PS3 System Update v4.30 Removes Folding@Home

H

HardOCP News

[H] News
Joined
Dec 31, 1969
Messages
0
Sony's next system update for the PS3, due out tomorrow, will remove Folding@Home from the PS3. :(

We’d like to thank the more than 15 million users that have participated in the program since it started on PS3 in 2007. PS3 users have donated in total more than 100 million computation hours to the Folding@home project to date, and as a result, contributing greatly to Stanford University’s Alzheimer ’s disease research. Considering the contribution PS3 has made to the project, we decided to retire it as a result of discussions with Stanford University.
Click to expand...
 
Standard Sony. Have something that people like that does a lot of good and retire it for no good damn reason.
 
GilmourD said:
Standard Sony. Have something that people like that does a lot of good and retire it for no good damn reason.
Click to expand...

It says it discussed it with Stanford. If it were enough of an impact, I'm sure Stanford would have asked to keep it.
 
As much as I hate Sony, I just don't see this as being a big issue. It think that the Folding@Home function would have been a temporary thing to start with on a home console. It would eat up a lot of bandwitdth and provide them without any real profit as far as I can tell.
 
nah i think too much "Yellow-Light-of-Death" and sony dont want to RMA anymore
 
Crest said:
It says it discussed it with Stanford. If it were enough of an impact, I'm sure Stanford would have asked to keep it.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I mean basically they said "We've done such a great job that we've decided not to do it anymore." WTF?!?!


ND40oz said:
I doubt that, it's the same reason hardly anyone folds a P4 anymore, it just doesn't perform.
Click to expand...

Okay, so let's assume that the performance has decreased, so what? I mean if we assume that a PS3 did four work units a day initially but now only does two that's still something, as opposed to the none they will do after the update.
 
There's been a lot happening with the Pande Group and, correct me if I'm wrong, I believe they're trying to come-up with a unified clients for CPU's and GPU's, so they can issue all machines the same type of wu's with size being the only consideration. Perhaps the PS3 doesn't fit into this and would require more work which they're trying to minimize.
 
Crest said:
It says it discussed it with Stanford. If it were enough of an impact, I'm sure Stanford would have asked to keep it.
Click to expand...

Exactly. It was a joint decision. Plus it has been questioned as a reason for many PS3 failures due to heat.
 
I remember folding on my PS3 a long time ago. The internal fan kicked on high, and the thing became a heater. At the time, risking a 1-year warranty $400 console to fold wasn't worth it IMO....that's why I did a lot of GPU clients instead.
 
I got 3 PS3's from gen 1, gen 3 and gen 1 slim. no heating issues and I am in CA. its hot and dry most of the year. I believe user error since most people live like pigs.
 
In other words :

We're running out of features to remove that a few people may want while also labeling it an improvement over the last update so now we have to start hitting things that people actually use!
 
pgwalsh said:
There's been a lot happening with the Pande Group and, correct me if I'm wrong, I believe they're trying to come-up with a unified clients for CPU's and GPU's, so they can issue all machines the same type of wu's with size being the only consideration. Perhaps the PS3 doesn't fit into this and would require more work which they're trying to minimize.
Click to expand...

PG did little more then get the WUs ready for the PS3. Sony actually wrote all the programming and code for the client and core.

My guess is the new style combined WUs would have required a complete rewrite and neither Sony nor PG wanted to deal with having to test everything for it and program it so they just let the current set of WUs for it finish their runs and then end the program.

I folded 3000 WUs on my gen 2 before I stopped and it still works just fine.
PS3-3000WUs.jpg
 
DarkStar_WNY said:
Yeah, I mean basically they said "We've done such a great job that we've decided not to do it anymore." WTF?!?!




Okay, so let's assume that the performance has decreased, so what? I mean if we assume that a PS3 did four work units a day initially but now only does two that's still something, as opposed to the none they will do after the update.
Click to expand...

I'm wondering if Sony tried to squeeze money out of them and Stanford refused.
 
Last edited:
I put in a solid 16 months 24/7/365 on my old fat PS3, and it did bite the shit last year while I was in Iraq (it was home at the folks place folding, finally dies about 3 months into that tour) but it did over 2300 units before it died. I'm pretty sure folding was probly why, that made a ton of heat and eventually the system yellow'd out on me

I don't blame sony for this, if anything people should be bitching about the millions of Xbox360's or Wii's that never folded, even with the program coming to an end there was still over 100 MILLION hours put into the project, I can't see why anyone is sour about this. The PS3 just can't keep up with the new direction Stanford is going and since the PS3 is almost at it's end Sony would rather put it's effort into getting the next console ready rather than something that isnt viable anymore.

They are still a company and they have to look out for themselves guys, just be glad they enabled 15 million users to put in over 100 million hours into the project, thats more than nintendo or microsoft can say. Everything comes to an end sooner or later, just look at how often we re-tool our own farms lol, I say Sony did pretty well for as long as they were around with static hardware.
 
It continues to amaze me how Sony introduces new features and then changes their mind and removes them.

Hardware backwards compatability
SACD support
Software backwards compatibility
OtherOS install
Folding@Home

I am sure there are others....sigh.. people buy a PS3 for these features only to have them take away a few years later
 
DarkStar_WNY said:
Yeah, I mean basically they said "We've done such a great job that we've decided not to do it anymore." WTF?!?!




Okay, so let's assume that the performance has decreased, so what? I mean if we assume that a PS3 did four work units a day initially but now only does two that's still something, as opposed to the none they will do after the update.
Click to expand...

^This

The only client I used was the ps3 because I could reliable keep it running 24/7. I now live in a place without proper Internet and many power outages, so I stopped. I move in a few weeks and was going back to churning out WU.

Now no one will benefit from my donations. What gives??
 
DarkStar_WNY said:
Okay, so let's assume that the performance has decreased, so what? I mean if we assume that a PS3 did four work units a day initially but now only does two that's still something, as opposed to the none they will do after the update.
Click to expand...

Perfomance of the PS3 hasn't decreased, the programs requirements have increased. Do you complain that a new game doesn't run on your PC from 2006 the year the PS3 was released? You have to upgrade the hardware to run the newer releases, that's what's happening here except you can't upgrade the hardware.
 
Groto said:
It continues to amaze me how Sony introduces new features and then changes their mind and removes them.

Hardware backwards compatability
SACD support
Software backwards compatibility
OtherOS install
Folding@Home

I am sure there are others....sigh.. people buy a PS3 for these features only to have them take away a few years later
Click to expand...

good thing it still does what it was meant to, you know, play games :rolleyes:
 
Sony is probably going to load a stealth DC app on all PS3s in the next release which they will use for their own purposes. It will probably be buried in page 102 of the EULA everyone reads....
 
Fuck you sony I always leave the ps3 on to fold work units after I am doing using it since it is set to start folding after 30 minutes then shut down after it is done.
 
well the fact is PS3 client didn't actually do any science. they used the PS3 client to verify WU's returned by the GPU clients. but i'm sure the reason sony pushed to remove it is that with PS3 reaching its EOL period sony doesn't want to have to spend money replacing PS3's that die due to folding. since i'm sure sony is planning to end the production line for PS3 to shift to full production of the PS4.
 
Hmmm, It's so unlike Sony to remove features from it's new firmware releases...:rolleyes:
 
heh... sony gui is still good, system feature/capability is worse. Microsoft Gui is has gotten worse with better feature/capability.. arg!!!! we cant win!
 
Zohar78 said:
heh... sony gui is still good, system feature/capability is worse. Microsoft Gui is has gotten worse with better feature/capability.. arg!!!! we cant win!
Click to expand...

Well MS did get rid of Facebook and Twitter I think. Not that it worked all that great on the 360 anyways. Also ya, the 360's GUI is crap. The original blade inferace was so much better than this new crap.
 
Damn Shame. I fold on the PS3 and this really sucks. Guess I'll have to get back to folding on PC.

Pretty much used the PS3 instead of the PC cause I dont like leaving the PC on all the time...
 
Squall_Rinoa89 said:
Damn Shame. I fold on the PS3 and this really sucks. Guess I'll have to get back to folding on PC.

Pretty much used the PS3 instead of the PC cause I dont like leaving the PC on all the time...
Click to expand...

Even if you didn't run your PC 24/7, you'd still be producing a lot more points a day.

Using the v7 folding client or GPU Tracker v2 make the whole process pretty easy too.
 
Groto said:
It continues to amaze me how Sony introduces new features and then changes their mind and removes them.

Hardware backwards compatability
SACD support
Software backwards compatibility
OtherOS install
Folding@Home

I am sure there are others....sigh.. people buy a PS3 for these features only to have them take away a few years later
Click to expand...

OtherOs support was crap and slow

Folding isn't putting out the results it used to and it wasn't JUST Sony's decision.
 
ballistic90 said:
As much as I hate Sony, I just don't see this as being a big issue. It think that the Folding@Home function would have been a temporary thing to start with on a home console. It would eat up a lot of bandwitdth and provide them without any real profit as far as I can tell.
Click to expand...

It wasn't Sony's Bandwidth.
 
krotch said:
Well MS did get rid of Facebook and Twitter I think. Not that it worked all that great on the 360 anyways. Also ya, the 360's GUI is crap. The original blade inferace was so much better than this new crap.
Click to expand...

I actually like the newer interface, each to their own i guess :)
 
ND40oz said:
Perfomance of the PS3 hasn't decreased, the programs requirements have increased. Do you complain that a new game doesn't run on your PC from 2006 the year the PS3 was released? You have to upgrade the hardware to run the newer releases, that's what's happening here except you can't upgrade the hardware.
Click to expand...

I understand that completely, and you totally overlook the point to try and argue semantics?

The point I was making is that even if the PS3 completes fewer results today then it did a few years ago that even a smaller amount of work done is still preferable to no work done at all.
 
DarkStar_WNY said:
I understand that completely, and you totally overlook the point to try and argue semantics?

The point I was making is that even if the PS3 completes fewer results today then it did a few years ago that even a smaller amount of work done is still preferable to no work done at all.
Click to expand...

You're missing the point that it can't even do the smaller amount of work any longer. If it's not compatible with the newer clients which are required for the current WUs, then it can't complete any work. It's not about completing fewer WUs, it's about actually being able to complete any.
 
dyzophoria said:
I actually like the newer interface, each to their own i guess :)
Click to expand...

I preferred the older GUI as it was much quicker and didn't require me to go through like 3 different loading screens to get to 1 option. Although, Youtube/Netflix/etc wasn't available during the blade interface era.

Like opening Youtube requires me to scroll to apps. Which then loads the apps screen. Then I get to launch Youtube, which takes a second to load that. Then I end up having to press Y, to bring up the search, which takes another few secs to load. Then I can finally type in something.

It gets the job done, but in a roundabout way.
 
Lets get this back on topic guys -


My thoughts- Sony has their reasons, and I would go to assume it isnt exclusively Sony's decision. the PS3 was great for folding, but it has been far out surpassed now, and chances are Stanford does not want to continue to support it when their current trend is to have only one set of work units (for CPU and GPU). Another set is just more maintenance .
 
I'm sure they didn't do this unilaterally.. I don't understand all the ire directed at Sony.

It looked like a lot of the publications from the PS3 were primarily validating their methods, not folding proteins of interest anyway. This was a cool project while it lasted, but I'm not seeing much reason to really hate on sony for this development since it probably doesn't hurt the project at all.
 
Weird. I downloaded 4.30 for my 60GB launch PS3 however I still have Life With Playstation installed.. and my Folding@Home still works just fine... 0.o Maybe they made it so new PS3's cant?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top