AoD PS3 Folding@Home Team

[Chris Beveridge]

I've admittedly not had the app running on my PC for quite some time, but the ease of throwing it on with my PS3 certainly makes it easier to do.

http://fah-web.stanford.edu/teamstats/team32537.html

Team 32537!

[Johnny]

Noticed you on this earlier, Chris and was going to suggest setting up an AoD team...

It's a really cool program too and could be fairly beneficial as well.

[KrisGranholm]

Been a while since I ran that program too (I had issues with a previous Windows install). Guess I'll get back on the horse! :D

[KrisGranholm]

Let me add that you do not need to run this on the PS3 to join the group. You can run the program on your PC and still participate.

[Fieri]

And if you're wondering how much it'll cost you to run the Folding program on your PS3 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.....

Here you GO! (http://ps3.ign.com/articles/776/776347p1.html)

[Skywise]

And if you're wondering how much it'll cost you to run the Folding program on your PS3 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.....

Here you GO! (http://ps3.ign.com/articles/776/776347p1.html)

..and they totally fail because they don't take into account saving on the heating bill during winter months because the PS3 is running instead. They also don't consider energy prices varying throughout the year. In short, those numbers are completely useless.

[Fieri]

And if you're wondering how much it'll cost you to run the Folding program on your PS3 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.....

Here you GO! (http://ps3.ign.com/articles/776/776347p1.html)

..and they totally fail because they don't take into account saving on the heating bill during winter months because the PS3 is running instead. They also don't consider energy prices varying throughout the year. In short, those numbers are completely useless.


First off, I don't see how running the PS3 will save on the heating bill at all. Besides which not everyone uses electricity for heat. The article isn't meant to take into account any saving just give people an idea of how much they'd be spending if they ran the program 24/7 on their PS3.

If you read the article, you'd also know that the numbers used were just an average of the electricity prices for each state for December 2006. They weren't going for accuracy nor was it needed.

Also, it wasn't totally useless. I found it interesting to compare electricity costs by state. :P

[jecca-neko]

Also, it wasn't totally useless. I found it interesting to compare electricity costs by state. :-P

Wheee, I live in state number 38. :(

I really don't understand why Virginia is so much cheaper. It's not like the MD/VA line is that far away...

[BonnKansan]

As a structural biologist, I just wanted to say "Thanks" :)

Here's a news article (http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070326/full/070326-15.html) on the Nature journal website with more information about the project and the gain from using PS3's. It's only accessible for a limited time (by Thursday evening probably), but here's my favorite paragraph:

Currently the program is only able to run in the foreground, so it is not possible to use the device at the same time, says Hofrichter. Sony is now considering making it a background application, so that it can run while people watch DVDs, listen to music or surf the Internet on the console. But it will never be able to work during game play, which itself uses too much of the processing power. So sadly no one will ever be able to claim they are contributing to science by playing Grand Theft Auto. :P

[JeffDM]

Is Elana in some big IT department somewhere? She has about a third of the credits so far.

It's pretty impressive how powerful the Cell chip is at this task.

Anyway, I have my PS3 set up to do some work units if it's idling. I'm not going to run the system non-stop though.

[JeffDM]

..and they totally fail because they don't take into account saving on the heating bill during winter months because the PS3 is running instead. They also don't consider energy prices varying throughout the year. In short, those numbers are completely useless.

It's very tough to do all of that though, factoring in the weather of each region and the cost of electricity in a region in a given time. It gets really complex if you have to compare cost of heat through electricity versus other energy sources, which all change over time. I don't think most of the readers are expecting that sort of pedantry. I'd say that the cost of electricity probably isn't going to swing more than 25% over the year.

Roughly, if A/C is on, I'd mark up the cost by an additional third, if heat is needed anyway, then you might cut the cost figure by half.

[Skywise]

I'd say that the cost of electricity probably isn't going to swing more than 25% over the year.


Heh, I wish the electricity prices only varied by 25% here.


Roughly, if A/C is on, I'd mark up the cost by an additional third, if heat is needed anyway, then you might cut the cost figure by half.

*nod* that's probably not a bad guesstimate. It all depends on how well the house is insulated, efficiency of the temperature control logic in your house etc. It's very much a factor in your actual electricity costs though, so you can't just blindly go by the wattage.

[Bitterman]

I'm new to folding@home, and I have a silly question. I finished my first WU a couple of hours ago. The program loaded the next WU, and I let it run as a dedicated folder for an hour or so to see how long it would take to finish the WU. The first WU took about 36 hours of processor time. Fair enough. But this second one is going to take about 27 days of processor time.

Is this normal? I haven't turned on the big WU option or the advanced methods flag. Something about this doesn't add up. Or is this normal for folding@home?

[Skywise]

Is this the PS3? Because a WU should only take around 8 hours.

[Bitterman]

Is this the PS3? Because a WU should only take around 8 hours.
No, it's a computer that I've allowed to idle and do nothing but fold for two or three days.

[Skywise]

I don't know what the average time for that would be. I can only suggest trying one of the other clients (gpu, smp or vanilla).

[Skywise]

Figure this out yet? I set up my computer and my 1.8ghz dual core opteron takes around 3 days to finish an smp work unit. If it's still slow, you can try deleting all files, and try a clean install.

[CherryGalaxy]

Its very normal for the PC folding client to give an incorrect time estimate at the start of a fold. I will frequently see a huge time estimate at the start of a fold be corrected down to a normal 2-3 days after letting it get settled in for a couple hours.

[Bitterman]

No, never figured it out. Sometimes my computer crunched out a WU in 12 hours. Sometimes in 3 days. But I decided to allow downloading the big WU's, and now it's consistently taking a long time to crunch out the WU's, so I figure I must've just been getting widely differing WU's.

Never did figure out what was wrong with that 37 day WU, either. It ended up as an EUE.

[Skywise]

Btw, who is jeroyce here, and how do you get a 103k score with only 68 work units?

[frijoles]

Btw, who is jeroyce here, and how do you get a 103k score with only 68 work units?

I admin a high end server that's hardly ever under load, so I run the smp client on it. It will crank out ~1500 credits per WU about every 20 hours.

[Skywise]

Hmm.. I had no idea the SMP WUs were valued that highly. Right now I'm kind of wondering what the best balance of FAH clients would be, as I have a Radeon X1950 pro, and running a regular single CPU client on one CPU core.

[Bitterman]

Hmm.. I had no idea the SMP WUs were valued that highly. Right now I'm kind of wondering what the best balance of FAH clients would be, as I have a Radeon X1950 pro, and running a regular single CPU client on one CPU core.
Speaking of points values, has anybody been running the new V6 beta client? I loaded it a day or two ago, and I've noticed a significant drop in points per day.

[frijoles]

According the team ranks, AoD team broke the 1000 mark. GO TEAM Anime on DVD!
Link (http://fah-web.stanford.edu/teamstats/team32537.html)

[Kaikou]

Going to start participating in this every now and then, via my PS3.

[Kaikou]

I've been doing Folding@Home using my PS3 and have the correct group number inputed, but I have not seen my name on the "group" page.

Is there further registering that I need to do?

[Skywise]

You need to finish and upload a work unit. It won't show anything until you've done that. You might also want to check that you have your name configured properly - I believe anonymous submission is the default.

[Kaikou]

You need to finish and upload a work unit. It won't show anything until you've done that. You might also want to check that you have your name configured properly - I believe anonymous submission is the default.

Thanks for the information. My name was on the list, but it defaulted to "PS3", so changed it to my screen name and I figure it'll update after another work unit is done.

[cracker]

The AOD team has broken the one million point mark.Keep the folding up. :sdsmiley:

[stfram]

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2008/09/17/start-your-%e2%80%9clife-with-playstation%e2%80%9d/


If you’ve ever wished you could find everything you need to start your day on your PLAYSTATION 3, Life with PlayStation give you one more reason to do so. This free service delivers a new way for you to utilize your PS3 to instantly access real-time news and information like weather updates from over 60 cities around the world.

We’re also really excited to share that this new lifestyle service is running in parallel with our Folding@home project. Essentially, this means that while you’re taking a stroll on Life with PlayStation, you’re automatically helping Stanford University to work towards curing diseases such as Alzheimer’s and various types of cancers. For those familiar with Folding@home, we’ve made some enhancements for more advanced simulations of protein folding and support for wider variety of simulations, in addition to adding a unique ranking system showcasing top contributors from around the world.


Note, in order to install this, you may have to sign out, then sign back in, then access Folding@Home. You should be prompted to update at that point to LwP.

[Legion]

Cool. Has there been any word about Folding@Home getting an update so it can run as a background application while doing other things on the system like watching movies?

[stfram]

Cool. Has there been any word about Folding@Home getting an update so it can run as a background application while doing other things on the system like watching movies?

Not that I'm aware of, although that is a popular request. I know gaming with F@H is completely out, too many resources needed, but watching a BR disc can't be that resource-intensive.

Edit: and now I know why it's such a popular request. Just tried F@H now, joined the AOD team, etc. At least you can listen to your music while it folds away. Was that something that could be done before?

[Raye]

I just joined the AoD folding team since I'm on my computer quite a bit and all I really do is just watch anime on it... :P I finally get to put my dual core processor to work!

[Hielostar]

Added my new PS3 to the team.

[Advent_Nebula]

where do I go to add my PS3 to the team?

[stfram]

Access the F@H application after starting Life (hit the square button, then arrow down to Folding). That puts you right into the folding application itself.

Once you get there, hit the triangle button, select "Current Channel", then choose "Identity", and then choose "Join an Existing Team."

[JeffDM]

Is there any way to chose the language of the stories shown? I can't find it. Even for a city like Chicago, I can pick out at least three languages out of the four stories listed.