Im on! Yay!
I'm still working on my first protein. I'm slow. :p
I finally finished my first WU. :) When I started, Doug had done 3 or 4. Now he's at 14!
:eek:
fhqwhgads
04/03/2007, 05:38 am
And I'm running 2 PC's!
(Albeit the one is VERY slow and the other is my home PC thats only on for a fraction of the day.)
Badwolf
04/12/2007, 10:22 am
I'm finally on the TTG F@H stats page now, after gods know how long I've been folding for.
I'm DannyH if anyone's interested.
schuubars
04/12/2007, 10:39 am
I'm on too(thats another bright side about multicore systems)
But i used F@H already back in 2001.(arround that year, cant remember anymore exactly.)
fhqwhgads
04/12/2007, 10:39 am
There's another similar project called seti@home. The name should be pretty self explanatory, but if you don't have time to explain it to yourself (teehee) it is part of the "Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence" project. You basically get chucks of 'recorded space' to analyze.
Check out http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/
tabacco
04/12/2007, 11:04 am
I chose F@H over seti just because personally I would far rather help with medical research than with seti.
Buuga
04/12/2007, 11:14 am
Imo, I prefer use my computer's free resources for good purposes (as seekin' for cures for diseases) than searching something "irrelevant".
schuubars
04/12/2007, 11:19 am
At least not in our lifetime i guess. ;)
fhqwhgads
04/12/2007, 11:25 am
true...
Just thought it might be interesting...
I must admit, its probably more rewarding to take part in something that gives tangible results...
schuubars
04/12/2007, 11:37 am
It is interesting, but thereafter it's our own choice to use our processor power. :)
http://videogames.yahoo.com/ongoingfeature?eid=514753&page=0
Interesting! :)
Haggis
05/15/2007, 12:14 pm
Yeah, I've read about that. If I could afford a PS3, I'd definitely be running F@H on it... it blows my PC right out of the water.
I do both Seti and Riesel Sieve. Right now Seti is having a hard time and I considered joining F@H but F@H does not work with BOINC, not yet anyway.
@Buuga:
I know Seti only scans a small portion of the sky. But a few weeks ago a new earth-like planet was found (Gliese 581b) and probably more will be found (Gliese 581c is reported to be earth like too). Unfortunately Arecibo does not have enough range to point there (and its currently under maintenance), but imagine for one moment that in one of these planets life exist and maybe there is sentient life. Is trying to contact them irrelevant? Imagine if they are trying to contact us!
And I could say the same about F@H (or any other project), maybe your precious folding result was already done by a private lab and is already under patent number 2942538573295358. My point is: if you feel a particular project is "irrelevant" or whatever, don't participate. Just don't bash that project.
Just for the record, I find F@H a worthy cause, any project that aims to extend our knowledge in any area is worthy.
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