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1M PLAYSTATION®3 USERS PARTICIPATE IN FOLDING@HOME

bcn-ron said:
The only hope an XBox 360 folding client would have for being competitive with the PS3 is if it could somehow exploit the GPU. The CPU alone is not going to come close to the Sony-ninja-written code running on Cell that the PS3 client uses.
The GPU client on the PC side shows good result, but it still takes quite the optimism to expect the XBox 360 GPU to achieve the same. We know it's an older design that was finalized some time before the R5xx PC line. It might not have the architectural perks that enable the later ATI GPUs to do folding in the first place, as opposed to the ATI X800 line (which is the half-step before C1) or the NVIDIA GPUs released around the time. It might be able to fold, and it might as well not. What we do know with relative certainty is that it's a small, area-optimized chip with a relatively modest transistor count when compared to its contemporaries.
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Great post. Saves me from having to clear up GAF's technical misconceptions. Just 1 small correction: I don't think the actual folding code for PS3 was written by Sony.
 
MassiveAttack said:
Whatever Sony proposes, you propose the opposite. You're the world's greatest contrarian. Unfortunately, you post too much and that spoils most of the fun.

Fold away.
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What the hell are you talking about?

I've done three or four units, I'm not just playing contrary to everything.

I just would have prefered SETI.
 
MassiveAttack said:
Whatever Sony proposes, you propose the opposite. You're the world's dullest contrarian. Unfortunately, you post too much and that spoils most of the fun.

Fold away though.
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Don't waste you're time with him, he just spins things in endless circles of stupidity.
 
Madman said:
Don't you think we should start with practical things (curing diseases) and not looking for aliens that could potentially never have discovered radio, and even if they did discover radio, probably live so far away by the time we got to them they would be gone?
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Is protein folding really the snakewater that's gonna cure it all?

Personally, when it comes to a cure for cancer, my money is on deactivation the enzymes that rebuild the telomeres of cancer cell DNA. I don't know if protein folder will get us any closer to that, though, since I suspect it has more to do with DNA mutation.



I'm not saying that folding is bad AT ALL, but I don't think that people understand exactly what it is. We're not "Curing Cancer", we're helping in research into a particular area that may contribute to a cure for cancer. That is great, but so is searching for Extra-terestrial life.

Fuck, maybe aliens will cure cancer for us too!
 
Hitler Stole My Potato said:
Amazing.

And yeah, ever since the last Folding update, the system's fans seem to kick into overdrive right from the get go. It's noticably louder than before.
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Clean your console up.

It's the same as it always been here.



And Jesus Fucking Christ Evander, here too? oO
 
Durante said:
Great post. Saves me from having to clear up GAF's technical misconceptions. Just 1 small correction: I don't think the actual folding code for PS3 was written by Sony.
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Actually, if you look on the last page of the Team GAF thread, it appears that Sony is in fact the one that is responsible for the client. It's causing a delay in a fix that the people at Stanford want to implement.
 
Zoe said:
Actually, if you look on the last page of the Team GAF thread, it appears that Sony is in fact the one that is responsible for the client. It's causing a delay in a fix that the people at Stanford want to implement.
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Responsible for packaging it/integrating it with PS3 or for actually writing the folding code? Because that they control the former is clear, but I didn't think they actually developed the latter.
 
Evander said:
Is protein folding really the snakewater that's gonna cure it all?

Personally, when it comes to a cure for cancer, my money is on deactivation the proteins that rebuild the telomeres of cancer cell DNA. I don't know if protein folder will get us any closer to that, though, since I suspect it has more to do with DNA mutation.



I'm not saying that folding is bad AT ALL, but I don't think that people understand exactly what it is. We're not "Curing Cancer", we're helping in research into a particular area that may contribute to a cure for cancer.
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I understand that the research is just that, research. I understand that potentially, nothing could come from it.

However, I feel that searching for aliens is more or less a waste of time. We lack the technology to even try to visit them if we find them, and even if we could go the speed of light, the theoretical speed limit of this universe, it would take a long time to get there. So long, that odds are we would get there only to find relics of an ancient civilization. It would be cool to know that we are not alone, but it won't be helping us any even if we do.
 
HaloFans said:
A few years. For the PS3, you have to manually set it where as I can just leave it on my parents' computers, and they wouldn't notice a thing from their daily usage.
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You can set PS3 client to autostart after a period of system inactivity. I actually have it set like that, and it's good even as a screensaver for my plasma TV.
 
Durante said:
Responsible for packaging it/integrating it with PS3 or for actually writing the folding code? Because that they control the former is clear, but I didn't think they actually developed the latter.
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Here's the actual quote:

With the completion of this investigation Saturday night, we have given the info of the results of our debugging and our plan on how to fix this to Sony last night, and we are hoping that they can come up with an updated client soon. Unfortunately with the PS3, we cannot update the client ourselves, otherwise we would release a client update ourselves, as we have done in the past as needed. Therefore, over the last few days, we have worked on server side tweaks (the only part we can work on) while Sony can work on the client.
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That gives me the impression that they just supply the specifications while Sony is responsible for the implementation.
 
Durante said:
That's beside the point: it doesn't have to be a cure-it-all to be infinitely more useful than SETI.
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Exactly. SETI was cool when I was 14, and "finding aliens" was the best thing ever. Of course this isn't "curing cancer" so to speak, but it actually could contribute in some way, while looking for radio signals is just "kewl" and pretty much useless.
 
Madman said:
I understand that the research is just that, research. I understand that potentially, nothing could come from it.

However, I feel that searching for aliens is more or less a waste of time. We lack the technology to even try to visit them if we find them, and even if we could go the speed of light, the theoretical speed limit of this universe, it would take a long time to get there. So long, that odds are we would get there only to find relics of an ancient civilization. It would be cool to know that we are not alone, but it won't be helping us any even if we do.
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At least people would understand what they are actually doing.



Actually, it would be cool if the PS3 had a client that supported a variety of different computing projects, and you could choose whichever one you wanted.
 
Evander said:
At least people would understand what they are actually doing.
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Why would they understand it any more then F@H? When you launch it you get a pretty detailed explanation of what the project is about.
 
Zoe said:
That gives me the impression that they just supply the specifications while Sony is responsible for the implementation.
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Hmm, I couldn't say one way or the other from that quote. "Our plan to fix this" could just as well be casual-speak for "a code .diff" after all. But it doesn't really matter :lol
 
Evander said:
At least people would understand what they are actually doing.



Actually, it would be cool if the PS3 had a client that supported a variety of different computing projects, and you could choose whichever one you wanted.
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I think that, for now, we should leave the aliens search on hold and get back to it when we have sorted out the issues with our species and this planet.

Aliens would do more harm then good anyways. Do you feel like telling religous people that they are wrong? The only way aliens would ever be useful would be if they found us, and given our species activity on this planet (i.e. destroying it) I would think that, at this time, the last thing we want is a vastly more intelligent species judging us.
 
Evander said:
I'm entirely serious.
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SETI is useless compared to F@H, and I started the GAF SETI team like 5 years ago. I think it was me, oxygen and Argyle doing the lion's share of the work on our work PCs. F@H is a much more noble cause IMO. PEACE.
 
Gattsu25 said:
Where did you find this? Files off the net? A CD?
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No it's just the default sound that F@H plays when you run it. It plays while you spin the globe around and look at the other users around the world. (It plays either way, you don't have to be doing anything) It's the sound of waves crashing onto the beach. Sounds just like one of those noise makers you'd buy at Brookstone or Sharper Image.
 
Jtrizzy said:
No it's just the default sound that F@H plays when you run it. It plays while you spin the globe around and look at the other users around the world. It's the sound of waves crashing onto the beach. Sounds just like one of those noise makers you'd buy at Brookstone or Sharper Image.
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Oh, for some reason I was thinking of one of those 'ambient' albums...sounds of the ocean interspersed with a low whale sound here or there...
 
Zoe said:
How are machines counted? All PS3's start with a default of PS3 as the user name. Lots of people have never changed this even if they've joined a team.
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It doesn't really say anywhere that I could find but I would guess the first time a client sends a result or downloads a WU it would register as a unique CPU, but that would mean if I uninstall and reinstall FAH on my computer it would get counted as a new CPU. So I'm not sure how they can accurately determine unique users and CPUs.
 
By the way, since this topic has been showing up here or there in this topic, even if folding@home NEVER brings us one step closer to any cure...it will still be infinitely more important that SETI
larvi said:
It doesn't really say anywhere that I could find but I would guess the first time a client sends a result or downloads a WU it would register as a unique CPU, but that would mean if I uninstall and reinstall FAH on my computer it would get counted as a new CPU. So I'm not sure how they can accurately determine unique users and CPUs.
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MAC Address + CPU model?
 
no matter how you argue it, there's one difference between F@H and SETI. F@H doesn't have the possibility of the enslavement of humanity.

SETI on the other hand, if you discover a more superior alien out there that's even more evil and aggressive than humanity (I know, that's hard, but it's highly possible, power gets to everyone), then they'll know we're here, and they'll come to enslave us.

of course, I think Bush would nuke the entire world rather than let that happen
 
Gattsu25 said:
MAC Address + CPU model?
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I doubt that FAH is collecting that information for all of their users than storing it in a database to compare to later. I least I hope they aren't.
 
Evander said:
Is protein folding really the snakewater that's gonna cure it all?

Personally, when it comes to a cure for cancer, my money is on deactivation the enzymes that rebuild the telomeres of cancer cell DNA. I don't know if protein folder will get us any closer to that, though, since I suspect it has more to do with DNA mutation.



I'm not saying that folding is bad AT ALL, but I don't think that people understand exactly what it is. We're not "Curing Cancer", we're helping in research into a particular area that may contribute to a cure for cancer. That is great, but so is searching for Extra-terestrial life.

Fuck, maybe aliens will cure cancer for us too!
Click to expand...
You really need to understand how important structure is to understanding how proteins (including enzymes work). Let's say that the enzymes that rebuild the telomeres of cancer cell DNA are a potential target for some type of anti-Cancer treatment. Well how do you know where these enzymes bind to (the substrate they bind to that is) or where potential targets you could use on the enzyme themself exist for dactivation? Well you could use site-directed mutagenesis and randomly change nucleotides to try to see if it would change the function of the enzyme. Or you could get a structure (be it x-ray crystallography, NMR, computational predictive methods) hone your targets down and then proceed with site-directed mutagenesis.

Folding WU's on your PS3 won't probably cure cancer directly. But once we have structures on hand it is ammunition for us to use against not only cancer but any proteins that may or may not cause harm to humans or other organisms. Structure prediction is a pretty important aspect of medical research nowadays as we search for new targets to attack.
 
Elbrain said:
Thats cool at least there are 1million people that are not douchebags! Go folding@home!
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I'm folding from time to time, but I must say I'm not averly convinced by the real interest of folding@home.

Yes, this can be useful, but brute force isn't always the best method, especially in these fields of research. If F@H results was really fabulous, wouldn't we see more official research programs supporting it ?
 
Tideas said:
no matter how you argue it, there's one difference between F@H and SETI. F@H doesn't have the possibility of the enslavement of humanity.

SETI on the other hand, if you discover a more superior alien out there that's even more evil and aggressive than humanity (I know, that's hard, but it's highly possible, power gets to everyone), then they'll know we're here, and they'll come to enslave us.

of course, I think Bush would nuke the entire world rather than let that happen
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:lol
 
larvi said:
I doubt that FAH is collecting that information for all of their users than storing it in a database to compare to later. I least I hope they aren't.
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You know how big a database would be if they had that information on 1 million users? A few hundred MB

Surely their privacy policy would say that they will track usage but not share it...I don't see why they wouldn't (or shouldn't) keep rudimentary logs of unique users
 
Out of curiosity, what's the electricity cost of folding on a PS3 all day? It sounds like it taxes the PS3 pretty heavily - Doesn't this hit your bill pretty hard?
 
nice waste of electricity pretending to cure cancer

Wraith said:
Out of curiosity, what's the electricity cost of folding on a PS3 all day? It sounds like it taxes the PS3 pretty heavily - Doesn't this hit your bill pretty hard?
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170-180w afaik
 
acm2000 said:
nice waste of electricity pretending to cure cancer
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I wouldn't call it a waste at all. I was just curious whether or not it could make a real dent in your electricty bill. At 170-180, sounds like it would.
 
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