I can’t believe the level of ignorance and arrogance some people have displayed in this thread.
If you own a reasonably modern computer, you should already be running Folding @ Home on your computer, set so it runs whenever your computer runs.
If you are against finding out more about how diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s work, so that we can better treat and/ore cure them, you are an evil ass. Go put your “I love Cancer” bumper sticker on and leave us alone.
New thought********************************
It’s too bad this can’t run in the background while playing a movie or doing other stuff at the dashboard. That would be easier to implement than during a game, and at least let people run it more.
Also, for people running this on computers (which should be EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU), remember you can run as many copies at a time as you have CPUs. Have a dual or quad core system? Run two or four copies (of the command line client). Ask if you need help setting it up!
[quote name='Cloudy Wolf']tax write-off? yeah right. sony's gonna get paid cold hard cash for every step along the way. from the initial install on all ps3 xmb, every hour completed/ever console running it/every X amount of protein info completed, a cut of any money that will come from it.[/quote]
Sony won’t get ONE CENT from this. Not as a tax write off, and certainly not as some kind of cut of something. If you read what the Folding @ Home project is about, you’ll know that.
that's another valuable point i don't think most of you don't realize. they're installing this software without consent. i was under the initial impression this was going to be completely optional. i would have to go to some internet link or to the playstation store to download the necessary software. looks like sony is saving me the hassle and automatically installing it on my device for me. who's to say they won't take it a step further huh? maybe have the program run mandatory in the background when i'm listening to music, playing blu-ray or dvds, playing downloadable games without the user even knowing? might as well right.
That would be a GREAT thing that we should all totally support. Won’t do much good though unless Sony gets it so it can run in the background like the computer versions do.
you guys are teh samrt
Yes, we are, because we know we don’t want cancer.
[quote name='PhrostByte']Yeah I understand how it works... Although I think it probably would have been better if it worked like the PC client. (Reroutes all processing loud from system idle process). Maybe it was too complicated to code it that way for PS3?[/QUOTE]
I’m guessing it’s both a hardware and software issue. Probably mostly software. Games on most consoles have a really thin OS (if they even have one in the strictest sense at all). They often let you get really “close to the metal”. Running this in the background would require that there’s a modern OS on there with task switching and stuff like that, which there may not be when you’re running a PS3 game.
Then too, Cell isn’t a very good general purpose CPU. Those SPUs may not handle task switching very well or automatically like a PC CPU can. They may not handle flipping back and forth between a game and Folding code.
[quote name='Apossum']I'm not an expert, but it seems like it could make the system to hang while you're playing. It occasionally does that with my laptop, even with a gb of ram and not too much else running.[/QUOTE]
It shouldn’t. Something else is wrong there. Could be a driver issue, malware, or faulty hardware somewhere-might want to run Memtest-Google it-for a few hours and see if you get any errors.
I’ve run Folding @ Home (command line client) on at least 9 CPUs for the last 5 years and have never had any issues at all with it.
[quote name='gizmogc']I have no idea WTF this is.
If I run this on my PS3, how is this helping at all? What IS it doing? Why can't this be done on a single computer?[/QUOTE]
It can’t be done on a single computer because there’s nothing in the world as powerful as the combined power of thousands or millions of “regular” computers (and now Playstation 3s!) Even if there was, the project couldn’t possibly afford a computer like that. The work Folding @ Home is doing is EXTREMELY computationally intensive.
As for what it’s doing, someone kind of explained (and you can just Google “Folding @ Home” for the Stanford link), but it’s basically simulating the folding of proteins to see how things go wrong (and/or how they can be corrected). Many diseses have a basis in our proteins folding wrong-which is why this has the potential to help cure cancer, Alzheimer’s, etc.
There have already been numerous peer-reviewed scientific papers that have come out of this project-it’s already seen results.
[quote name='Cloudy Wolf']The lack of logic here is amazing. Really displays the intelligence of our boardmembers. How exactly does one go from mapping proteins to a guaranteed cure for cancer? Classic.[/QUOTE]
No one said it’s a guarantee. It is however very important research that can’t be done any other way. Are you against researching a cure for cancer? For Parkinson’s?
[quote name='jmiller80']Just an FYI for the really cheap CAGs:
Keep in mind the power consumption of processor and GPU intensive applications. Most people don't realize it but Folding@Home, SETI, and other distributed computing projects put a substantial load on PCs (and, in this case, the PS3) by their very computation intensive nature. This translates into tangibly higher power bills -- especially if you donate a lot of your "idle" time to the project. Even without a spinning disc, the consumption can still be a few hundred watts for a high-end PC, and I assume similar numbers for the PS3. Not a big deal for students living in on-campus housing and not paying the power bills, but it could translate to several dozen to several hundred dollars over the course of a year (if you donate all your idle time) depending on where you live.
Maybe if you replace all your incandescents with CF light bulbs you can offset the cost, but you have to have a lot of lights in your house (and you have to use them a lot).
(I like distributed computing projects and wholeheartedly support them, but this is one tangible consideration to keep in mind. It usually gets swept under the rug.)[/QUOTE]
Most desktop CPUs don’t really have much speed throttling built-in. I guess some newer ones do, but a lot don’t. There’s not a whole lot of difference in power draw if you don’t slow down the CPU. I mean sure, a modern PC might be drawing 200 watts…but it’s going to be pretty much 200 watts whether you’re running Folding @ Home on it or not.
If you’ve got a PC that has a lot of idle CPU time-which is virtually every PC on Earth-it’s pretty irresponsible not to run Folding on it. Even worse is people who leave their computers on overnight, having them do nothing!
[quote name='NamPaehc']
Not 100% sure about what joining a team does. I think you somehow help each other solve the same item or something.[/QUOTE]
Teams, and points, are really just for fun. Folding @ Home hands out work units based on what they need done at the time, and what your system’s specs are. Joining a team won’t affect that. The teams just mean that all the points you earn will go both towards your score, and your team’s score.
I’m around the 3500 biggest contributor in the world by the way, which I’m pretty proud of
Number 7 on my team. While I love that, it’s also pretty scary that I rank that high, because I’m not really running that high-end of hardware. Best individual core I’ve got it running on is a Pentium 4 @ 3.4GHz/800MHz.
that. i'm not a tool. y shit like this happens all the time at my job and i'm not gonna get worked.[/quote] 
