Folding@Home

ulrik

ulrik

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I know that some over here use it. I'd like to know on which rank you are and how many WUs you have returned/what your score is.

Everyone who doesn't know what I am talking about, check out folding.stanford.edu

I am running it nearly 24/7, only quitting it when I am using time critical tasks like 3D rendering, video encoding, 3d games or something like that (since contrary to what they say over at stanford it STILL consumes CPU time even if other processes should get it all).

I am on place 3184 with a score of 232.48 and 259 returned WUs, I am running it since around two months on my Quicksilver, my TiBook and my Linux machine.

If we are enough, I think we should open up a MacOSX.com folding@home team. Anybody who is interested should voice their request here...
 
I much prefer SETI@home.

First of all, their command line client had a bug for a LONG time that wouldn't allow it to save data, so when I originally installed it, I didn't realize it had this bug, and I wasted a LOT of CPU cycles on this. I'm still wondering if they've updated the command-line version for OS X so it doesn't have this.

Their graphical client? Oh, ugh. What a horrible piece of software – the interface is just a travesty to all Mac applications even if it is kind of simplistic (huge buttons that don't really tell you what they do until you click on them, and how you can't hide the display window once you un-hide it).

SETI@home is much more refined.

I do run it every once in a while, and have managed to send 1 work unit. :p I think it didn't count, though, because I hear you have to finish your work unit in 4 days or something.
 
Sorry, UC Berkeley graduate here, so I can't soil my PowerBook with any software from Stanford!

HAHA!
 
Those problems have been fixed since a long time. I have to admit, I tried SETI, and it is pretty and stuff, but is that the idea behind shared computing in this sector? I mean, I agree that the graphical client is ugly, but the reason why I "donate" to the FAH team is because I see a sense behind it, they already got more than one positive review from the medical branche. SETI is just so - over the top, I don't believe that we will find extraterrestrical life in this way, BUT I believe that FAH *could* one day help to fight some decease.
It's more a matter of personal taste...

I just thought we had more FAH users here...
 
I use SETI@Home, just because it doesn't slow a THING down, ever, and the Folding@Home just doesn't work/feel right on my machine. It just shows a black screen for like 12 minutes, then slowly draws a wierd image.... and the interface is crap. I also just really like SETI personally, because it seems much more exciting than protein folding... sorry, it's just my opinion.
 
I can't say much about the interface, it has been a long time since I used it, since I am running the terminal client.

While SETI seems a bit more "funny" to me, I just see more sense in FAH, but as I said, it's a matter of personal taste. You like SETI, I like FAH :D
 
Of course it uses CPU power; OS X is pre-emptive multitasking so the F@H process can't decide how much power to give itself...thankfully! :)
 
it can. it just has to raise it's own priority. Like FCP, which brings the whole system nearly to a halt when it does it's realtime effect magic.
 
Aren't I just stunned! haha

I didn't realise you could do that in a pre-emptive environment. But I assume a process can't completely halt the system, just make it crawl?
 
Correct. I'd suggest all of you download Process Wizard, a small little menuling that lets you dynamically adjust the priority levels of different applications. It is a LIFESAVER. Make iTunes not need as much CPU time (which doesn't affect its playback abilities in any way) to free up your processor for more important tasks. Right now I'm only using 3/4 of my processor, through an incredibly efficient setup of priority levels that is letting my work on four huge adobe apps, iTunes, iPhoto, downloading files, and typing this at the same time--with no slowdowns whatsoever. This is AMAZiNG! If I had let OS X do its multitasking, a lot of things would be a lot slower right now, and my CPU would be much more taxed. Anyway, the file's on VersionTracker--I'd suggest ya give it a whirl! :)
 
or you could just use "renice".

Just type "man renice" into the terminal to find out more about it
 
Let's see... " renice alters the scheduling priority of one or more running processes.
The following who parameters are interpreted as process ID's, process
group ID's, or user names. 'ing a process group causes all processes in the process group to have their scheduling priority altered. 'ing a user
causes all processes owned by the user to have their scheduling priority
altered. By default, the processes to be affected are specified by their
process ID's"

Or this: (see attached) (btw the number in the menu bar is my CPU usage one second ago, courtesy of CeePeeYou from Unsanity--great little freeware thing!)
 

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Well I didn't like ProcessWizard. I am not a big fan of such apps, plus when I first used it, I discovered a HUGE, REALLY HUGE (REALLY REALLY HUGE) memory leak, in a software which wasn't even declared as beta but as final.
Since this experience, I never looked at it again.
I've written some shell scripts to simulate "run levels" (well, not really, but something similar) which alters the priorities of running processes via renice) work for me...
 
To each his own...

But I would be interested in hearing about that memory leak. That's certainly not something I want to have happening if I can avoid it! :)
 
No, it was fixed, else, you would have noticed it since the system would come to a halt.

Memory leaks can happen when you have an error in memory allocation in an application, like when you allocate memory for variables somewhere over and over. The leak in PW was BIG, around 300k wasted per second....really heavy....the programmer fixed it a long time ago, but releasing an application as a "finished" app with a 300k memory leak is just - well - not very wise to make fans...
 
I just joined team number 1971 which is "Team MacOS X" they are the highest ranking Mac team I could find, currently coming 25th. overall.

http://www.teammacosx.org/

I figured a few old g4/400's and other bit's an pieces couldn't do too badly.

I love the client software how it draws the proteins on the screen and you can spin them around with the mouse in 3D.

The screensave version is not too bad either.
 
Oops I made a mistake, the MacAddict4Life team is actually 4 places ahead of Team MacOS X, however they are slipping back quickly and should be overtaken by Team MacOSX. I found some usefull team stats at :
http://www.cisl.columbia.edu/grads/tuku/stats.html

My 400Mhz G4's are holding up well against the competition, 118 work units complete at the time of this post. I hope a few more of you join the challenge and post some speeds.

The client software, which does both folding@home and genome@home projects, is found at: http://folding.stanford.edu/download.html

Don't for get to set the team number to 1971 in the preferences if you want to be a Team MacOS X supporter.
 
Originally posted by Bluefusion
Let's see... " renice alters the scheduling priority of one or more running processes.
The following who parameters are interpreted as process ID's, process
group ID's, or user names. 'ing a process group causes all processes in the process group to have their scheduling priority altered. 'ing a user
causes all processes owned by the user to have their scheduling priority
altered. By default, the processes to be affected are specified by their
process ID's"

Or this: (see attached) (btw the number in the menu bar is my CPU usage one second ago, courtesy of CeePeeYou from Unsanity--great little freeware thing!)
Click to expand...


why do you still use sputnix? i thought audiogalaxy is dead...
 
I, also, use SETi@Home. It actually does give up the processor when you run other apps, imagine that. I have it running on all three of my Macs and my sh*tty PC. It's rather funny that my 233 iMac completes half a work unit in the time my 233 Athalon completes about 7% of a work unit. BOth systemns running the graphical client.
 
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