FAQ/Guide section could be way better.

[arentol]

This may come across a bit hostile, and that is intentional. I want to piss people off enough to get them to freaking do something!!!!

So I have come back to the horde recently after some time off from folding, and so far I have found the guides/FAQs to be seriously lame. They definitely used to be better, and I won't even get into my issues with hardfolding.com!

For instance, I have been folding for three days, using EXCLUSIVELY information that is available on the Stanford site to get set up because nothing in this forums guides/faqs thread was any better than what was already on the Stanford site. Basically I found this forum to be entirely useless for basic setup since I already have the Hordes team number memorized, and that was the only thing other than FrEaKy's info on -bigadv (which apparently doesn't apply to me) and HFM.net (that doesn't increase my points in any way) that was apparently useful to me. So anyway today I found this in a random thread:

You have to finish 10 WU with your passkey to get the bonus. You are using a passkey....?

People here are concerned about how we can get more folders, and how we can them producing more points, and then something RIDICULOUSLY BASIC as this is not even in the guides? THIS MAKES NO SENSE AT ALL!!!!!!

Another example,the guide lists SMP under "Advanced tips and tricks". A lot of people in these forums are primarily gamers, and they may not know what SMP means off the top of their heads. So they will see that and not know what it means, and then the linked guide doesn't even really tell them what it is or the value of using it. Therefore many people will setup the basic client and move on, then wonder why there points suck, and then they will quit without ever knowing they could have been doing 10 times better by just having a good guide available to them! There needs to be a MUCH simpler way of helping people make the right choices and get the right setup.

What we really need is a guide that is SPECIFIC to the Horde, and that tells people what to install and, as closely as possible, EXACTLY what they should do based on what kind of system they have.

I would suggest guides for the following:

Single core. (standard client)
Multicore that is slow or with limited up time (might miss deadlines). (multiple standard clients)
Dual core or Quad core without HT. (SMP)
Six or more cores, including Quad core with HT. (-BIGADV)
Single GPU.
Multi-GPU.

Obviously we can't cover all possible setups because of OS, 32/64bit, and other issues, but we can get people headed down the right road, and make sure we include important things like the PASSKEY for Bonuses issue, and likely many other things I don't know about since I have been out of the game for so long.

Any thoughts/volunteers/suggestions/improvements, etc.?

 

[EvilAlchemist]

Thanks for your suggestions arentol.You are correct that the guide section is slightly dated.

As of April 2010, there are some changing coming up that are holding us back from writing guides.

The biggest is, The SMP2 project is in beta and setup will change soon. The SMP1 project required use of the local network stack to combine all the running threads. Once SMP2 comes out of beta, this will no logner be necessary when will simply setup a great deal.

Also, some smp2 projects will run on dual cores, some will not (in terms of deadlines).
We are trying to determine a min system configuration so we can advise users on this, but the data is hard to obtain.


There is a new guide being worked on, but it is slow going.There are many factors and variables to cover. I will do my best to speed up the work on this.

If you would be willing, when I am finished with this, i would like you to review it to make sure it is more friendly and makes the setup process easier.

 

[86 5.0L]

this was the best guide I have seen that worked for me

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1470698

only thing missing was a passkey section

 

[arentol]

If you would be willing, when I am finished with this, i would like you to review it to make sure it is more friendly and makes the setup process easier.

I would love to help out. That is a large part of my goal in posting this.... To help out either directly or by complaining until someone else does something

Send me a PM when you are ready for testing (since I might not check this forum for a few days at a time) and I will try it out and let you know how it goes!

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

The biggest is, The SMP2 project is in beta and setup will change soon. The SMP1 project required use of the local network stack to combine all the running threads. Once SMP2 comes out of beta, this will no logner be necessary when will simply setup a great deal.

In my experience "beta" normally means "we'll get something out about 8-10 months from now". So this isn't really a valid point. You still need to change it, and if it comes out of beta next week, tough luck. You'll have to change it again then.

Also, some smp2 projects will run on dual cores, some will not (in terms of deadlines).
We are trying to determine a min system configuration so we can advise users on this, but the data is hard to obtain.

This does not excuse not saying that the passkey is necessary. And for people like us, more information is ALWAYS better. It is much better to actually say on an official guide that some users may not make deadlines, than make people get all hyped up and excited, but then find that they aren't contributing any points because nobody thought it pertinent to tell them that their CPU wasn't good enough.

 

[EvilAlchemist]

Noted!