Why can't we sustain interest in Folding?

[bigandy]

my mac's been off for a while being fixed but the minute its back the folding is starting. i tried to start when i was away from home but not working it meant i was using the machine whenever it was turned on. so it didnt make much sense having it at all. but things are changing!

 

[DesterWallaboo]

Ex-MacRumors folding member

I hate to admit this... but I jumped ship and moved over to TeamMacOSX... they seemed (and are) climbing rapidly up the stats chart while I see the MacRumors team falling farther and farther down the ladder. Although I love MacRumors, I'm more interested in taking the Mac to the top of the ladder... so I joined the team that is doing the most to get there.

Also... if any of you are running dual CPU rigs, make sure you nab the application they created for optimizing your processes. I have two work units being crunched simultaneously on each of my dual G5's. It SERIOUSLY increased my productivity by such huge amounts it's astounding. I've been told that it improves even single processor production amounts. The program is called InCrease... and you can download it free here:

http://teammacosx.homeunix.com/software.html

 

[bousozoku]

...
Also... if any of you are running dual CPU rigs, make sure you nab the application they created for optimizing your processes. I have two work units being crunched simultaneously on each of my dual G5's. It SERIOUSLY increased my productivity by such huge amounts it's astounding. I've been told that it improves even single processor production amounts. The program is called InCrease... and you can download it free here:

http://teammacosx.homeunix.com/software.html

If you do this, make certain that you change the default team number to 3446, unless you wish to jump ship as well.

 

[neilrobinson]

well i am still folding 24/7 even thou i haven't been round here much lately. get about 320 points / 24 hour (on the AMD). Looking to get a dual cpu motherboard or the fastest processor i can fit on the current one.

http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/user_summary.php?s=&u=102747

i am trying to install it on, dual 2gig G5, 1.6gig G5, P4 2.8 x3, a few other various P4's & P3's. Its already running on a G4 800 thats a laugh as i have the processor maxed out most of the day.

neil

 

[brap]

well i am still folding 24/7 even thou i haven't been round here much lately. get about 320 points / 24 hour (on the AMD).

Wow, really?

My 2800+ Barton (read: not a64) does 1/3 of that if I'm lucky. Might grab a cheapy upgrade just for folding.

 

[neilrobinson]

Wow, really?

My 2800+ Barton (read: not a64) does 1/3 of that if I'm lucky. Might grab a cheapy upgrade just for folding.

how much ram have you got... if you look at my folding stats... you can figure when i upgraded from 256 meg of ram to 768... nothing else changed, the computer doesn't do much else either, use itunes for a few hours each day (about 1.1% processor usage)

amd64's are kinda cheap.. these are my wholesales prices in $AU, i might wait until the 3700+ comes down to $350ish
AMD Athlon 64 2800+ S754 *$174.09
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ S754 *$210.00
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ S754 *$305.00
AMD Athlon 64 3400+ S754 *$318.00
AMD Athlon 64 3700+ S754 *$669.00

 

[brap]

how much ram have you got... if you look at my folding stats... you can figure when i upgraded from 256 meg of ram to 768... nothing else changed, the computer doesn't do much else either, use itunes for a few hours each day (about 1.1% processor usage)

Hehe... well, I have 2 * 512s at DDR333, on an nForce2 ultra 400 - they were from an even older system, so I can't overclock the bus because they freeze up!

But yeah, memory's not a problem It's the lack of SSE2 for the optimised cores. I saw a decrease when I went from a P4 2.4 to an Athlon for this reason, even though the Whetstone benchmarks from Sandra told me it shouldn't be happening... sigh.

Pricing it up now, and trying to remember what was so great about socket 939.

 

[daveL]

I hate to admit this... but I jumped ship and moved over to TeamMacOSX... they seemed (and are) climbing rapidly up the stats chart while I see the MacRumors team falling farther and farther down the ladder. Although I love MacRumors, I'm more interested in taking the Mac to the top of the ladder... so I joined the team that is doing the most to get there.

Also... if any of you are running dual CPU rigs, make sure you nab the application they created for optimizing your processes. I have two work units being crunched simultaneously on each of my dual G5's. It SERIOUSLY increased my productivity by such huge amounts it's astounding. I've been told that it improves even single processor production amounts. The program is called InCrease... and you can download it free here:

http://teammacosx.homeunix.com/software.html

The scripts from 'mc68k', available in the sticky threads at the top of this forum, already provides this functionality, sans GUI. There's nothing magical about running a folding process on each CPU of a dual CPU machine; we've been doing it for years. The MR scripts can pause, resume, start, stop, give status and remove the folding processes. It also starts folding automatically on system startup, if you want.

Obviously you'll get a lot more productivity run two WUs at once, instead of one. In fact, I think it would be about double I guess what I'm trying to say is that TeamMacOSX doesn't have some magical silver bullet that nobody else knows about; what you're describing is commonplace in the folding arena.

 

[DesterWallaboo]

The scripts from 'mc68k', available in the sticky threads at the top of this forum, already provides this functionality, sans GUI. There's nothing magical about running a folding process on each CPU of a dual CPU machine; we've been doing it for years. The MR scripts can pause, resume, start, stop, give status and remove the folding processes. It also starts folding automatically on system startup, if you want.

Obviously you'll get a lot more productivity run two WUs at once, instead of one. In fact, I think it would be about double I guess what I'm trying to say is that TeamMacOSX doesn't have some magical silver bullet that nobody else knows about; what you're describing is commonplace in the folding arena.

Obviously... It's just a great fast GUI interface for running duals. I've done command-line setups for some time. However, since the average home using Mac geek isn't much of a command-line propellorhead... it's a useful toolset.

 

[Macaholic G5]

I guess what I'm trying to say is that TeamMacOSX doesn't have some magical silver bullet that nobody else knows about; what you're describing is commonplace in the folding arena.

Nope. No silver bullet. But GUI is what owning a Mac is all about. It does not matter what team you fold for, just keep folding. But InCrease is more than getting folding running in the command line. It is an elegant tool that displays as much or as little information as you want. Check your queue, display the protein molecule being analyzed, allows you to easily download the latest protein data files, and more. It is the "Suisse Army knife" of Mac folding. It helps to get members folding as efficiently as they can and keeps them interested with all the "bells and whistles" they feel the need to display. Keep on folding on!

 

[daveL]

Nope. No silver bullet. But GUI is what owning a Mac is all about. It does not matter what team you fold for, just keep folding. But InCrease is more than getting folding running in the command line. It is an elegant tool that displays as much or as little information as you want. Check your queue, display the protein molecule being analyzed, allows you to easily download the latest protein data files, and more. It is the "Suisse Army knife" of Mac folding. It helps to get members folding as efficiently as they can and keeps them interested with all the "bells and whistles" they feel the need to display. Keep on folding on!

No offense intended. I guess I've been folding for so long, I don't even notice it anymore. I check the Web stats every now and then, but that's about it. All my machines run 24x7. Last time I looked, I was #34 on the MR team.

 

[Dreadnought]

DaveL, you are still # 34. Just checked my stat, was wondering if I could overtake you, but that won't happen... I'm now #43 and dropped a spot again. But for all of you that are in front of me: I'M BACK! and the G5 is crunching 24/7. That spot in the top 40 will be mine again!

 

[daveL]

DaveL, you are still # 34. Just checked my stat, was wondering if I could overtake you, but that won't happen... I'm now #43 and dropped a spot again. But for all of you that are in front of me: I'M BACK! and the G5 is crunching 24/7. That spot in the top 40 will be mine again!

Still #34: 83847 points, 1169 WUs.

 

[Mechcozmo]

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.

I'd like to find a way to get it to run on another computer in the house (P4 3.6 GHz 1GB RAM) but it isn't mine per se... so it would need to run at startup, without needing any prompting.

That spot in the top 40 will be mine again!

Time for a signature change?

 

[Dreadnought]

Time for a signature change?

Oeps, hoped nobody noticed it... But soon I can change it again!

 

[wrldwzrd89]

You probably want to know why I quit too - here goes:

1. My Windows PC (my big producer) was knocked out by multiple hardware failures for 19 days.
2. When it returned, my parents insisted that I didn't run it 24/7 in case it failed again.
3. The priority system in Windows stinks - folding actually slows down my other tasks instead of scaling back like it's supposed to. This doesn't happen on the Mac - but it didn't produce anywhere near as much as the PC.
4. For security reasons (and speed of file transfer reasons) my Windows PC is now permanently offline (not connected to the Internet).
5. Due to the above 4 factors, I have lost interest in folding.

 

[RugoseCone]

You probably want to know why I quit too - here goes:

5. Due to the above 4 factors, I have lost interest in folding.

Well thanks for responding. It's too bad that your interest was completely driven by big production and I'd ask that you'd reconsider, even if it meant a smaller contribution.

I know the points help sustain interest and I certainly don't begrudge you your reasons. I'm not sure if I'd stay interested without them myself.

Please consider starting up your Mac again, but if not I'm sure we can all accept your decision.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Well thanks for responding. It's too bad that your interest was completely driven by big production and I'd ask that you'd reconsider, even if it meant a smaller contribution.

I know the points help sustain interest and I certainly don't begrudge you your reasons. I'm not sure if I'd stay interested without them myself.

Please consider starting up your Mac again, but if not I'm sure we can all accept your decision.

I'll tell you this...

If I do restart (and keep using wrldwzrd89 as my username on our team), only my Mac will contribute, and I won't bother checking my stats anymore, since, like you said, it isn't really worth my while to check them obsessively

 

[bousozoku]

I'll tell you this...

If I do restart (and keep using wrldwzrd89 as my username on our team), only my Mac will contribute, and I won't bother checking my stats anymore, since, like you said, it isn't really worth my while to check them obsessively

That is a healthy attitude--do what you can.

I remember being really excited when I hit # 9 but it's always been more important to help in order to find answers to problems like my dad has. Now, that I'm down to #143, it's even more important.

 

[RugoseCone]

I'll tell you this...

If I do restart (and keep using wrldwzrd89 as my username on our team), only my Mac will contribute, and I won't bother checking my stats anymore, since, like you said, it isn't really worth my while to check them obsessively

Feel free to use my name and your smaller contributions will seem much larger!

You could instantly be ranked #30...

 

[Dreadnought]

That is a healthy attitude--do what you can.

I remember being really excited when I hit # 9 but it's always been more important to help in order to find answers to problems like my dad has. Now, that I'm down to #143, it's even more important.

Bousozoku and all the others, we need you now guys, so crank up those Macs and feel free to throw in a pc. We have challengers on the horizon who already taunt us. Mad cows in the rear view mirror. Come'on guys!

 

[bousozoku]

Bousozoku and all the others, we need you now guys, so crank up those Macs and feel free to throw in a pc. We have challengers on the horizon who already taunt us. Mad cows in the rear view mirror. Come'on guys!

I have 2 machines and 3 processors and they've been folding for around 3 years now. They've only stopped for equipment failures, hurricanes, and power failures. I can't do any more than I am doing right now.

 

[Lacero]

I used to Fold since April 2003, but stopped once I bought a G5. The fans would rev too loud, so I had to stop.

 

[RugoseCone]

I used to Fold since April 2003, but stopped once I bought a G5. The fans would rev too loud, so I had to stop.

Perhaps you could give it another try with mc68k's scripts for folding from the terminal?

I found they made the fans run a lot less than the clients from Stanford. I too tried folding early on with my G5, but quit due to the high fan noise. Once I started using the terminal version for folding the noise level was greatly reduced.

 

[Xtremehkr]

I decided to go with Team OSX, and was really getting nowhere until I got an iMac G5. Now I am at #583 and climbing almost daily. I have an iMac G3 that kicks in an additional WU every 8 to 11 days and that helps out a little. Both Macs are working 24/7 and the G5 registers no change at all when folding.

In fact, the longer I use my G5 the fewer incidents of higher fan use have occured, it's like it knows my routine now.