How can I fold on my PS3?

R

Roman79

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Oct 2, 2000
Messages
1,393
Maybe this is a silly question, but I just can't seem to find a way to do it. My system is up to date, but there is nothing mentioning Folding@Home under Life with PlayStation. I'm sure I did it before, a year or more ago, but it seemed to disappear with one of the system updates. All the instructions I've managed to find says it will prompt me to download it and participate.
If I push and hold square to get a channel listing all it shows is The Live Channel and The World Heritage Channel. Am I missing something?

TIA!
 
On my PS3 as soon as you launch Life with Playstation it starts folding so I don't know how to answer that.
 
I wish mine did that! :)

The only mention of Folding is on the initial Playstation@Home screen (before you hit enter to launch it).
 
If you have PS3 system version 1.6 or later, you will see a Folding@home icon in the Network column of the XMB (PS3 menu).

http://folding.stanford.edu/English/FAQ-PS3#ntoc3
Click to expand...

That, like many things at Stanford, is outdated. FaH was integrated into LwP in late '08 as the Folding@home channel.

First thing to try is checking to see if FaH is disabled. with LwP running:

Triangle > General Settings > Folding@home Priority


Options:

Folding@home Normal Mode - all channels available

Disable Folding@home - no FAH, all other channels available

Folding@home Expert Mode - no other channels available



Another option may be to use Update Channels. This is greyed out on all my PS3s, but it wouldn't hurt to give it a try if it's available.

Good luck!

Amaruk
 
Amaruk said:
That, like many things at Stanford, is outdated. FaH was integrated into LwP in late '08 as the Folding@home channel.

First thing to try is checking to see if FaH is disabled. with LwP running:

Triangle > General Settings > Folding@home Priority


Options:

Folding@home Normal Mode - all channels available

Disable Folding@home - no FAH, all other channels available

Folding@home Expert Mode - no other channels available



Another option may be to use Update Channels. This is greyed out on all my PS3s, but it wouldn't hurt to give it a try if it's available.

Good luck!

Amaruk
Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestions, but I'm afraid I'm no further ahead. And yes you're SO right about the Stanford website. It's very frustrating to try and find the solution for something and find the official website has been out of date for 3 years....but I digress.

When I press triangle in LwP and go into General Settings I have the following options:

- Music
- Update Channels (greyed out and doesn't work)
- Screensaver
- Sound Effects
- Autopilot
- Auto-Start
- Playstation Network
- Help

Nothing here about F@H :(
 
Interesting. Here's my General settings menu.

- Music
- Folding@home Priority
- Update Channels (greyed out and doesn't work)
- Screensaver
- Sound Effects
- Autopilot
- Auto-Start
- Playstation Network
- Help
- About


Another difference is I don't have the The World Heritage Channel. I wonder if this replaced F@H somehow.

Only other thing I can think of is reinstalling LwP to see which channels you get...
 
The Life application has a couple "channels" inside it. In order to access the folding channel, hold down the square button for a few seconds, then the menu will pop up and you can switch to Folding@home. :)
 
bdwilson said:
The Life application has a couple "channels" inside it. In order to access the folding channel, hold down the square button for a few seconds, then the menu will pop up and you can switch to Folding@home. :)
Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestion, but if you read above I don't appear to have the Folding@Home channel for some reason.

I'll try uninstalling/reinstalling as suggested tonight and see if that helps
 
Keep in mind, though, last I checked, a PS3 is only good for about 1000 PPD, so unless you have free power, it's typically not worth it to run.
 
I did some research on this and it seems the PS3 was fixed to a max 1000ppd around 4 years ago when that was considered a very high number..but this was really something of an arbitrary choice by the Stanford people. The actual speed and scientific work done by the Cell processor easily exceeds the Q6600 quad core processor, which earns around 4k ppd..however the PS3 numbers are still "stuck" on the original benchmark that was set when folding first came out for the PS3. I've asked someone involved on the project why they don't update the point values to more accurately reflect the PS3's contribution, and the short answer is basically that it would be unfair to those who have been folding on their PS3 for the past few years at the lower 1000ppd rate. If they updated the PS3 benchmark to the current level that it is the equivalent of (probably 5k-6k ppd), that would make the people who have been loyally folding on their PS3's for several years at the lower rate quite unhappy.

Bottom line: The PS3 is faster than the points per day indicate and is certainly worth the 25 cents per day it costs in electricity. :)
 
Last edited:
Update: So I uninstalled / reinstalled LwP and my PS3 is happily folding away :D

I had not really thought of PPD vs power costs to be honest. That is kind of unfortunate that Stanford has no interest in adjusting the PS3 credit. If what you say is true it sounds like they may have lost sight of why we're folding.

Anyway, I don't have free power but I do have cheap power....so I'll let it run for a while :cool:
 
bdwilson said:
I hope you haven't lost sight of why you're really folding. ;) It shouldn't be all about points.
Click to expand...

It's funny, as soon as I posted that I started to wonder the same thing.

I guess what I was thinking was more points means it encourages more people to fold on their PS3s.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top