Folding@home

Off-topic
1

Yeah, we are at #400th place!

But I have a question. I guess my configuration was set to download a genome@home file. So now I’m working on a 600 WU whopper of a file for the other program. Is it gonna count to our group?

I deleted the Folding program and reinstalled it but my CPU found the genome file again and started back up. My CPU is slow and this bugger is gonna take a while. I would hate to lose 2-3 weeks worth of work if it don’t count for the team.

Ed

2

I found the answer.

I got off my lazy butt and found the answer.

http://forum.folding-community.org/viewtopic.php?t=2894

And the answer is yes, I think, it depends. Now that it is about as clear as mud…

I’ll just let it kick on through and see if if gives us points, if not then I guess I’ll be “taking one for the team”, no pun intended.

3

Which client are you running, GUI or the screensaver? The GUI client is more efficient and will crunch through a WU faster. One problem with the screensaver version is that it only runs when the screensaver kicks in. The GUI client runs in the background all the time so it gets more CPU time.

I have the GUI client to use about 95% of the CPU. When I gave it 100% of the CPU some of the other background operations (like auto complete in IE and MS Word) didn’t get enough CPU to be as responsive as I liked. Giving the client only 90% to 95% of the CPU instead of 100% of the CPU helped. For the most part I hardly notice the client is even running now.

If you’re computer is slow I think the Genome projects might be better. I don’t think the Genome projects are as time sensitive as the Folding projects and it also looks like the Genome projects are more consistent in how long it takes to complete a WU. Some of the Folding projects can be quite large and you don’t have any control over how big of a project you get assigned. On my computer (1200Mhz Athlon) I’m getting about 20 points per day. So a WU that is worth 70 points will take about 3.5 days, a WU that is worth 20 points will take about 1 day, a WU that is worth 10 points will take about 1/2 day. That is quite a range of processing requirements, anywhere from 1/2 day to 3.5 days. If you get assigned a big one on a slow computer it could take a very long time.

One thing about the Genome projects though is that they need to calculate an entire sequence from the beginning. If you shut down the client before it finishes a sequence it has to start over so you loose work that has already been done. In the log file you’ll see something like this

[00:34:44] Iterations: 3400 of 6000
[00:34:45] Finished
[00:34:47] [SPG] seed: 277844940
[00:34:47] [SPG] Designing protein sequence 18 of 30
[00:42:16] [SPG] 10.0
[00:49:28] [SPG] 20.0
[00:56:20] [SPG] 30.0
[01:03:06] [SPG] 40.0
[01:09:50] [SPG] 50.0
[01:16:08] [SPG] 60.0
[01:22:24] [SPG] 70.0
[01:28:29] [SPG] 80.0
[01:34:25] [SPG] 90.0
[01:40:15] [SPG] 100.0
[01:40:15] [SPG] Writing current.xyz
[01:40:15] [SPG] Sequence 18 completed:

If you shut down the client before it gets to 100 in the sequence it will have to go back to the beggining of the sequence when it starts up again. In this particular case you would loose up to 1 hour of processing time. It looks like the Folding projects are better at resuming from where they left off without loosing so much previous work. Just something to keep in mind if you turn your computer on and off a lot.

I’m currently in mourning for a lost 50 point WU. I uploaded it more than 24 hours ago and it hasn’t been counted. There were no errors in the log file when it was uploaded. It looks like it got lost or was rejected for some reason. :frowning:

4

Thanks for the info. I have the GUI version, not the screensaver.
500 Mhz AMD CPU. WHen I left for work last night I was 0/600, just starting. I get back from work this morning and I am on 0/600 completed. I’ll let it go while I’m away this weekend and see how far it gets between now and Monday afternoon. I expect this 600 will take 2 months at the rate it seems to be going. It had better be worth alot of points: file - des2/pdb1jau.48.spa

5

Something doesn’t seem right. A 500 MHz AMD should be cranking out work units faster than that. It shouldn’t be taking weeks or months to finish a WU.

Maybe you have another process or application that is taking away the idle CPU time from Folding@Home. If you have Windows 95/98/ME then try the Process Explorer from SysInternals It’s a freeware application that lets you see what processes are running and how much CPU time each process is getting. You can use it to see how much process time FahCore is getting. Maybe your virus scanner or some other background utility is hogging the CPU.

If you have Windows NT/2000/XP you can run the task manager to see the process list and how much processor time each process is getting. Start >> Run >> taskmgr.exe or Ctrl+Alt+Del and select Task Manager from the dialog that pops up.

If some other process is hogging the CPU you can either try to get that application to play nice, identify that application and delete it so it never runs again, or configure Folding@Home to use a slightly higher core priority to it gets more CPU time (in the Advanced tab of the Folding@Home configuration dialog). Process Explorer from SysInternals can help you identify what application owns a process if some other process is hogging the CPU.

6

This game of yours sounds intreging and fun. Is your team accepting new members? i don’t know anything about it, but how do you join? What do I do?

Logan

7

More folders are welcome, indeed encouraged (let’s go for the front page).

Go to this site and click the participate link. You can then download the program, and set it running. Then in the configure options (it might ask you when you start it, otherwise click on it in the system tray with the right button, go to configure) and set your team as 13392, and choose a name. While you’re in the configure bit I find it handy to change the advanced settings so it slows my computer down less when I want to use it.

While I’m posting, does anyone know if you can make it download several work units? I know there’s a queue for work units, coz you can view the que info, but all but one of them is on empty all the time. And I’m leaving my network connection at uni over easter, and don;t want to lose any valuable folding time.

Cheers,

John

8

It seems that the program had been messing up. I rebooted everything (again), started it up and left for 2 days. When I returned it was on 60/600. It’s now on 100/600 so I guess it will only take it 2 or 3 weeks, not the 2 months I thought. I will be sure to only d/l folding (not genome) WUs next time, unless it gives me 50+ points for this.

9

While you may be surprised to hear this, I faced this a few days ago. No, you can’t queue them, but it’s still possible because the work units are so big; mine has been without a unit for a few hours maximum so far.

Phil

10

It looks like there is a 3rd party utility that can cache work units. Here is the thread that talks about it
http://forum.folding-community.org/viewtopic.php?t=2765

However, the caching feature in the current version only works with Windows NT/2000/XP.

Here is the link to the program
http://distributed.org.ru/?udmon

I haven’t tried it. All I know about it is what I have read in that thread and on the programs download site.