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ChrisDTC · Thu Oct 18, 2007 6:24 pm

instead of the standard PS3 client?

Heiwashin · Thu Oct 18, 2007 7:47 pm

Why, might i ask, would someone try to do this?

Hance · Thu Oct 18, 2007 7:52 pm

wouldnt it just hit one or two of the SPE's and the rest would sit there doing nothing ? If thats the case performance would suck

ChrisDTC · Thu Oct 18, 2007 9:04 pm

I dont know, Im sure the performance wouldnt be as good, I just figured someone tried it before Sont offered the folding client

mattsteg · Thu Oct 18, 2007 9:19 pm

ChrisDTC wrote:
I dont know, Im sure the performance wouldnt be as good, I just figured someone tried it before Sont offered the folding client

How would they? There's no appropriate client.

ChrisDTC · Thu Oct 18, 2007 9:35 pm

mattsteg wrote:
ChrisDTC wrote:
I dont know, Im sure the performance wouldnt be as good, I just figured someone tried it before Sont offered the folding client
How would they? There's no appropriate client.

You couldn't just run the linux folding client if you wanted to?

crazybus · Thu Oct 18, 2007 9:44 pm

They've only released x86 and x86-64 versions of the linux client.

Heiwashin · Thu Oct 18, 2007 10:19 pm

crazybus wrote:
They've only released x86 and x86-64 versions of the linux client.

By that he means ps3 is a different architecture, so no an x86 or 64 client shouldn't work on a ps3's linux.

mattsteg · Thu Oct 18, 2007 11:52 pm

Maybe you could run an x86 emulator with an x86 linux OS inside it running x85 FAH, but that would just be silly.

Heiwashin · Fri Oct 19, 2007 12:34 am

mattsteg wrote:
Maybe you could run an x86 emulator with an x86 linux OS inside it running x85 FAH, but that would just be silly.

Lol, thus was my skepticism of the op. But i'm thinking, maybe he was wondering if it would perform better, but didn't think of the different architecture's.

7im · Fri Nov 02, 2007 1:27 pm

Yellow Dog Linux for the PS3 runs on the PowerPC chip, not the Cell chip. And PowerPC chip is slow, so the fah client would run slow. No way to make the linux client use the Cell chip. Just run the standard PS3 client for best performance.

mattsteg · Fri Nov 02, 2007 2:50 pm

7im wrote:
Yellow Dog Linux for the PS3 runs on the PowerPC chip, not the Cell chip. And PowerPC chip is slow, so the fah client would run slow.

No, it wouldn't run at all (without more emulation) since there isn't a PPC linux client.

7im · Mon Nov 05, 2007 4:32 pm

mattsteg wrote:
7im wrote:
Yellow Dog Linux for the PS3 runs on the PowerPC chip, not the Cell chip. And PowerPC chip is slow, so the fah client would run slow.
No, it wouldn't run at all (without more emulation) since there isn't a PPC linux client.

That's true. They got a SETI client running on Yellow Dog, so it wouldn't be impossible for FAH. But why bother with such a slow chip when such a fast one is already folding so well?

mattsteg · Mon Nov 05, 2007 5:20 pm

7im wrote:
That's true. They got a SETI client running on Yellow Dog, so it wouldn't be impossible for FAH.

One project really doesn't have anything to do with the other.

bitvector · Mon Nov 05, 2007 5:30 pm

7im wrote:
Yellow Dog Linux for the PS3 runs on the PowerPC chip, not the Cell chip.

The Cell chip is a PowerPC core plus the SPEs. The PPE is part of the Cell.

Hance wrote:
wouldnt it just hit one or two of the SPE's and the rest would sit there doing nothing ?

When you run Linux on Cell, the OS and normal applications don't run on the SPEs at all, because they are a different instruction set and don't really even have the necessary facilities for memory protection between processes (without the PPE handling that). It runs on the PPE (the PowerPC part) and the SPEs are basically accessible as coprocessors under Linux (like GPGPU except simpler). So assuming a PPC FAH client existed, running it on the Cell would just use PPE and not use the SPEs at all.

But there would be no problem making a Cell Linux client that worked as well as the PS3 version. Many HPC apps that work on Cell run under Linux and utilize the SPEs just fine. They may end up running on Cell Blades rather than PS3 hardware, but the principle is the same. I doubt there's the demand, though.

7im · Fri Nov 09, 2007 12:37 pm

mattsteg wrote:
7im wrote:
That's true. They got a SETI client running on Yellow Dog, so it wouldn't be impossible for FAH.
One project really doesn't have anything to do with the other.

And we're all very thankful for that.

@ Bit - Thanks for the symantical correction. You are correct, there is only the CPU processor and GPU processor. Most people get lost when you start talking about SPEs etc.

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