Ultimate Guide To Folding@home

Originally posted by Livy@14 February 2004 - 12:44
if anyone has probslems using the -forceSSE command with amd processors, there is a beta gromacs core which fixes the problem. it will be automatically distributed soon if you dont want to use a beta core.

http://www.stanford.edu/group/pandegroup/folding/beta-core/

to install, download the new core. close folding@home, and put the new core in the f@h folder, then run f@h again and it will use the new core for gromacs WU's
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Thanks for that, I'll try it when I've reinstalled XP (AGAIN, damn NIS crap).

And I'll try it on linux tonight. :lol:

Edit: it's a total lemon, locked up my linux system almost immediately.
 
Originally posted by Virtualbody1234@13 June 2004 - 23:14
cert20000.gif



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:beerchug:
 
I've noticed that F@H does some very strange things with the system tray. If you click on it to see the display it often screws up all the tooltips. I assume it is somehow messing up the handles (what windows uses to identify resources) so you get the tooltip associated to a different prog.

It is probable that when your other prog has closed, it has sent a message to windows asking for it's icon to be removed from the system tray. But if the handles are messed up it is likely that it has inadvertently asked for a different icon to be removed, in this case the F@H icon. Subsequently, windows notices that the owner of the correct icon has gone away, so windows removes that icon too.

Can't be sure this is what is happening, but it is a reasonable guess.

No need to reboot, simply stop the task from within task manager then start it again from your start menu (presumably it is in Programs/Startup).
 
If you have a look further down the log you will probably see that it has actually been sent. Either that or it is still sitting there waiting to be sent. You don't lose completed WU's unless you delete the Queue file (or actually tell F@H to delete it from the queue).
 
As of client 4.0 there is a new switch: -forceSSE

Quote from: http://www.broadbandreports.com/forum/rema...22116~mode=flat
With an AMD processor, -forceSSE forces SSE on, -forceasm forces 3DNOW on and if you don't code either, you run with just normal processing. -forceSSE = fast, -forceasm = slower and no switch = very slow.
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Quote from: http://www.broadbandreports.com/forum/rema...29493~mode=flat
The -forceSSE switch forces an AMD processor to use its SSE optimizations. Use this switch only if SSE optimizations work well for you. If running the client under SSE optimizations causes too many problems, then switch to -forceasm, which will force 3DNow optimizations on an AMD processor. Seldom do AMDs have problems with 3DNow, but some do have trouble with SSE.
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Quote from: http://forum.folding-community.org/viewtopic.php?t=6170
The assembly optimization for SSE is the code that occasionally pushes many AMD machines into unstable conditions. The parameter -forceSSE simply gives those who have demonstrated their machines are stable with SSE operations to regain the extra 15% speed boost that they had before the default was changed to 3DNow optimizations.

There are 3 types of code in the PC version of Gromacs: Unoptimized, 3DNow+, and SSE. How you invoke them was changed depending on the flags and the client version, but the fundamental code is still the same.
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So, with the newer AMD CPUs you could use:

-advmethods -forceSSE


Fold on ! :)
 
Hey hey.

I was browsing about my bisnes about Linuxes etcetera and stumbled
on this site.
I have no problem with this, just wondering how many projects is out there,
similar to Folding.
Must be few since SETI has been around for some time too.

Anyways, happy folding. Or Merry. Or Joyly. Or what suits ya.

:)
 
You've only got one processor, but some parts of it are duplicated. These are the simpler components which don't produce much heat, such as the main instruction path, the arithmetic unit etc.

It has to report that it has 2 processors so that windows can schedule it to execute 2 tasks simultaneously. That effectively means that with two tasks which for the most part only use the duplicated parts you can get more performance out of the chip.

Unfortunately F@H mainly uses parts which aren't duplicated - the MME stuff and the FPU. These are complex units and produce large amounts of heat, which is why they aren't duplicated. So although you could have 2 copies of the program scheduled to run, in practice they would be waiting for the shared resources to be free.

There's even a down side to HT when you want to run another program, even with only one copy running. Windows sees that it has a spare "processor" which can run your prog, it doesn't know about the shared resources. So windows schedules your prog and doesn't bother interrupting the other FPU/MME intensive prog. If your prog uses the duplicated parts there's no problem, but if it uses the shared parts then it runs like a dog.

Nice one Intel - how to slow down our systems by not thinking out the problem. Nothing new there then. :dry:
 
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