Ultimate Guide To Folding@home

T

Tommy311

New member
Just a few questions;

1) Is there any risk to my P.C me running this? I normally leave it on overnight downloading is this roughly equivalent or does it use alot more CPU power to fold? MY P.C's not going to melt halfway through the night or die under stress?

2) If I wish to remove the program I can just remove it without any bits remaining and running after I have done so?

3) What is the information gleamed going to be used for? Is it just to be used by Standford University or the scientific community as a whole? Is there a chance that this insight into proteins allow people to perform nastier tasks (Stuff like cloning - I know this is DNA modification but proteins and amino acids often tie in pretty closely - or creation of harmful biological weapons)?

4) Is this actually worthwhile or will the whole thing be discredited in a years time when the scientists find there actually doing something a bit wrong and all this folding info is useless?

5) Are the pics on the user interface the actual pics of the protein being folded or are they just random images?
 
thank you guyz the mods at this forum are GREAT! ;)

i guess i better start telling you about other stuff about FAH :D

btw my first sticky i feel like im going to cry :D

once again thank you :D
 
What is gromacs?

Gromacs is the new folding core (FAHcore_78.exe) GROMACS provides extremely high performance compared to all other programs. For some calculations, gromacs affords benefits over the current code in FAH (the current code is based on Jay Ponder's Tinker), especially a great speed increase (perhaps up to 10x-20x). This will substantially increase the power of FAH for many calculations.

some ppl say that it actually gives you more points as well...so its a WIn WIN! situation :D

Streaming SIMD(Single Instruction Multiple Data) Extensions

Processors & applications that do not use SSE process one data element in one instruction, a processing style called Single Instruction Single Data, or SISD. In contrast, processors having the SIMD capability have the ability to process more than one data element in one instruction. In other words the processor can work harder with the same two hands (if you get the metaphor). Using SSE requires support from the application, the operating system & the CPU.

Processors that have SSE are as follows..

Athlon XP
Duron 1 GHz & above (morgan core)
Pentium 4
Pentium 3
Celeron 566 mhz & above (coppermine & tualatin cores)

Processors that do not have SSE are as follows..

Duron 950 & below (spitfire core)
Athlon (K7, K75, & Thunderbird cores)
K6-3
K6-2
Celeron 533 MHz & below
Pentium 2
Pentium
All Via/Cyrix CPU's

Anything released before the processors listed of course does not have SSE.

Any version of Windows after '98 supports SSE (95' may just not sure). Any newer Linux distro should have support as well.

The Gromacs core also uses AMD
 
Originally posted by Ariel_001@31 March 2004 - 18:04
Has anyone tryed running this as a service in win nt/2k/xp?

Anyways here are some direction on how to do it. It seems to work for me. Don't blame me if your comp blows up or something if this does something weird.

First make sure the folding@home Client is properly setup.

Then download the consol version of the client and this. Make sure the consol client is working properly first (run it first).

1. Then make a folder somewhere on your hard drive e.g
Click to expand...
 
;) ok i came back from school early....toaday turn over day...so u could skip classes so i came early...

ok ill expain gromacs

There are 2 cores (FAHCore_78.exe and FAHCore_65.exe) you can check which core you are running by pushing CTRL+ALT+DELETE...

CORE_78 is gromacs the new fast one...
CORE_65 is the slow one

most of you probably have core_65 so u want it to be core_78

Method:
Either make a shorcut or use the startup shortcut (which is already there) from "winFAH.exe" which is probably in your "folding@home directory" (in program files)

now go to your shortcut and RIGHT CLICK>PROPERTIES then change this:
add -advmethods -forceasm at the end of the target after the (") ;)
just copy and paste this.... "C:\Program Files\Folding@Home\winFAH.exe" -advmethods -forceasm (if ur using the default directory..)

PIC:
FAHTEAMSSSS.JPG

it should look something like tht

then click ok and when the WU ur working on right now is done the "winfah.exe" will AUTOMATICALLY download the new core_78 and you will be folding gromacs in ur next project
u can check ur LOG file to see if it is using the gromacs are not at the beginng of a project..
but sometimes you dont always get gromacs....so then u will get the use the old core...

remember the old core projects are usually out of 400..

but you will see a big difference in the folding speed with the gromacs for sure :D

i hope this explains it well.... ;)
if u still have questions feel free to ask... ;)
 
_JOHN_LENNON_:
1. Doing ANYTHING stresses the life of your processor, but this F@H (Folding @ Home) uses spare CPU cycles, so you dont notice it while your playing BF 1942, or while im playing Halo. But if say you leave your computer for a bit, it will notice the free processor, and pick up the slack.

2. It really doesnt hurt your computer like I said above, I konw people that have this running on no less than 20 machines and have been doing for awhile.

3. Yes, I said 20 MACHINES. People take this very seriously, as over at AMDMB.com.

4. I have been folding for over a year now for the AMDMB.com team, and I think were maybe 5th or 6th world wide. I know from our forums that we have several people like I said with the 20+ Computers running 24/7 just to fold for cancer. (yes the electric bill gets raised a few ticks) I know that also we have taken donation on 4 complete machines, and then given them to people to they can be Folding for the team in the privacy of their own homes. I think were currently taking donations for the 5th one.

5. You guys should all get into this, haha Bigdawg, being about my age I know your parents have asked you around the house at times (whats your computer doing on right now, when your not even infront of it.) Well, atleast now you could say Fighting Cancer Mom! Heh, no but serious guys, every computer can help, even if its just a few work units a month. And we all have Spare CPU Cycles to spare because none of us are maxing out our PC all day. Half the time I have my PC on im just tinkering with some and I have WMP on and Folding @ Home.

6. Now everyone go download the folding at home command Client
Click to expand...

OC TEAM:
What are the system requirements for folding?
You will need to have the equivalent of a 200MHz Pentium to be able to process the work in time. The time limits for turning in completed work vary depending on the size and complexity of the protein that you are given to work on. NOTE: in some cases users have gotten even slower computers than this to fold and get units on time. The slowest i have seen get units in on time is a P166 mhz. If you think it is too slow to fold, give it a chance, what's that worse that can happen.




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I was looking over the team statistics, What I was wondering about is the pts. I see there is a page that you can goto to see what the worth of a package you are doing. How do you get these pts is it after you are done the package or every so offten? Im not really worried about the pts but it would be kool to see how I stack up against other ppl.

One last thing to ask, then I will stop asking so questions.

I was think about how to get my pc fold faster. I thought about running F@H in safemode, So I did. The #'s are hard to read and I only did this for a hour but it seemed to be a bit faster. Could anyone else see if this could work or not.
 
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