Folding Questions

[mj_1903]

Right now I am doing dnetc and have been having second thoughts about it because its just a giant contest with no real goal.

So here are the questions:
- How good would these machines be at folding (iBook 500, PowerMac G4 400, PowerMac Dual 867, AlBook 1Ghz, eMac 1Ghz, PowerMac G5 Dual 1.8, PowerMac G5 Dual 2.0)
- Is it worth it folding on a Mac as opposed to a PC?
- How effective is the altivec optimizations to the core and how would one go about enabling them?

I would especially like to hear from mc68k as he is crunching on my dnetc team. Hopefully I can join you guys if its favorable enough.

Thanks for your help,

Mat

[jbg]

Well if you used the mc68k scripts to set all of yours up and ran them 24/7, I estimate you will put out about 4000 points per week on the average. You will want to set it for gormac cores of course.

I have been tracking most of my (machines) and the following is based on ones with like chips and speeds. Actual points will depend on the projects that are assigned, some are very fast and some are dogs, but on the average this should be close.

G52x2 ~ 8+ PPH (points per hour)
G51.8x2 ~ 7.2+ PPH
G4(400) ~ .8 PPH
G4(867)x2 ~ 3.5+ PPH
PB1000 ~ 2 PPH
eMac1000 ~ 2 PPH
G3(500) ~ .4 PPH

About 23.9 PPH x 168 = 4015 per week!

At that pace you would fly by me in about 8 or 9 weeks along with shemp9999. So how soon can you be ready?

:D

[mj_1903]

So your saying I would be quite competitive with that setup? How competitive with PC's would I be?

Thanks again,

Mat

[Selecter]

yeah, he likes it :D

The G5's are certanly comp with the fastest PC's. I ran my Dual 1.8 G5 against my AMD XP3000+ for a solid week. The G5 using the old 3.25 client. At a 330 Mhz speed disadvantage ( I started the PC @ 2366 but soon got errors and had to back it down to standard 2.17) the G5 was very slightly slower than the AMD but of course I was running 2 WU's at the same time.

With the new gromacs core the G4's and G5 are very good. I would drop the G3 from the lineup if it were me but thats yur call.

I am still dead in the water here, I didnt get as much done over the weekend as I had hoped, but someone ( cant remember who) stepped on the gas with a bunch more CPU's in the meantime and the Knights are gonna be history here very soon. :D

[jbg]

Selecter is right, the G4's and G5's are very competitive with the PC.

Below are a couple of links that have some very good information and a graph or two. These are for specific projects, (and every project is a little different), but give a pretty good indication of how different models compare.

As for the G3, well every fold helps,

hope to see you in the stats soon,

http://forum.folding-community.org/viewtopic.php?t=6231

http://forum.folding-community.org/viewtopic.php?t=6141

[mj_1903]

Thanks for your help guys. I think I am convinced. If everything goes well in the transfer (using mc68k's scripts) I might move 12 iMac 1Ghz over as well.

Where can I find stats pages to see how I am going?

Mat

[Thom_Edwards]

i like folding.extremeoverclocking.com

[ExoticFish]

i just starting folding tonight. right now i've got my 1GHz 12" AlBook, both my 700MHz linux, and my 1.7 GHz windows workstations at work. when i get home i'll add my Athlon 2400+ to the list and see if there's anything else i can start folding with.

should i turn down the number of polygons per atom to speed things up?

[Selecter]

Yeah i would. Basically anything that steals clock cycles like drawing da pretty pix of da protein on da screen is to be avoided ;) but it's totally up to you. The graph client is the easiest to get going.

Thanks fer folding. :D

[mj_1903]

I am switching my PowerMac Dual 867, PowerMac 400 and PowerBook 1Ghz over later today.

How effective would an Athlon 3200 or Athlon64 be at folding? Would it be better than my G5?

[Selecter]

both would be very effective. I used my AxP3000+ for the test week I was on and the AMD rocked. I dont think the A64 will do any better than yer 32 bit Athlon becuase I dont believe the current client knows anything about 64 bit-ness, but it will do about the same as yer 32 bit chip.

yer G5 if a dually is a folding monster, becuase it will do WU's at about the same rate as your Athlons but X2. if a single, it will still be a fast folder, so what's not to like?

I like your stable of machines there, I wish I had those kind of choices. :D

[MrMacMan]

Yeah those machines are very nice.

Folding Monsters.


:D

Hook those puppys up.

[mj_1903]

Switching tonight at least 3 G4's. I just sold a 2x2.0Ghz G5 and will be replacing it with a high end G5 when the next revision is done.

As for other CPU's, hopefully tomorrow I will hook up another Dual G5 and 12 G4 1ghz. Hopefully I can assist nicely.

[mmmdreg]

I've been on mj_1903's TheLittleAppFactory alias under team xlr8yourmac for dnetc for quite a while. And as he is jumping ship, I may too.

I have a lab of 30 G3 iMacs and about 15 2.8GHz P4's at my disposal. Would they be any help to the cause I wonder?

[britboy]

Originally posted by mmmdreg
I have a lab of 30 G3 iMacs and about 15 2.8GHz P4's at my disposal. Would they be any help to the cause I wonder?

Let's see.....in excess of 40GHz? Yup, that might help the cause ;)

If you have them going 24/7 they might even help you into the top 3 :eek:

[mmmdreg]

I might split 'em half-half for folding and dnetc depending on how mj_1903 goes. :D We'll see.

[Dreadnought]

Hmmmm, this explains quite nicely why we are skyrocketing the last couple of weeks! Go team!!

[ExoticFish]

so far i've been folding for about a week and i've done 11 WU's so far! i've been surprised at how my machines have been performing.

[MrMacMan]

Originally posted by mmmdreg
I might split 'em half-half for folding and dnetc depending on how mj_1903 goes. :D We'll see.

Even at half/half that would be a VERY nice setup.

Please feel free to ask any of us how to set that up!


:eek:


Thanks mmmdreg!
:D

[latergator116]

hmm... I downloaded the one that takes place in the terminal and now it is not doing anything. it says"[16:23:18] Completed 0 out of 250000 steps (0)" and it is not giving me any update. Did I do something wrong?:confused:

[jbeetz]

Originally posted by latergator116
hmm... I downloaded the one that takes place in the terminal and now it is not doing anything. it says"[16:23:18] Completed 0 out of 250000 steps (0)" and it is not giving me any update. Did I do something wrong?:confused:

Probably not... patience is in order. Depending on your machine, it can take between 5 minutes and a couple of hours to complete enough work to be reported in the terminal.

Welcome to the "fold", as they say!

[latergator116]

Ah damn... I just deleted it and installed seti@home. oh well, maybe another time.:(

[britboy]

Originally posted by latergator116
Ah damn... I just deleted it and installed seti@home. oh well, maybe another time.:(


Perhaps you could just go with the f@h graphical client? It's pretty much guaranteed to work with no fuss. You can get that one from the stanford page.

[latergator116]

I think I will stick with seti@home for now. Maybe when I get tired of this I will try f@h.

[Dreadnought]

Originally posted by latergator116
hmm... I downloaded the one that takes place in the terminal and now it is not doing anything. it says"[16:23:18] Completed 0 out of 250000 steps (0)" and it is not giving me any update. Did I do something wrong?:confused:

Typ "start" or "work" in the terminal, if you see a time coming up, that is the time when it started! So you know it's working!

[MrMacMan]

Folding Takes some time to finish a frame...

Ah well...

Please come back to folding when you give up SETI.

[latergator116]

Originally posted by MrMacman
Folding Takes some time to finish a frame...

Ah well...

Please come back to folding when you give up SETI.

hehe... ok Im back to folding now.:cool:

[Vlade]

Just don't type start to many times, I have had multiple instances of FAH_CORE running, and it can mess some things up :(

[MrMacMan]

Originally posted by Vlade
Just don't type start to many times, I have had multiple instances of FAH_CORE running, and it can mess some things up :(

Indeed, that why I use the command 'top' in the terminal... or even process viewer/cpu thingy...

Good Stuff, Good Stuff.

:o