[Multiplatform] Official Folding@HOME thread

Want to join the GFF Team and work on the project together?
The following are the details needed to contribute to the GFF Team.

General Info
Team: GamingForceForums
Team #: 55313
Founder: ChaosLegionaire
Team Profile: Click Here

Just enter in the team # and there you go, contribute away.

PC Users
For thoes who want to help the cause with your PC you can download the required program HERE

Whether you're on a PS3 or a PC you can still help the GFF Team out by punching in the associated team # found above.

Project Details:

Our goal: to understand protein folding, misfolding, and related diseases

What is protein folding and how is folding linked to disease? Proteins are biology's workhorses -- its "nanomachines." Before proteins can carry out these important functions, they assemble themselves, or "fold." The process of protein folding, while critical and fundamental to virtually all of biology, in many ways remains a mystery.

Moreover, when proteins do not fold correctly (i.e. "misfold"), there can be serious consequences, including many well known diseases, such as Alzheimer's, Mad Cow (BSE), CJD, ALS, Huntington's, Parkinson's disease, and many Cancers and cancer-related syndromes.

You can help by simply running a piece of software. Folding@Home is a distributed computing project -- people from through out the world download and run software to band together to make one of the largest supercomputers in the world. Every computer makes the project closer to our goals.

Folding@Home uses novel computational methods coupled to distributed computing, to simulate problems thousands to millions of times more challenging than previously achieved.

NEWS Updates

03/24/2007 NEW! Folding@HOME Video Coverage
A new interview has been put up over at GameVideos.com with fairly detailed coverage as to how the project works.
WARNING! Large and complex words & descriptions lie ahead.
Video Interview

03/23/2007 PS3 launch early results
With the PS3 launch, we've added a lot of CPU power to Folding@Home, with the total FLOPS now greatly increased an on its way to a Petaflop. Also, we've gotten a lot of crossover interest in the other Folding@Home clients (Win, Lin, OSX; SMP; and GPU), which is also wonderful.

Finally, due to all the interest, our web pages are getting hit very severely. We have been working to improve this, especially with the understanding that more PS3's could be on the way. So far, the performance is still pretty snappy, but we've made changes to make the process run more smoothly. First, we now allow the stats update script exclusive access to the db during updates. This speeds updates, but limits what donors can do during the update period to see their stats. We have also done several changes to improve caching of the stats data to improve overall performance. We are also working to get additional hardware to help out.

With these changes, we should be ready for a lot more clients!


Cool Facts


1.2% the amount of PS3s working on the project compared to PCs however the small number of about 20,000 PS3s have processed 282% the amount of information in two days of that of the PCs. Seems that the colaberation with Sony was a great move for them. ^^

Project Results

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I just try it and put the team number ^^ for now it seem that the statistic server of folding@home are in maintenance XD but I really like the program, pretty cool visual!

I just check and mine will finish in 8h so I'll probably run it tonight when I'll sleep...

How ya doing, buddy?

Sweet, I was wondering if we'd start a GFF team. I'll join up I folded 1 overnight last night, will probably do another tonight

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I wonder if all the light on the globe in the background really show people that are currently "folding". It's pretty neat ^^ it does a wonderful screensaver XD

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

The yellow spots are supposed to be currently active folders while the white lights are just part of the satllight image.

Also I've got the profile page for the team set up now so when it get's back you should be able to check out all that good stuff. Aswell I've got the GFF banner in there too make us look all official and all ^^

I was speaking idiomatically.

Thread stickied to hopefully get more attention. =)

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Nice im joining the group

FELIPE NO

Is this only available in North America or something? The Playstation Store in Asia doesn't seem to have Folding@Home available to download. Is there somewhere where I can download the program for my PS3?



What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

I don't think there is an outside source other then the PS3's V1.6 update itself. So if it wasn't included in that then you're probably just going to have to wait for future updates to include it unfortunatly.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Alright, I joined up. Almost done with my second work unit.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Slayer X

I don't think there is an outside source other then the PS3's V1.6 update itself. So if it wasn't included in that then you're probably just going to have to wait for future updates to include it unfortunatly.

So stupid, I should've paid more attention. I hadn't gone online with the PS3 so I hadn't updated it to 1.6 firmware. I just did and Folding@Home was included. I'm such an idiot...

Well, finally you can count me in to join the cause!!



This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

heh heh, well we all make thoes mistakes, or at least I know that I do

Nice to have you on board hikarub. ^^

Also it's great to see all the work we've managed to get done with our small team in just four days. 12 work units completed, way to go everyone.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Cool! Just finished 3 WUs this afternoon! Looks like our team's doing pretty good!



I was speaking idiomatically.

So I'm going home this Friday. I haven't turned on my PS3 there in like 3 months. If I update to 1.6 and start up this folding thang and leave it on when I come back to school the next day, would that be a bad idea (overheating, I mean). The thing would be folding non-stop and would rack up some major points, or however it works.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

It depends. I wouldn't reccomend it if you don't have someone to keep somewhat of an eye on it, checking things a couple times a day. I only say this because while there's no rep of the system overheating (other then the odd lemon) we don't really know what it can handle yet, and for $600 the risk may be too large for the reward.

When I leave mine on, it's a non-heated room that is only heated when I'm in that room, which is when I'm playing games so with the lack of heat in the room I don't worry too much about it's safety. Ultimatly though it is up to you in the end.

How ya doing, buddy?

Well yeah. I should have added that. It's at home in my basement, which isn't really heated, and its placed on the cold brick floor thats part of a fireplace (which isn't on, mind you). So it's pretty cool down there. Maybe I'll have my mom check on it every now and then if I turn it on. We'll see.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Usually I just leave mine on overnight, like for around 7-8 hours or so. The weather has gotten a bit warmer lately so I might have to stop doing that soon. I'm also a little scared of it overheating....

Oh yeah, I've also noticed that the statistics page doesn't differentiate between different donor names using the same PS3 or network. I tried changing my donor name to my network ID but found that it just assumes that I'm a different person....so that's why you'll see both hikarub and Hikaru_b on the statistics page.



How ya doing, buddy?

You all need to pick up the pace. I'm so far ahead. (I'm designdraft)

It's been confirmed that leaving your PS3 on will not make it overheat. I leave my PS3 on in a pretty open area for 3, 4 days in a row and its not even hot when I turn it off. If a power bill is a problem though, you might want to have some restraint but I am all for the cause.

Also note that this is the THIRD Gamingforce group on Folding@HOME. One bobo made, and the other some no name made. Of course, this is the most successful of all of them.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Ultima

You all need to pick up the pace. I'm so far ahead. (I'm designdraft)

It's been confirmed that leaving your PS3 on will not make it overheat. I leave my PS3 on in a pretty open area for 3, 4 days in a row and its not even hot when I turn it off. If a power bill is a problem though, you might want to have some restraint but I am all for the cause.

Also note that this is the THIRD Gamingforce group on Folding@HOME. One bobo made, and the other some no name made. Of course, this is the most successful of all of them.

Huh. Where did you read this? I should just tell my parents back home to turn it on then. I'm not gonna be seeing my PS3 for about a month anyways :/. I also saw the three GFF groups. Too bad we can't just combine them all...or can we?

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Well we could if we could either send PMs to thoes contributors or to Bobo and the other dude to see if they'd promote this one instead. However all the work's going to the same place in the end, so if one of you guys don't mind sending the messages or what have you then by all means. If you feel like I do, then just sit back and let your PS3 be the only one working hard around ya.

Most amazing jew boots

Originally Posted by Ultima

You all need to pick up the pace. I'm so far ahead.

Hot damn, how the hell did you get so far ahead? That's an awesome contribution so far though. I'm still not willing to keep my PS3 on all hours for the time being. The best I can manage for now is just leave it on overnight and turn it off before going to work.

Sheesh, I'm in second place and yet...so far behind...

I was speaking idiomatically.

I'm only folding at night when I don't forget it XD the main reason I fold only at night is because my computer is right next to my TV so the ps3 is like literally right next to my head and when it's folding it does a really weird sound that get on my nerves pretty easily XD

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Really? My PS3 is very quiet. I've read that there was a bad batch of PS3's that got released where people complained of an annoying high pitched whining sound from them...but I haven't heard this on my system at all :/.

FELIPE NO

my ps3 is always quiet but it only do that high pitch sound when I run folding@home and I probably hear it only because I'm right next to it...

and the sound is not very loud it's just kind of annoying XD it sound like those mosquito cellphone ring or something I heard a while ago...

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by hikarub

Hot damn, how the hell did you get so far ahead? That's an awesome contribution so far though. I'm still not willing to keep my PS3 on all hours for the time being. The best I can manage for now is just leave it on overnight and turn it off before going to work.

Sheesh, I'm in second place and yet...so far behind...

I haven't turned it off in about 4 days. I'll let it rest soon. I set goals and my most recent one was 30WUs so I've long passed that one. Next time I'll go for 40 or 50.

Jam it back in, in the dark.