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Why can't we sustain interest in Folding?
- Thread starter RugoseCone
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jayscheuerle said:
Check here for more info...
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/21908/
And since this is the hot thread in the Distributed Computing section, take a look here any new folders, or old folders...
https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=1210654#post1210654
MrMacman has put together a letter to submit to the forum gods, perhaps we can get some more signatures for it besides me and Dreadnought!
Speaking of Dreadnought,
I can sympathize with your situation and we're grateful for what ever contributions you can make. However, you're still active and participate in the discussions, so my initial post wasn't directed at you.
And let me add that my intention isn't to make anyone feel guilty or bad about their decisions to stop folding or not participate at their former levels.
Just joined up
Running F@H on my dual Intel Xeon 1.8Ghz with hyperthreading. I know it's not a Mac (I don't have one yet
), but it has plenty of oomph, so it might be able to help out. The client seems to think it'll take 41 days to complete the current work unit .
Running F@H on my dual Intel Xeon 1.8Ghz with hyperthreading. I know it's not a Mac (I don't have one yet
), but it has plenty of oomph, so it might be able to help out. The client seems to think it'll take 41 days to complete the current work unit .
Interesting, I fold on a 2x2.5 GHz G5, on both processors, and it doesn't make a sound other than a soft whisper. Even during heavy codec benchmarking, the background folding processes (2) never interfere. The folding processes run at the lowest OS priority; they *only* consume idle CPU cycles. If there is *any* other process that's ready to run, it will run instead of the folding process. So your statement concerning "bogging" the machine down is simply your perception; the fact is all other processes on the system will get the CPU cycles before folding does. My wife had folding running on her XP machine; she never knew it was running. She now has replaced said XP machine with an iMac G5, which folds 24x7; she never knows it's running.Little Endian said:
Sounds to me as though you just don't want to fold, which is your prerogative, of course.
VincentVega said:Running F@H on my dual Intel Xeon 1.8Ghz with hyperthreading. I know it's not a Mac (I don't have one yet
Heck my work P4 downloaded one that it thought would take 600+ days to finish. It finished in a couple days.
I finally got it running through hyperthreading so now it should count as 2 CPUs although I'm not getting 200% performance of course.
The 41 days is not an estimate on how long it will take to process the WU, rather it's the deadline for that WU. Folding@Home doesn't assume it will get 24x7 runtime or that it will get anything close to 100% of the CPU cycles when it is running or that you have the latest and greatest machine. So, they provide a very generous work window to complete the WU. If it doesn't get done in that period of time, it gets handed to someone else. Even on my TiBook 1 GHz, I complete the most complex WUs in 7-8 days, albeit that *is* running 24x7, but real work gets done on it during the work day.VincentVega said:Running F@H on my dual Intel Xeon 1.8Ghz with hyperthreading. I know it's not a Mac (I don't have one yet
daveL said:
Actually on the Windows gui F@H client it provides an estimated time to WU end which varies depending on how long frames take to compute. It is usually way off for the first frame but after that I've found that it is fairly accurate.
daveL said:
I'm not a huge fan of Windows myself but unfortunately work dictates that I must use it.
I also only use the console app on my PowerBook.
I like the stats for the Windows GUI with the estimation of when complete and stats on how long it takes to do a frame on average for the current WU so that I know when to check and see how far I've managed to move up the ratings. However in order to take advantage of Hyper-Threading (only like a 15% boost from what I've read but it lets my work machine work on 2 WUs at a time) I had to switch to the console at work. My wife's and my windows boxes at home both run the gui so I can quickly check how long each has left on the current unit. They are pretty pokey so they are limited to units less than 5 MB in size. It took my AMD 1.3 GHz over a week to do the last unit (I wasn't limiting work unit size on that one) my wife's has always been limited and has almost twice as many completions as mine despite being 100 MHz slower processor.
New to this...
So, last night I downloaded the Folding@home graphical client(v5.2) last night from the Stanford site. I'm not comfortable noodling around in terminal, so I figured the GUI version would be best. Having spent much of the day reading up on it, it sounds like the terminal version is actually better (and would take advantage of my machine's DP), but I'm uncomfortable installing something that, because of my inexperience, I can't control. I've used a Mac for more than 15 years, but am by no means expert in the "under the hood" aspects of the OS (especially OS X).
I'm guessing most of the folks here are fine in terminal; can someone give me a basic list of commands? I've found some things on the Web, but it certainly wasn't comprehensive and didn't do much to alleviate my anxiety.
Or, maybe I should just stick with using the single processor version of the GUI client...?
Any help or advice would be appreciated.
So, last night I downloaded the Folding@home graphical client(v5.2) last night from the Stanford site. I'm not comfortable noodling around in terminal, so I figured the GUI version would be best. Having spent much of the day reading up on it, it sounds like the terminal version is actually better (and would take advantage of my machine's DP), but I'm uncomfortable installing something that, because of my inexperience, I can't control. I've used a Mac for more than 15 years, but am by no means expert in the "under the hood" aspects of the OS (especially OS X).
I'm guessing most of the folks here are fine in terminal; can someone give me a basic list of commands? I've found some things on the Web, but it certainly wasn't comprehensive and didn't do much to alleviate my anxiety.
Or, maybe I should just stick with using the single processor version of the GUI client...?
Any help or advice would be appreciated.
Here's a link to the terminal scripts written by one of our team members, mc68k.
http://calnet.sdsu.edu/mc68k/
View the readme included in the download as it has all the info you'll need for setup and a list of commands. You'll want the F@H 2 cpu dmg.
http://calnet.sdsu.edu/mc68k/
View the readme included in the download as it has all the info you'll need for setup and a list of commands. You'll want the F@H 2 cpu dmg.
Yeah, I read that and thought about installing using the script. I guess the big unanswered question I had was: How do I uninstall it if I need to?
bousozoku said:
I'll be back, you can count on that! The fun of folding has gone done a bit when you can't get much higher and don't have access to new machines. So let's see this as a rest period and let some guys pass me. It makes live more interesting... Owh and when the tin cans who don't say anything try to pass us once more, everything I have will be folding 24/7 again!
Mechcozmo said:I run F@H 24/7 on an iMac G4, 800 MHz, 768MB of RAM.
I'm Mechcozmo. Hear me fold. (You can't, because my iMac is so quiet. Trick statement!)
That's my permanent setup as well. I also fold part time with my 1.5 PB and will have another full time when I get my Mac Mini. Just waiting on the 'ol Tax Return.
Dreadnought said:
Well they're steaming up behind us right now!
But make sure you can pay for your increased electrical costs first. Better to make a small contribution than not be able to make any, because you're power gets turned off...
that's a shame, dude. I have a dual 1.8ghz G5, and I can tell you that even though my processor usage for both processors is pegged out at 100% 24/7 (except when a processor is uploading/downloading a new work unit, of course), I NEVER see any folding-related slow-downs in my work.
it's like it isn't even on. The only thing that could keep your machine from acting this way is if you have a shortage of RAM. If you have less than 2GB of RAM, then you're not really working very hard on that G5 anyway, because you can't with all the swapping that will go on.
Anyway, with 2+ GB of RAM, my dual 1.8 G5 with 5200 Ultra managed to consistently pull over 215 point with folding turned on[/i] in the world's most meaningless benchmark program.
That was about 30-40 points higher than the "average" dual 1.8...
I spend all day working in huge photoshop files, running complex filters. I also work a lot in 2d layout and design programs (InDesign, Quark), and deal with lots of PDF distillation and giant postscript files for press work. Basically, unless you're doing 3D rendering (which not many people are doing yet on a Mac), you're probably not pushing your dual 2.0 as hard as I've been pushing my dual 1.8 for the last year. Running the dual proc folding console app will not slow you down even 1%. It is very efficient, and it backs off on the resource consumption very quickly. You wouldn't notice a difference at all. If you just don't feel like folding, then that's fine. But you can't hide behind an excuse like not wanting the fans to be running full speed. They don't. If you'd tried installing F@H on your G5, you'd know this already. The only time I've ever heard the fans come on all the way is either a.) restarting or b.) running apple system utilities from the disc.
So just say "I don't wanna because...just because." instead. Ooooor, give it a try. Folding on an eMac and folding on a dual G5 are two very, very different things.
I've managed over 100,000 points in less than a year relying primarily on this dual 1.8, while producing a 100 pg-per issue magazine and all the suplimental materials that go along with it (including a website) at the same time.
OK, I finally decided to pitch in.
I have donated my lowly frankenpismo to the task (G4 500), so don't expect too much, but it is something.
I may hook up my PM 733 also, but it is in the process of being upgraded at this point and I do some fairly heavy work on it, so we shall see what happens in the future...
fwiw...
I have donated my lowly frankenpismo to the task (G4 500), so don't expect too much, but it is something.
I may hook up my PM 733 also, but it is in the process of being upgraded at this point and I do some fairly heavy work on it, so we shall see what happens in the future...
fwiw...