Posted on 12/22/2007 12:29:27 PM PST by texas booster
As we approach one million PLAYSTATION 3 consoles participating in the Folding@Home program, we continue to improve the FAH client. With the new Firmware v2.1 we also prepared an updated version of FAH, which can soon be automatically downloaded by clicking on the FAH icon. This updated version includes the following new features:
If you happen to be one of the people that wants to leave their machine running after they finished their late-night gaming session, but wish to shut it down after a limited period of time, we have a great tip for you:
Go to Settings menu, select Automatic Shutdown and then After Current. You will see a little clock appearing on the top right hand corner of the screen. When this clock reaches zero, the machine will power off completely so you can sleep quietly through the night. In this option the machine will power off after sending the data back to Stanford University so your contribution to the project is maximized.
You may also choose to shut down after a limited period of time (for example, 3 or 4 hours). To do that choose the Automatic Shutdown option and click on the “In 01h:00m” timer. You will now be able to change the timer settings. After rotating the timer to a new time, you should now see your selected timer appear at the top right corner of the screen. This timer will count all the way down to 0 and then power off the system.
To disable active timer at any time, go to Settings, choose Automatic Shutdown and then Disable.
What’s a better Holiday addition to Folding than playing music? We’ve added a great feature in this version in the form of a background music player:
To activate the music player select Music and then a channel. The channels are automatically populated with songs you have stored on your Hard Disk Drive! For holiday music I prefer to choose Dramatic (yeah!) and voila - music is playing.
If you wish to skip to another track, just use a combination of X + left or right arrow. You can also change the channel by choosing X + up or down arrow. Happy listening!
To stop music from playing, select Music again from the main menu and choose “disable.”
Your music playback selection will be saved between consecutive runs of Folding@home.
We hope that these enhancements help improve your FAH experience. The response from PS3 owners really has been spectacular, and thanks to you, the most powerful distributed computer network in the world continues to grow.
Additional information can be found at:
http://blog.us.playstation.com/2007/12/18/new-foldinghome-features-coming/
200 watts is not even 2 amps, comparable to my dual core system. Yes, it is not insignificant, but not that much draw in my all electric home.
I guess I am kinda jaded with my teenage daughters running their blow dryers, the electric dryer and having the LR TV on with no one in the room. Then turning the AC down because they got too hot. You know the story.
I decided several years ago that my $2 per day of electricity was a small enough part of our overall household budget that the cost paled beside the possibility of discovering a potential cure for a disease that has robbed family members of their personality. Yes it cost money, but that cost was less than what we spent on medical care for my parents, and certainly less than what it would cost me if I or my wife succumbed to the illness.
More than half a million computers across the globe have run Folding@home simulations since the distributed computing project began in 2000. Each computer in the mix boosts performance, allowing scientists to tackle more difficult problems and solve research puzzles faster or more accurately.
About 6 - 10 new folders join every month. I have the FReepname of half of them, since you can put any name into the F@H User Name. Its just easier for us if you use your FReepname for us to communicate.
According to the latest stats, we have about 900 systems that report on a regular basis, from about 250 FReepers. There are about a dozen folding for our group that are friends and family and that do not FReep.
The number 1 reason for folks not contributing is getting a new system and not loading F@H. Regular postings like this help to keep everyone folding.
DU has about 60 folders with 140 systems generating about 9,000 ppd. DU will hit 7,000,000 points around Jan 15.
We generate about 85,000 ppd and will hit 40,000,000 points around Jan 1.
Over 500 at one time...currently about 140. http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/team_summary.php?s=&t=36120
Awesome!
Nevermind- I’ve got 1.00% now. Took about 45 minutes to get there, and my iBook is toasty warm.
I guess what I’m suggesting is to not leave it on 24/7. However, load FAH and if you switch the PS3 on in the morning...play like there is no tomorrow, and in between times, such as meal break, you will be folding. Switch the PS3 off for the night. The incremental cost is like 80 cents an hour (or not, my math may be off)
I don’t have a PS3 but I set up my computer to run it since it’s on 24/7. I have another pc on my network but they use the same connection, through a router. Is it worth it to set the program up on that one also? It’s also on 24/7
I would like to have a PS3 for a workstation. I think it would kick butt!
Sorry for the delay. Download and go.
Just make sure that your team is 36120 and your FReepname is there so you get credit.
Work on as many systems as you need.
I have watched the stats pretty closely, and whether F@H stats or ExtremeOverclocking, it seems that we have about 200 - 250 actually running and contributing at any time.
Theres something fishy about the 50 day rule that isn’t reflected in our actual contributors.
It is CPU intensive, and the level one and two CPU cache has an extraordinary effect on the completion speed of F@H.
So crank up every computer that you can get, use team 36120 and your FReepname, and get them folding.
If the system is on 24/7, anything over 550 MHz works well. If on occasionally, then about 1.0 gHz for a true P4 or about 1.2 gHz for a Celeron will complete before the deadline.
I have read about folks that put Linux on a PS3, and it seems to work well.
I am not sure that using a Cell processor just to surf the Internet makes sense, but to each his own.
The Cell is just incredibly fast when you can tighten the code and run natively in the Cell. The is even a Beowulf Linux cluster that runs on eight PS3s, and it rocks.
:’) Thanks TexasB. Nice development! Thanks again for telling me about the project in the first place.
Sony Might Have Gotten It Right with the PS3 from the Beginning
Softpedia | November 5th, 2007 | Filip Truta
Posted on 11/25/2007 1:38:14 PM EST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1930299/posts
I use SpeedupmyPC to keep track of my stats. It's true network usage is near zero but CPU usage has stayed at 100% since I installed it. I have an AMD Athlon 64 CPU 2.4 Ghz on this PC and a 2.8gHz Celeron on the other. I guess I'll crank that one up now and give it a try but I may have to pause it when doing things like burning DVDs.
Will it mess anything up if I use the same screen name on 2 different pcs?
Regarding usage, the folding of proteins is a molecular simulation written in very tight code, such as JMOL. You will see names such as GROMACS thrown around - these are the kernals that do the work and are very well known by molecular dynamicists.
The secret is large L1 and L3 caches and fast cores in the CPUs. Usage stays at 100% because it is supposed to. Very little network traffic, and if you build a folding farm you will find bursts of data back to the hard drives but little sustained activity.
I would expect that one HD could manage several systems, so if you cobbled together 8 systems running off a server across a network it would work just fine with the standard Console or GUI kernal.
Once we start talking about SMP cores and specialized GUI cores then the bandwidth patterns change. But for standard console F@H, it runs very well.
Most folks run SMP on dual core systems, but for X2s with smaller caches (under 1 meg) then I usually just run two cores.
Run the new updates and see a purported speed increase of 10%.
There have been some reports of hanging PS3s after the update to 2.10 BIOS and F@H 1.3. It seems to be related to a bad download of the update, but it has happened a few times so we need to be aware of it.
Noam Rimon, the author of the article above and the lead Sony F@H developer, is watching this thread at the new F@H forums located above. Please post him a note if you have problems.
Thank him if you are running smoothly!
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