Folding@home, are you a part of it?

[Sajuuk]

Given to my current...lack of interest in multiboxing, and the subsequent deactivation of all my accounts, I've found myself with a high powered, multiple gpu system collecting proverbial dust. So I decided to participate in the folding@home project, a distributed computing project designed to use your spare CPU cycles (and your GPU, if you so desire).

So far, the best part is that it be set to run automatically as a service, and sets its CPU priority to low so that other tasks can take precedence. The same applies to the GPU client. So for the past few days I've been running eight of the folding@home CPU clients (one per CPU thread) and two of the GPU clients, all the while gaming and watching movies at the same time. The biggest issue that might happen is that when running the GPU client you might be experience stuttering in your desktop/while gaming. Something that I found you could work around by enabling Aero (Strange I know, but it works).

What can this mean to you? Many of the people on these boards run fairly high powered systems for multiboxing, be it one or multiple computers. You can use the spare processor cycles on your computer to fold proteins for medical research. Whether or not you leave your computer on for a while, or six hours a day, you can help.

Did I mention you can get a shiny badge with your folding statistics?

Here is the folding@home website: http://folding.stanford.edu
Here is a set of tutorials for getting folding@home set up on your computer, as well as a site to track your progress: http://hardfolding.com/index.php?p=2&gtype=1

I fold for team 33, which is the [H]ardocp team. I have created a team for us here at dual-boxing.com so we can see how much work we're doing with folding@home.

So, when you're setting up the clients, you can put in a team number. For the dual-boxing.com team, the team number is 168810.

*shrug*. Let's help the world a tiny bit with our overpowered computer systems!

Did I mention you can get a shiny badge? (there are several styles, in variable colors)
http://www.hardfolding.com/fhtag.php/mem/1791501/216/2.png ('http://www.hardfolding.com/fh_stats/?pz=102&tnum=33&id=1791501')

[Sajuuk]

Saving Energy by turning off PC when I'm not directly using it > Folding @ Home

Think green man.Yes, that is a good point. But you could still run the F@H clients while multiboxing without much of a decrease in performance (as far as I've noticed).

To each their own. Thanks for looking.

[ciscokid454]

I've done it off and on over the years, and while I think it's an incredible thing,

Saving Energy by turning off PC when I'm not directly using it > Folding @ Home
Think green man.
atm this /\ is better for me in my current situation

[Stealthy]

Don't know if you guys have this option in the US, but here in Australia you have the choice of whether you receive power from renewable or non-renewable energy sources.

Renewable energy is more expensive than non-renewable, but totally worth it IMO - especially knowing that I'm probably consuming more than the average person. ;)

Link: http://www.greenpower.nsw.gov.au/home.aspx



Cheers,

S.

[Fef]

I guess you guys would not like this t-shirt ('http://www.zazzle.co.uk/polar_bears_who_cares_tshirt-235721601582708444') . ;)

[Otlecs]

I guess you guys would not like this t-shirt ('http://www.zazzle.co.uk/polar_bears_who_cares_tshirt-235721601582708444') . ;)
Haha. Absolutely classic :)

I used to run Seti@Home <mumble> years ago and just sort of stopped at some point.

This is really interesting though. I'll install the client on all of my machines tonight, and although I won't be leaving the machines on for folding@home, I'm absolutely certain that it'll get a decent number of CPU cycles out of me!

[SilverSlice]

the problem is that the company that want to use our computers for there own research will not share the profit from any breakthougrhs or stuff from it.
i just dont see the point of letting them use my computer if i cant get a daim for it. selfish but yeah

[keyclone]

seems worthwhile, especially when my systems are up and i'm not boxing (you can pause the foldering@home app when you want to box). a quad core should have plenty of extra juice to lend while i'm editing code or whatever.

btw, i created a foldering@home 'team' for the multi-boxing community. i think it would be interesting to see what type of impact we'd have as a group, considering our rather beefy system specs. if you can spare the cycles and your system is going to be up and running anyhow, why not

Multi-boxing community team number: 168838


for those that don't know about foldering@home or what it's for (FAQ here ('http://folding.stanford.edu/English/FAQ') ):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVVojA-5ijs

Funding and support for the project come from (more info here ('http://folding.stanford.edu/English/About') ):
http://www.stanford.edu/group/pandegroup/folding/funding2.gif http://www.stanford.edu/group/pandegroup/folding/pics/atilogo_RED_thumb.jpg http://simbios.stanford.edu/Presentations/SimbiosLogoForWeb.jpg http://med.stanford.edu/Templates/images/logo_sumc.gif

[Sajuuk]

D'oh. I already set one up for us folks at dual-boxing.com (hidden in the OP). Oh well. Yours could be considered more inclusive.
Multi-boxing community team number: 168838

[Taliesin]

I've always been one of those that, when I'm not using the PC, I turn it off or at least put it to sleep. Vista 64 hates waking up, some drivers don't seem to handle it very well, but the small annoyance is usually worth the trouble for me. If it's on, I'm usually on it for gaming or doing just some brief surfing. If I want to just do general surfing, I'm usually on my laptop sitting on the couch.

Some people work from home though, so if you're just sitting around only using a fraction of your machine's power on a daily basis, it hardly hurts to share some of it with someone that could put it to use.

[falsfire3401]

I'm pretty bad - the wife and I leave our PCs running 24x7. We consume alot of power in general. We don't notice it so much since we live in what may well be the cheapest place to have electricity in North America - that being the province of Manitoba. Our government-sponsored monopoly company generates a crapton of power all by hydro-generating dams mostly in the remote northern parts of the province. We generate way, way, WAY more power than our small population can use, so we sell off the excess to neighbouring provinces and US states. The revenue from those sales causes our local consumer price per kW/h to be extremely low.

For a couple years I lived in a different Canadian province and I noticed that out there (AB) the electricity is about 6-10 times more expensive! My tiny apartment I had out there cost just as much to power (with nothing on for 14+ hours a day except the fridge and my alarm clock) as my 1400 sq-ft house here, where lots of electrical stuff is on all the time as my wife is a stay-at-home mother.