Folding@Home: CF Official Discussion Thread

[ckfordy]

I havent been folding for awhile because something went wrong with my desktop computer but now i am getting a laptop sometime next week so i will be able to start folding again but i wont be able to fold 24/7 like i used to.

[jancz3rt]

Originally Posted by ckfordy

I havent been folding for awhile because something went wrong with my desktop computer but now i am getting a laptop sometime next week so i will be able to start folding again but i wont be able to fold 24/7 like i used to.

No problem. The main thing is that you are still helping out. We all appreciate it.

Now here's an update on the stats:

Date of last work unit 2006-11-17 03:19:34
Active CPUs within 50 days 129
Team Id 44358
Grand Score 406242
Work Unit Count 2248
Team Ranking (incl. aggregate) 943 of 46572

JAN

[Jet]

I can't wait for 800th place

Just around 20 days more, and lots less if we up our production to what it was

EDIT: 400,000!!!

[Jet]

Again, one of my WUs didn't send

EDIT:
It sent, but wasn't counted

[apj101]

What about hyperthreaded (HT) CPUs?
The SMP client was originally intended for multi-core CPUs, which generally do not support HT. For machines with 2 physical CPUs, we do recommend enabling HT for the SMP client as this presents the operating system with what looks like 4 logical processors (and our SMP client is intended for 4 processors). If you have 4 physical CPUs, we do not recommend using HT, as this presents the operating system with 8 logical processors, which will make the SMP client run inefficiently (especially since the logical processors coming from HT run much slower than the normal ones).

Im still not sure on this, my research suggests that on single core rig, setting Hyperthreading can boast 20-30%ish.

However, if you try and run two instances of Folding@home on the same Hyper-Threaded CPU, they will both be competing for the same instruction units. This essentially means that each Folding@home instance shares its access to those instruction units. Overall a small performance gain is achieved due to the few calculations that can be run on the "spare" instruction units. However the end result is that the two WUs you are running complete in just under twice the length of time as a single WU would because of the afore mentioned instruction unit sharing.

on another note regarding smp, the new beta v5.91 will support SMP
http://folding.stanford.edu/FAQ-highperformance.html

Originally Posted by 2/3 down the above site

November 2006 The SMP client is now looking good enough that we are starting a more broad beta test outside of Stanford. If that looks good, we will move to a completely open beta test of this new client. The SMP client supports OSX/Intel natively (which means a major points boost for OSX donors) as well as 64-bit linux (with 32-bit linux hopefully to come soon). Windows support will come much later, as this is a very different architecture for porting than OSX & Linux.

another reason to move to linux

in the mean time, i thing that there is a slight improvement in running two instances on a single cpu with HT turned on.

[Jet]

I can't wait until they get this server thing fixed
I still don't know whether my WUs have been being received over there. Who all is actually increasing in points?

[jancz3rt]

Originally Posted by Jet

I can't wait until they get this server thing fixed
I still don't know whether my WUs have been being received over there. Who all is actually increasing in points?

I feel you. We just have to bear with it. Just now, the server is down for maintenance. I guess they are doing something big on the servers lately. Hopefully, that will mean more bandwidth in the future and more capacity. In turn, that would mean a return to normal points

We are at 925

JAN

[ceewi1]

Originally Posted by apj101

in the mean time, i thing that there is a slight improvement in running two instances on a single cpu with HT turned on.

You're right, there is a slight improvement, however the F@H team require work units to be turned in quickly more than they require the larger number of work units. Running two instances causes each WU to be delayed significantly.

Overall:
For more points: Run two instances.
To benefit research: Stick with one.

Since research is the primary goal, I recommended the latter option in the Dual Core Folding guide.

[Emperor_nero]

yay the servers up!

[Lord Of The Ming]

I've gained some points, so I think that they accepted WUs during the downtime.

Oh, and Jan, Congrats on passing Scrat back!