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ssidbroadcast
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Re: That felt good. Where's the pride?

Tue Aug 05, 2008 4:50 pm

Damage wrote:
And, ahem, we *do* have a folding team ad on the front page!


You might want to update/refresh that ad. I've seen it in the same place the way it is for so long, it's "melded" with my notions of the site. My mind literally blocks it out as a "ignore that space" part.

I've only got a lowly GMA950-equipped intel Macbook, so I'm sortof out of the folding-equation. That said, maybe an article or something written to pledge or rally support might spruce the number up a bit.
 
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Re: That felt good. Where's the pride?

Tue Aug 05, 2008 6:06 pm

Hopefully I'll be getting a PS3 in September, so I'll be able to add that to the farm.
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Re: That felt good. Where's the pride?

Tue Aug 05, 2008 6:08 pm

Damage wrote:
Guys, we've always been willing to let someone from the team write up posts, so long as they are reasonably readable and informative. And, ahem, we *do* have a folding team ad on the front page!

That said, it looks like we'll have to take more initiative. I've talked with Cyril about incorporating some folding posts into his news post routine.

As if Custom PC can really stay ahead of us. :lol:

I think we should focus on getting more people to upgrade to the GPU clients, for starters, as well as trying to get people to schedule time on their home PCs while they're away. Seems like a couple of good places to begin.

Maybe we should discuss where to purchase solar panels/wind turbines, too, so then it doesn't cost anything to fold. I'd be interested in that myself.
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Re: That felt good. Where's the pride?

Tue Aug 05, 2008 6:13 pm

Well other then the absurd price of solar panels/wind turbines, after that and say 20 years it's all free.
 
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Re: That felt good. Where's the pride?

Tue Aug 05, 2008 8:25 pm

DIY power doesn't have to cost a fortune. I believe liquidsquid posted this link a while ago - http://www.otherpower.com/
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Re: That felt good. Where's the pride?

Tue Aug 05, 2008 9:18 pm

I was thinking about this this evening and I think there are a few reason's why I have fallen off of the folding bandwagon:
1/ I'm paying for electricity now, no longer in the dorms. Enough said.
2/ The heat generated makes the room uncomfortably warm. This is Florida, after all, where we only have the heater on about 12 days a year (i'm not exagerating). It just doesn't make sense to have to pay to air condition what equates to a heater.
3/ I have a laptop as my primary machine, and have done so for the last 2 years, really. They only desktop in our apartment is the server, and that is a k7 that's definitely not worth bothering with.
4/ I don't leave my computer on all day any more. I turn it off when I go to bed at nights, and don't turn it on until at some point in the e-mail if I feel like it. I've gone days without turning it on before.
5/ I have been burned out by the lackluster clients that have been released. (and I know I'm not alone in this). If Vijay would actually release a functional SMP client, i'd be much more likely to promote it. However, and I know I've said this before, it seems like he doesn't care at all about the people that are making his work possible. We are lab rats that get to live with the frustration caused by him putting his time elsewhere. Sure, the ps3 client is nice, but it's really hard to start a farm with those. How long after CUDA was released did it take him to finally port a client over to nVidia hardware? The biggest one, though, is why hasn't there been made available a business-friendly client? I predict that we could easily quadruple the worldwide production if it were easy to install and manage folding clients in a business environment. Be it Active Directory, or even something less complicated, if one could deploy the client remotely, How??? wouldn't have left (the flakiness of the client was his main reason. He didn't have time to babysit, and that's what the FAH project has turned into in the last couple years.). That was a huge blow to the program, and one that is still being felt.

So yeah. I don't like to be negative, but that's just what I was thinking over. I'm happy to support those that do enjoy the program, and I still like doing small thinkings (like making Frankenbot scary for Halloween).
 
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Re: That felt good. Where's the pride?

Tue Aug 05, 2008 11:17 pm

I don't think you need to apologize and defend your position. Folding@Home is always a volunteer project and you are free to join and leave at any time. Whatever computing cycles you can spare.

Usacomp2k3 wrote:
5/ I have been burned out by the lackluster clients that have been released. (and I know I'm not alone in this). If Vijay would actually release a functional SMP client, i'd be much more likely to promote it. However, and I know I've said this before, it seems like he doesn't care at all about the people that are making his work possible. We are lab rats that get to live with the frustration caused by him putting his time elsewhere. Sure, the ps3 client is nice, but it's really hard to start a farm with those. How long after CUDA was released did it take him to finally port a client over to nVidia hardware?
They initially worked with ATI's stuff so it was difficult to port to CUDA, they basically had to recruit a parallel team (of 2 I think) to build this out. They are not a software shop, it's not like (good) developers fall off from some tree anytime they want. Quite frankly I would rather Vijay do more with the data and release more results that people can see than to open up that many fronts of different clients. They have to think about some sort of support structure. Looks like they managed to muddle through and I give them props for that.

Usacomp2k3 wrote:
The biggest one, though, is why hasn't there been made available a business-friendly client? I predict that we could easily quadruple the worldwide production if it were easy to install and manage folding clients in a business environment. Be it Active Directory, or even something less complicated, if one could deploy the client remotely, How??? wouldn't have left (the flakiness of the client was his main reason.
Don't be so sure. Businesses look at the bottom line, and electricity costs are not insignificant. If you talk to beancounters they won't necessarily like the idea. A boss (or bosses) that wants to be good corporate citizens and/or publicity may participate, but he will still be looking at the cost and benefit for this.

Usacomp2k3 wrote:
He didn't have time to babysit, and that's what the FAH project has turned into in the last couple years.). That was a huge blow to the program, and one that is still being felt.
Back when the single core client was in its early stages, and then there was Genome@Home, the program was an even bigger mess. I remembered seeing all those posts on the [H] and it wasn't a pretty sight. UD at the time was pretty "hands-off" so I stuck with that. The single core client has really gone a long way and all the rest are relatively new so I'm willing to give them time to mature.
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Re: That felt good. Where's the pride?

Wed Aug 06, 2008 6:09 am

Damage wrote:
That said, it looks like we'll have to take more initiative. I've talked with Cyril about incorporating some folding posts into his news post routine.

I think we should focus on getting more people to upgrade to the GPU clients, for starters, as well as trying to get people to schedule time on their home PCs while they're away. Seems like a couple of good places to begin.


This is what I'm talking about. We need promotion by the site. If TR is going to have a folding team they need to lead it :P

In addition to the above, what about folding ranks? Maybe people could have a ranking based on their average PPD over a 1 month period and also for total Points accumulated. MaxPC uses badges, but an imageless rank would be cool too. http://www.maximumpc.com/forums/viewtop ... 878#672878
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Re: That felt good. Where's the pride?

Wed Aug 06, 2008 8:39 am

One step at a time. Let's get some more front page exposure first.
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Re: That felt good. Where's the pride?

Wed Aug 06, 2008 9:04 am

Flying Fox wrote:
The single core client has really gone a long way and all the rest are relatively new so I'm willing to give them time to mature.

In all honesty, the single core client is close to useless right now. I don't know the numbers, but SMP is like 10x faster, a single ps3 is like 25x faster the ATI client is like 30x faster and the nVidia client is like 50x faster.
In those respects, the single core is practically obselete.
 
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Re: That felt good. Where's the pride?

Wed Aug 06, 2008 9:06 am

Flying Fox wrote:
One step at a time. Let's get some more front page exposure first.


I would second that.. Let's focus on one thing at a time... But yes we need new recruits..
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Re: That felt good. Where's the pride?

Wed Aug 06, 2008 9:21 am

ssidbroadcast wrote:
Damage wrote:
And, ahem, we *do* have a folding team ad on the front page!


You might want to update/refresh that ad. I've seen it in the same place the way it is for so long, it's "melded" with my notions of the site. My mind literally blocks it out as a "ignore that space" part.

I've only got a lowly GMA950-equipped intel Macbook, so I'm sortof out of the folding-equation. That said, maybe an article or something written to pledge or rally support might spruce the number up a bit.

You should be able to SMP that if its C2D
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Re: That felt good. Where's the pride?

Wed Aug 06, 2008 10:33 am

Usacomp2k3 wrote:
Flying Fox wrote:
The single core client has really gone a long way and all the rest are relatively new so I'm willing to give them time to mature.

In all honesty, the single core client is close to useless right now. I don't know the numbers, but SMP is like 10x faster, a single ps3 is like 25x faster the ATI client is like 30x faster and the nVidia client is like 50x faster.
In those respects, the single core is practically obselete.

I respectfully disagree. Until the Pande Group said otherwise, I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt that the single core WUs are still contributing to the simulation data of some protein molecules. Yes, from a points perspective, it is relatively useless (actually not quite, since you can still get the odd DBGromacs, the new Ambers that I have been getting are doing about 300ppd so it is not too bad). However, they have said that the different clients are actually working on different data sets. So from the scientific research/simulation perspective, the single core WUs are still useful. The seemingly ridiculous points generated by these new fancy GPU/SMP/PS3 clients are just louder right now. However, if you look at the active CPUs the entire FAH grid is still composed primarily of single core clients. Also, those "friends and families" borgs are mostly single core since it still gives the best "no fuss" experience. Remember Google/team0 as well? Most of them are still single core ones as well.

This is probably a good time to re-iterate that there is a scientific contribution in this whole thing, and we need all types of WUs to be worked on in order for the whole exercise to be useful scientifically. Points can be a big thing to attract newbies and give the effort a bit more visibility, but the importance of the scientific work is IMO still not to be disregarded.
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Re: That felt good. Where's the pride?

Wed Aug 06, 2008 12:13 pm

That is a good point that I had forgotten about.


Oh, and thanks Cyril for the front-page mention!
 
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Re: That felt good. Where's the pride?

Wed Aug 06, 2008 12:42 pm

Flying Fox wrote:
Usacomp2k3 wrote:
Flying Fox wrote:
The single core client has really gone a long way and all the rest are relatively new so I'm willing to give them time to mature.

In all honesty, the single core client is close to useless right now. I don't know the numbers, but SMP is like 10x faster, a single ps3 is like 25x faster the ATI client is like 30x faster and the nVidia client is like 50x faster.
In those respects, the single core is practically obselete.

I respectfully disagree. Until the Pande Group said otherwise, I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt that the single core WUs are still contributing to the simulation data of some protein molecules. Yes, from a points perspective, it is relatively useless (actually not quite, since you can still get the odd DBGromacs, the new Ambers that I have been getting are doing about 300ppd so it is not too bad). However, they have said that the different clients are actually working on different data sets. So from the scientific research/simulation perspective, the single core WUs are still useful. The seemingly ridiculous points generated by these new fancy GPU/SMP/PS3 clients are just louder right now. However, if you look at the active CPUs the entire FAH grid is still composed primarily of single core clients. Also, those "friends and families" borgs are mostly single core since it still gives the best "no fuss" experience. Remember Google/team0 as well? Most of them are still single core ones as well.

This is probably a good time to re-iterate that there is a scientific contribution in this whole thing, and we need all types of WUs to be worked on in order for the whole exercise to be useful scientifically. Points can be a big thing to attract newbies and give the effort a bit more visibility, but the importance of the scientific work is IMO still not to be disregarded.


Well said :D
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Re: That felt good. Where's the pride?

Wed Aug 06, 2008 1:43 pm

I don't mean to steer the thread away from its current course but perhaps we could attract people outside the Tech Report world using the new TR clothing line. Maybe a catchy Folding@home shirt or Team 2630 pull over. Something that people might be curious enough about to come up and ask. I know when I was first getting into computers and tech news, I would have asked someone about Folding@home if they were wearing some catchy tech "Folding@home" shirt. We gotta catch those newbies so they can terrorize their parent's computers!!!
 
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Re: That felt good. Where's the pride?

Wed Aug 06, 2008 2:29 pm

OK, while I wasn't busy, I set a script to change all my clients to work for the (2630) team.... In a few days maybe there will be a boost I'm user ~4000 in the stats so hopfully it'll help a little bit..
edit woops I'm 1516 of 1045829
Last edited by jsncable on Wed Aug 06, 2008 3:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: That felt good. Where's the pride?

Wed Aug 06, 2008 2:47 pm

jsncable wrote:
OK, while I wasn't busy, I set a script to change all my clients to work for the (2630) team.... In a few days maybe there will be a boost I'm user ~4000 in the stats so hopfully it'll help a little bit..

Welcome to the team! :D
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Re: That felt good. Where's the pride?

Wed Aug 06, 2008 4:22 pm

jsncable wrote:
OK, while I wasn't busy, I set a script to change all my clients to work for the (2630) team.... In a few days maybe there will be a boost I'm user ~4000 in the stats so hopfully it'll help a little bit..
edit woops I'm 1516 of 1045829

Welcome indeed! I hope you stick around.
Oh, and if you have seen this thread, post your farm.
 
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Re: That felt good. Where's the pride?

Wed Aug 06, 2008 8:50 pm

Flying Fox wrote:
One step at a time. Let's get some more front page exposure first.


viewtopic.php?f=9&t=28594&p=799869&hilit=front+page#p799869


http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/team_list.php?s=


:/
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Re: That felt good. Where's the pride?

Wed Mar 11, 2009 3:43 pm

We're about to be passed by team Overclock.net in ~3 days. We've needed a general rally to call forth any available machines for a while, but I finally remembered to do it.

Maybe we can add enough new people to get our total output high enough to at least keep the bottom 2 comers at bay.
 
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Re: That felt good. Where's the pride?

Wed Mar 11, 2009 9:32 pm

shortly after that folding@evga is going to blow past us before you know they were there.
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Re: That felt good. Where's the pride?

Thu Mar 12, 2009 1:10 pm

From what I've read in past threads, it seems that current production is nowhere near what it once was in "the good ole days". To garner that production again and then maintain it, would require a lot of effort on many people's part.

So were there like A LOT more people folding for team TR that moved to other teams or something?
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Re: That felt good. Where's the pride?

Thu Mar 12, 2009 1:24 pm

Shinare wrote:
From what I've read in past threads, it seems that current production is nowhere near what it once was in "the good ole days". To garner that production again and then maintain it, would require a lot of effort on many people's part.

So were there like A LOT more people folding for team TR that moved to other teams or something?


I don't think it's because we have a lot less folders than the good ole days. I think it's because F@H has become more mainstream, and less technical people can now run the GPU client and get HUGE numbers.

Take Leor for example. He used to be a folding monster because he had the CPU F@H client running on all his client's 50+ computers. He could hit 10,000 PPD, which was an astronomically high number. Now you can get the same PPD with one computer!

That was kind of a tangent, but my points are 2:

1) More people know about F@H now and it has gotten popular on websites that have a larger, less technical, readerbase
2) The advent of the SMP clients and GPU clients has changed the landscape so so that people with quad core systems and gamers with fast videocards get so many points that some of our past methods of accruing points don't work so well any more.

Having said that, the more people we can get folding for TR the better. We had a "Call to Arms" campaign a few months back, in large part due to this thread, that ended up almost doubling TR's PPD. Maybe we need another drive to get more people interested.
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Re: That felt good. Where's the pride?

Thu Mar 12, 2009 1:58 pm

I faded away because of issues with the Windows SMP client, but if those have been resolved ( I need it working in server 08 x64), I may be able to make a meaningful contribution again. Can anyone vouch for the Windows SMP 64-bit client?
 
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Re: That felt good. Where's the pride?

Thu Mar 12, 2009 2:27 pm

emkubed wrote:
I faded away because of issues with the Windows SMP client, but if those have been resolved ( I need it working in server 08 x64), I may be able to make a meaningful contribution again. Can anyone vouch for the Windows SMP 64-bit client?

That's one of the reasons I don't contribute either: I feel that the Stanford team doesn't produce stable enough clients. I also have a hard time justifying the electricity costs too.
 
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Re: That felt good. Where's the pride?

Thu Mar 12, 2009 6:06 pm

emkubed wrote:
I faded away because of issues with the Windows SMP client, but if those have been resolved ( I need it working in server 08 x64), I may be able to make a meaningful contribution again. Can anyone vouch for the Windows SMP 64-bit client?

There is a "native 64-bit" client? :o I don't think so. The current WinSMP client just works on x64. Running as a service is not officially supported yet. I have finished a couple of WUs on my Win7 beta setup so that's good news. I had an EUE in between though, so this is still not completely stable yet (still debating if this may be due to my OC though). Definitely not as "lights out" as the single core client.
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Ragnar Dan
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Re: That felt good. Where's the pride?

Thu Mar 12, 2009 10:42 pm

But I still don't see any reason to run the Windows SMP client except if you're on a machine that can't run virtualization software.
 
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Re: That felt good. Where's the pride?

Thu Mar 12, 2009 10:52 pm

Ragnar Dan wrote:
But I still don't see any reason to run the Windows SMP client except if you're on a machine that can't run virtualization software.

That is exactly the case on my E2160. Note that I can run VMware, but on Intel CPU even on a 64-bit host you can't run 64-bit guests without VT.

I have now got the Xubuntu VM going on my X2 box (64-bit guest on 32-bit host FTW) and my E2160 running WinSMP. Interestingly enough they are both working on 2653's now so I have a direct comparison.

S939 X2 3800+ @2.0GHz (stock, can't quite overclock with some board issues), LinuxSMP with Xubuntu VM: 620ppd
E2160 @3GHz, WinSMP on Win7 public beta: 1330ppd

The difference is just huge. :o

Edit: one more stat, the E2160 system, now a HD3450 and the Antec NeoHE 430W PSU, is drawing 122W at the wall now while working on that 2653. 8)
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Ragnar Dan
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Re: That felt good. Where's the pride?

Thu Mar 12, 2009 11:23 pm

Yep, they're better because of the 128-bit SSE. But you can't really compare 1 WU from the same Project to another, because they vary with the different (Run, Clone, Gen) too much. The best you can do is take an average among a series. But that means recording results somewhere over a lengthy period and then doing the math. If you're serious about it, anyway.

Meanwhile, I keep getting these terrible Project 5902 WU's on my 9600GSO, and it chokes on them, delivering only ~1000 PPD. It varys between ~950 and over 1100 depending on what I'm doing, of course. I really should get a new video card for this machine, as old as it is (more than 3⅓ years), but I hate to put money into it at this point. I think I'd save enough on electricity by dumping it and the X2-3800 and upgrading to some sort of Intel quad core machine to pay off the difference in a year or two. I'll have to do some testing and calculating to find out for sure, though.

If I had a Microcenter nearby, I'd do it right now for the X2-3800, though. :wink:

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