Folding Chit-Chat

[Englander]

I can't seem to find a simple answer to this with Google - do you get bonus points for the normal and GPU clients or is it SMP only?

'tis SMP only

[watercooled]

Ah right, so that's why there are people on the Hexus leaderboard who have folded like 50 WUs and have less points than me.

[1stRaven]

The SMP units are bigger than the gpu ones and take longer to process hence the reason to give bonus points as an incentive to run them...

[watercooled]

Why not just give more points to start with with SMP? It is a scheme to get people to fold at least 10 WUs or something?

[Tattysnuc]

I'm sure that I read that it's a way of prioritising WU's.

If someone is trying folding for the first time and they terminate the client before the WU is finished, that WU remains out in the wild and for all intents and purposes MIA.

Putting a qualifier on this reduces that risk, and gets data that needs to be processed quickly, processed and returned expediently. Typically the enthusiast segment are the ones focussing on the points, and therefore registering passkeys.

Specific required work is assigned to those with passkeys so that they are processed faster.

[Teamsreth]

Just joined the Hexus Folding team.

Can't do much I'm afraid. smp on an i5 750, and GPU2 on a 4890. Also, can't keep it on all the time, as the wife Mrs Teamsreth has already asked why I left the pc on last night

[watercooled]

Hey that's not a bad rig. Someone more in the know may correct me but I don't think it's really worth folding on a 4890, the ATI client isn't great for some reason so they end up very inefficient at folding. I think you'd be best freeing up the CPU cycles for the SMP client.

[Englander]

Just joined the Hexus Folding team.

Can't do much I'm afraid. smp on an i5 750, and GPU2 on a 4890. Also, can't keep it on all the time, as the wife Mrs Teamsreth has already asked why I left the pc on last night

That's a fairly decent processor to run the SMP on - you are a most welcome addition to the team

EDIT: 1.9996 million points

[scaryjim]

... Someone more in the know may correct me but I don't think it's really worth folding on a 4890 ...

No correction necessary, you're quite right. ATI cards make very bad folders: the software just doesn't work very well on them. Much better off just running the SMP client on all 4 cores.

[Englander]

And that's 2 million! Now where's my prize?

[watercooled]

Well done everyone!

[Golden Dragoon]

No correction necessary, you're quite right. ATI cards make very bad folders: the software just doesn't work very well on them. Much better off just running the SMP client on all 4 cores.

Yup, with it's outdated client and core, running on depreciated programming interface (CTM) you need to create environmental variables to avoid using all the cpu cycles of a single core, and even then it can still use 5-20% the sooner the GPU3 client\gromacs core is ported to openCL the better as that will "unleash the beast" so to speak as properly optimized Radeons can utterly destroy nVidias finest, just take a look at milkyway@home.

Not 100% sure that the openCL client will help the VLIW5 based Radeons that much, as I am sure they will be optimizing it for the VLIW4 ones, but it should help.

[Teamsreth]

Okay, just shut down the gpu client.
Do I just continue running the one smp jobbie then.
Will be looking to change the graphics soon, any idea if the reds will be competitive at folding any time soon?

[1stRaven]

that kinda explains why it takes my 6870 5-6 hours per wu and I only get 511 points. My second 6870 sits doing nothing as well.

[Tattysnuc]

Okay, just shut down the gpu client.
Do I just continue running the one smp jobbie then.
Will be looking to change the graphics soon, any idea if the reds will be competitive at folding any time soon?

Nothin has been touted. NVidia and ATI both used to track this but it appears that ATI/AMD have dropped their interest in it and not released optimised drivers/software for it. Stanford worked on the software for the Fermi launch and released software shortly afterwards (about a month or so) that was backwardly compatible. I've not seen anything released to address the ATI optimisations. May be worth a dig around the Stanford forums later.

I dot a code.... Off work sick today. Only came into my room cos it's the warmest in the house.

[Union]

New member here too guys.

Built a new system for myself and though i would give it a whirl at folding.

I used some reviews and forum browsing from this site when speccing out my system and saw you guys had a folding team so thought i would return the favour