TR Forums

Tech Report Folding Team Status Update March 1st 2008

This report is based on the changes between February 1st 2008 and March 1st 2008

News
- Unless Opera returns full time or another supra folder pops up, Team MacOS X will most likely overtake us in the next couple of weeks. However depending on how the new GPU client works out (about to go closed beta and looking good for a spring open beta release) as well as our recruitment efforts, this overtake would be temporary.

New members in this update
13 new team members have joined our team! - Congrats & Welcome to 2_tyma, blorbic, boghy, bryce, dand56387, Duncan, jeszulc, Majiir, opera, RageAgainstHeaven, srg86, stevie_mac89 and Tricep!

Top 100 folders (in PPD for this update)
1 segfault7 68027
2 opera 24033
3 Fuzzhead 17107
4 flybywire 16245
5 JPinTO 13955
6 sefatglj 11956
7 UnitedGerbilNation 10909
8 Leor 10544
9 the.sauce 9694
10 emkubed 8722

11 TheJuggernaut 7131
12 Lockheed_Tvr 7075
13 Star_Platinum 6167
14 Dr_Evil 5983
15 fah 5722
16 JohnLundell 5294
17 scellio 5259
18 drfish 4605
19 cass 4462
20 Ragnar_Dan 4339
21 BobHarvey 4282
22 Haggis! 4127
23 notfred2630 4125
24 SereneScreen 4094
25 ChrisDTC 3871

26 brujack 3722
27 stoneman828 3520
28 eo 3352
29 Ronwell_Q._Dobbs 3312
30 jroyv 3246
31 farmpuma 3202
32 yarbo 3165
33 moose1507 3069
34 astrotech66 2936
35 cheesyKing 2830
36 Convert 2824
37 rgreen83 2723
38 thill9 2707
39 Just_Brew_It! 2704
40 GE_Pharmacy 2661
41 FloatingSpots 2527
42 pwdrhnd23 2527
43 ifittakesforever 2435
44 [SDG]Mantis 2236
45 Pax-UX 2178
46 smole 2169
47 dalamar70 2153
48 pdxfolds 1864
49 nu11 1862
50 Toasty 1857

51 Mark` 1822, 52 koovoodoo 1821, 53 CalPolyMustangs 1795, 54 Ls2bO 1789, 55 highlandr 1712
56 Krogoth255 1572, 57 Nulfire/Druid 1539, 58 SmokinJoe 1533, 59 pikaporeon 1516, 60 arpstorm 1408
61 adisor19 1393, 62 Lucky_Jack_Aubrey 1392, 63 pmeysemb 1363, 64 ggkthx 1357, 65 AmericanMutual 1282
66 2_tyma 1272, 67 Balzi 1265, 68 Joshvar 1248, 69 firestorm02 1214, 70 OutchItHurts 1199
71 monts 1168, 72 bthylafh 1153, 73 liquid_mage 1084, 74 Psycho-Bob 1072, 75 PS3 1071
76 benwang 997, 77 Geatian 914, 78 AK_Jedi 901, 79 dand56301 898, 80 GulfPC404 849
81 Darwin00214 827, 82 Delphis 806, 83 Moses_Joseph 803, 84 holmanator 790, 85 Volund 784
86 raggos 777, 87 CrzySLAM.com 746, 88 Tarx 740, 89 Britton1207 722, 90 yrreg 716
91 GodsMadClown 711, 92 ronton888 711, 93 iamajai 697, 94 cmchrist 681, 95 alphaGulp 668
96 Bakeshop 632, 97 halben 631, 98 SporkWitch 629, 99 Kraft75 628, 100 SGWB 627

Out of the top 100, but with 200 or more PPD
600+ PPD: Adamantine, TheSwamp, blue_bludger
500+ PPD: Swaaye, ReAp3r-G, Shady's_PS3, Nimrod_Long, Spartan970, TRPS2, PicardC, BerserkBen, Xylker, Austin_1977
400+ PPD: Thebolt, Ephidel, Anonymous, LordIcon, jbennett, dextrous, SoccerGenius, M.Shekels.PS3, TRFrankenbot, IMcRaP
300+ PPD: ShiftlessXL, redmouse, Mark_Reyes, etkaiser, Nik_S, Argle_Bargle, TFyles, Blaylock, getbornagain, allenPS3, alloyD, yes, idchafee, TriumphRider, KingFish
200+ PPD: Slymaster, mastershake227, Stickman-X, CrimsonRevenge, jss21382, red0510, SpinDogs.co.uk, Quotesick, warhead, Hotdog, bean7, JJCDAD, Locke, nc_rocks, witheygull, 3DGPU, ShaneKearney, Niteslayer, TASK, Strofcon, JeremyE, Mavrick88, Kinomoto-san, soho54, Starfalcon

Moving up in the Team Ranks this update
In the top 10: Fuzzhead moves up into 8th! flybywire jumps up by 3 into 10th!
In the top 20: cass moves up into 16th!
In the top 30: JPinTO leaps up by 4 into 21st! SereneScreen moves up into 25th! the.sauce leaps up by 4 into 26th!
In the top 40: eo moves up into 31st! Dr_Evil jumps up by 2 into 33rd! sefatglj leaps up by 5 into 34th! Haggis moves up into 35th! FloatingSpots moves up into 40th!
In the top 50: Ragnar_Dan leaps up by 4 into 41st! yarbo jumps up by 2 into 44th! astrotech66 moves up into 47th! stoneman828 jumps up by 2 into 49th!
In the top 60: jroyv
In the top 70: pdxfolds, smole
In the top 80: PS3
In the top 90: opera, dextrous
Top 125: Mark`, Geatian, GulfPC404
Top 150: ChrisDTC, PicardC
Top 175: BobHarvey, Moses_Joseph
Top 250: brujack, nu11, koovoodoo, Delphis, Ephidel
Top 300: Britton1207, Tarx, SmokinJoe
Top 350: jbennett, carpo, ShaneKearney, danthony
Top 450: Barno, Zimon_PS3, SN26P_X2, pikaporeon
Top 500: loeffel, Varkon
Top 600: SporkWitch, holmanator, 2_tyma, astraelraen
Top 700: ReAp3r-G, newspimp, alloyD
Top 800: Sasha
Top 900: Strofcon, M.Shekels.PS3, Acolyte_Alwyn, SoCerFrek
Top 1000: Mavrick88, Aralin, scello

Moving up in the Worldwide Ranks this update
segfault7 moves up by 3 into 20th!!!
Leor moves up by 2 into 52nd!
emkubed moves up by 1 into 74th!
UnitedGerbilNation is now in the top 150 after moving up by 3 into 149th!
Fuzzhead is now in the top 220 after moving up by 27 into 216th!
flybywire is now in the top 300 after moving up by 33 into 270th!
JPinTO is now in the top 600 after moving up by 136 into 561st!
the.sauce is now in the top 700 after moving up by 107 into 690th!
Dr_Evil is now in the top 1000 after moving up by 75 into 949th!
sefatglj is now in the top 1000 after moving up by 309 into 981st!
jroyv is now in the top 2,000 after moving up by 123 into 1964th!
opera is now in the top 4,000 at 3102nd!
ifittakesforever is now in the top 4,000 after moving up by 411 into 3826th!
OutchItHurts is now in the top 5,000 after moving up by 147 into 4952nd!
ChrisDTC is now in the top 7,500 after moving up by 2128 into 5797th!
Pax-UX is now in the top 7,500 after moving up by 1303 into 6955th!
BobHarvey is now in the top 7,500 after moving up by 4702 into 7289th!
iamajai is now in the top 7,500 after moving up by 158 into 7369th!

Other contributors in this update
100+ PPD: Zubrik, 5150, 1970bossmustang, Player_Hater, Pro571, fishnbabs, Risme, Varkon, carpo, vito, Nathan, equivicus, schellboy, mirQtio, sean1121, pete_roth, akskdl, NyteSkyy, Sneakypheet, bigsilos, Gene, blorbic, 60l23/Governator, Insightfill, danthony, TangentZ, imtheunknown, Driver_7, Looking_For_Knowledge, daveisfera, Spencer_Pablo, techreportrules1983, yekim, scello, newspimp, Abby_Normal, dart200, kuwaiki, WhiteHaus2, Jos82NAComp, Vortexzpd, golden, SN26P_X2, bacondreamer, loeffel, Barno, Coldfirex, billhod, dissonance, Emi, dand56387, eric509, Snadzies
Under 100PPD: Acolyte_Alwyn, StarkMjolk, Deathright, kbuck320, Rush, astraelraen, Tricep, Kloude, neb_the_heretic, brainchild786, heyal256, sikopath, dmaupinsmp, Rolroth, spr, Axai, DuffBott, Grantmeaname, Haldir, dklomparens, Meatek, Frankie_Paterson, BearThing, Ranz, els2bo, bryce, lE3Bl, Marinush, Damage, Ghede, Mstrmold, Tony_Drake, WoodsBoy, boghy, pensive, zwacks, swilkinson, Sasha, a10fan, Crazybus, Omega1, SuperSpy00bob, RageAgainstHeaven, Uraiser, Opus5001, TimmyG-PS3, Yasu_Yoshii, Peffse, Tompson, Cheeze, meltronx, DerKomisar, Pettytheft, Willy9561, ctlloyd, Ktn, Dude_Lebowski, Zimon_PS3, pikatung, Steve, swampangel, Matthew_R, excession, farmpuma, Reploid, prestonag, Stacy_Macklin, Phoeinx, Underdog, chumbleyjl, saturn_5_rocket, Jessica, z-man, SkitzoZac, titanofold, evildoughboy, lenzenm, MVPersian, Spooky, TheComputerBarn, Wanpakboy, WildChild66, House_Angeles, kitsura, SilentNinja, JJCOOLX, mike8763, scorch70, fractux, Heels87, Jim, jeszulc, SnowboardingTobi, EricChang, SoCerFrek, b3n113, Naz, Omega23, Apkellogg, LurkingFool, Ben, Princess_Die, avesparz, AlleyKat, Peff, Jrbabb10, kmtv, L4mberj4ck, Shining_Arcanine, MikeBliv, crazyjediman24, pip07200, tristanjames, Champ78, Darkzedo, Bananafriend, kwaidonjin, Lomd, Shadowcombat, ShadowEyez, thak, asuka0, chrisjczar, b3n13, dmxland, ej4love, HeatherS, Illissius, Ade, Kevin_GG, Magnus, Mattviper, Popobumm, PopokiOfDeath, Aralin, The_Gruffalo, Xakaru, Diceburna, Aqua008, ndskyz, Shiftless, Dr_Tachyon, GreatKyubi, stevie_mac89, CDG, Azro21, nanotubes, Sleepwalker, stevens46, Damiano_Foresti, FurryDice, poe_daimi, Splinter, twolfe18, Yuji, Duncan, Just1Jay, Majiir, srg86

Major Milestones reached this update
14,000,000 points: segfault7
4,000,000 points: Fuzzhead
3,500,000 points: flybywire, Star_Platinum, pwdrhnd23, Lockheed_Tvr
2,000,000 points: SereneScreen, the.sauce, scellio
1,500,000 points: sefatglj, Haggis!
1,000,000 points: rgreen83, CalPolyMustangs, jroyv
750,000 points: smole, [SDG]Mantis, thill9, Adamantine, Anonymous
500,000 points: opera
250,000 points: BobHarvey, Bakeshop, Austin_1977
225,000 points: benwang, brujack, Nik_S, TASK
175,000 points: nu11, koovoodoo, bthylafh, CrzySLAM.com, Delphis, mastershake227, Ephidel, Nimrod_Long, WhiteHaus2, Cheeze
125,000 points: SmokinJoe, Darwin00214
75,000 points: alphaGulp
50,000 points: pikaporeon, Quotesick, yes, Axai
25,000 points: SporkWitch, holmanator, 2_tyma, TangentZ, Deathright, ReAp3r-G, Meatek, Ben
10,000 points: Strofcon, M.Shekels.PS3, Acolyte_Alwyn, Uraiser, Peffse, SkitzoZac
1,000 points: blorbic, bacondreamer, dand56387, Grantmeaname, lE3Bl, Tricep, Haldir, bryce, boghy, RageAgainstHeaven, evildoughboy
Congrats to all those that reached a new milestone!!
For more milestones, see the thread viewtopic.php?t=37609

As usual, don't forget to post your comments, questions, suggestions about the report in this thread!

Thanks for the update, Tarx! Always appreciated!

We should be including a "watch" for the race by flybywire and fuzzhead to catch UGN. UGN has been trying but it seems too many members have fallen off the map. Unless we can get something like a dozen quads this may be inevitable.

~~ I don't want to be gerbil food for those guys!! ~~

Flying Fox wrote:

We should be including a "watch" for the race by flybywire and fuzzhead to catch UGN. UGN has been trying but it seems too many members have fallen off the map. Unless we can get something like a dozen quads this may be inevitable.

~~ I don't want to be gerbil food for those guys!! ~~

What seasoning would you like for me to use?

About the new GPU client... what exactly is the news about it? I've been hearing so many different ideas. I'd love to become a beta-tester if it would mean a few more points for TR. I have a 2600 pro waiting.. not much, but it would certainly give more than the machine is right now.

So I'll include that race next month - The flybywire and fuzzhead race to overtake UGN or will UGN reach its potential and finally pull away from all competitors (not counting the amazing segfault7 - 4th strongest named folder worldwide!).
Currently fuzzhead is 4.6 months away from winning this competition as flybywire is listed at 6.1 months to overtake.

For the new Windows GPU client, we would not be able to participate in the close beta, but would be able to for the open beta. I'd be surprised to see the open beta much before May.
I think there are quite a few members with ATI cards, so that could give us quite a boost, especially on machines not running the SMP client.

I'm thinking of adding a radeon to my Athlon X2 5000+ rig and running the graphical client and the GPU client. Does this make sense? Would it turn my machine into massive PPD monster?

Also, this card would only be used to fold, no gaming. I'd also like to keep it under a 100, well under would be best.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

david00214 wrote:

I'm thinking of adding a radeon to my Athlon X2 5000+ rig and running the graphical client and the GPU client. Does this make sense? Would it turn my machine into massive PPD monster?

Also, this card would only be used to fold, no gaming. I'd also like to keep it under a 100, well under would be best.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

SMP client > GPU client + single client ppd wise. The GPU client will eat a CPU so you can't run SMP + GPU.

Flying Fox wrote:

SMP client > GPU client + single client ppd wise. The GPU client will eat a CPU so you can't run SMP + GPU.

unless of course you're running quads

leor wrote:

Flying Fox wrote:

SMP client > GPU client + single client ppd wise. The GPU client will eat a CPU so you can't run SMP + GPU.

unless of course you're running quads

In this case it's a dual core. I have it set to pause work when the current WU is complete and will install the SMP client. Thanks for the info.

I read somewhere that F@H may soon support the 8800GT. If that happens I'll run the GPU client on my quad-core rig as well as the SMP client.

I think 2x SMP instances (each using 2 cores) will still get you more points, but you don't get the quad-only super WU (3050?).

Flying Fox wrote:

I think 2x SMP instances (each using 2 cores) will still get you more points, but you don't get the quad-only super WU (3050?).

ooooo what's a quad-only super WU (3050?)

david00214 wrote:

Flying Fox wrote:

I think 2x SMP instances (each using 2 cores) will still get you more points, but you don't get the quad-only super WU (3050?).

ooooo what's a quad-only super WU (3050?)

It's actually wu 3060. Even though that wu is worth more points than every smp wu out there, the ppd is actually lower than say wu 2605 or 2653. When my quad , running at 3GHz, was getting wu 3060, its ppd was about 2400 or 2500 versus 2700 for wu 2653, running the Win client.

Project summary by WU type.

david00214 wrote:

In this case it's a dual core. I have it set to pause work when the current WU is complete and will install the SMP client. Thanks for the info.

I read somewhere that F@H may soon support the 8800GT. If that happens I'll run the GPU client on my quad-core rig as well as the SMP client.

1. For now with a dual core systems going SMP is usually a better choice (except for the slowest dual core & fastest GPU capable cards).
However the new GPU client could well shuffle the balance, but we just don't know yet . We do know that the 2000 and 3000 series will also now be supported (although no news about the 3870X2). And that there has been major rework of the client "to bring it up to date with what we now do on the PS3 (in fact, some features of the GPU code are not present in the latest 1.3.1 PS3 version)". http://folding.typepad.com/
Some speculation & rumours at this point for the new client are better ability in running SMP + GPU, significantly better PPD for the GPU client especially for the newer generation cards, etc. But at this time, might as well wait and see. e.g. maybe some budget ATI video card will do almost as well as the top card (if the bottleneck issues haven't been fully resolved)

2. F@H is working at trying to support the 8800GT. They have run into a lot of problems (driver related? Nvidia DX10 series cards seem to have quite a bit of DX9 issues http://www.overclockers.com/tips01294/) and are working with NVidia. So at best it will be many months before see the 8800GT folding and at worst not at all.

Thanks guys for answering my noob questions.

I've installed the SMP client on my AM2 X2 5000. I'll be holding off on getting a video card for F@H for now. SMP will got on the Q6600 as soon as I have it running again.

I sent out an email to my friends yesterday to see if anyone was interested in running F@H. It must have been a little successful as I have two additional cores reporting WUs this morning

Great job, David! We'll take all the help we can get.

flybywire wrote:

Great job, David! We'll take all the help we can get.

Seems like a very worthy cause, so glad to be helping out.

I'm flying up the team rankings right now because it seems a lot of team members are inactive. Perhaps we should talk to one of the techreport editors about highlighting the F@H effort? Maybe try and get some guys back in the "fold"?

Maybe if someone were to pen a story on some of the latest research completed, and its impact, and that were posted on the main page?

There has been little news in the last few months regarding the research (now quiet part of the year - will hear much more by the summer).
I have a feeling that whenever big news hits, that is when most of people will join up...
With the PS3s significant help on Alzheimer's, that could well be the first big news. No info, just speculations

Hmm...After thinking about it for a while, I've decided that I'm going to re-load the SMP client onto my desktop. Now that I have my laptop, I actually do most of my gaming on it and my desktop just...kinda sits there for the most part. I'll get that up later today after I finish this lab I'm working on for my CS&E 221 class (RESOLVE is such a worthless idea). Hopefully that'll get us a few hundred more ppd at least.

CampinCarl wrote:

Hmm...After thinking about it for a while, I've decided that I'm going to re-load the SMP client onto my desktop. Now that I have my laptop, I actually do most of my gaming on it and my desktop just...kinda sits there for the most part. I'll get that up later today after I finish this lab I'm working on for my CS&E 221 class (RESOLVE is such a worthless idea). Hopefully that'll get us a few hundred more ppd at least.

I reloaded it on my main computer, it's on 24/7, I'm doing about 400ppd I guess. Maybe this work computer...... naaah

On my normal Athlon 64 X2 machine, at the moment I'm running two instances of the normal client, should I be running the SMP client or is that only meant for Quad core plus machines?

srg86 wrote:

On my normal Athlon 64 X2 machine, at the moment I'm running two instances of the normal client, should I be running the SMP client or is that only meant for Quad core plus machines?

Definitely SMP if you can manage it. You won't get the quad only super project, but still most of the dual core WUs are pretty tasty in points.

srg86 wrote:

On my normal Athlon 64 X2 machine, at the moment I'm running two instances of the normal client, should I be running the SMP client or is that only meant for Quad core plus machines?

You can use the SMP client with your X2 and would see your ppd double or triple.

Flying Fox wrote:

srg86 wrote:

On my normal Athlon 64 X2 machine, at the moment I'm running two instances of the normal client, should I be running the SMP client or is that only meant for Quad core plus machines?

Definitely SMP if you can manage it. You won't get the quad only super project, but still most of the dual core WUs are pretty tasty in points.

So wait wait, I've been out of the folding loop for a bit. There is a SMP client that is more points than running an instance on each core?

pete_roth wrote:

Flying Fox wrote:

srg86 wrote:

On my normal Athlon 64 X2 machine, at the moment I'm running two instances of the normal client, should I be running the SMP client or is that only meant for Quad core plus machines?

Definitely SMP if you can manage it. You won't get the quad only super project, but still most of the dual core WUs are pretty tasty in points.

So wait wait, I've been out of the folding loop for a bit. There is a SMP client that is more points than running an instance on each core?

Oh the SMP client is da shizzle these days. Each WU are like 1760 points and with a decent C2D you can easily do 1000+ ppd. I seem to recall you have an E6K, so you can use VMware and run the Linux 64-bit SMP client on 32-bit Windows to get even more points.

So you were one of those that left UGN without telling us? Leaving just a few of us holding down the fort with only a handful of SMP machines and the points swing up and down all the time?