folding for the win!

S

SwanBeeCh

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 21, 2005
Messages
295
Okay,

So I've spent the last two hours looking up various information on distributed computing. It's something I'm definitely interested in.

I like to consider myself to be fairly tech savvy, but despite the numerous FAQ's that I've been browsing, I still have a lot of questions about the process.

The specifics seem to be pretty straightforward. It's the basics that are giving me trouble.

I install the client, and start folding. Okay, great. But...

...
How taxing on a system is the program?
Is it something that can be run 24/7, while doing other things on the machine?
Or is it something that can only be done during downtime?

I'm actually getting pretty frustrated, haha!

After all of today's reading, I'd really like to get started.

It would be really great if someone could lay out exactly how the process works. And especially, what other processes can be running while the folding program is hard at work.
 
SwanBeeCh said:
How taxing on a system is the program?
Is it something that can be run 24/7, while doing other things on the machine?
Or is it something that can only be done during downtime?
Click to expand...

Watch the temps, things can get a bit toasty, but nothing to really worry about. Folding will use your unneeded cpu cycles, ramping your cpu usage to 100%, and it can, and should be run 24/7.... it will free up your cpu when needed, and then ramp back up when not needed. You probably want to shut the client down when gaming.... just don't forget to start it back up when your done..... And just to clarify, you can use your machine normally while folding.. if things get a little laggy (photoshop etc...) just shut the client down until those tasks are completed....

Welcome to the team, and I hope that helps....

 
Exactly what i needed to know.

Thanks :D

I'm in the process of rebuilding my machines. I should be folding with most of them, hopefully by the end of the week.
 
While some may have had a different experience, I've never had trouble running folding while I was gaming and have found no need to stop it.

It is correct that F@H runs at a very low priority which allows pretty much anything else to use the clock cycles when needed. The only caveat is that F@H sometimes does not like to give up active use RAM. I have not really experienced any issues with this and in cases between Linux and Windows gaming, F@H has actually been paged from RAM to the swap file when the game needed the RAM.

For the most part it is completely transparent except for the fact that the CPU will run hotter. Keeping an eye on your temps is always a good thing.

I'm sure there is software out there that doesn't play well with F@H, as it's impossible not to have some problem. But for the vast majority of instances, there will be no problems. We have over 1k people folding for the [H]orde and few if any of us have any trouble. There are many more thousands of people out there folding with no troubles whatsoever. Basically, get it running and more than likely you will forget that it's even there. If something does come up, then come back in here and make a post about it. If we don't have a solution or can't come up with a solution to the problem, then I don't see any reason not to take F@H off the machine. We will obviously regret the loss of the machine, but it's better to lose one machine than to lose someone who might possibly bring in a lot more than just that one machine.

 
There have been minor issues in the past and there may be minor issues in the future with the new bera clients which have come out but nothing really major.

I've had uptimes in weeks before having to do a Windoze update with folding running in the background no problem, and the only time they get switched off is either when the heatsinks get cleaned out or when I go on away for more that 3-4 days.

If your running the console client then that works fine with games.
The SMP client is not so good.
All I do is use "SMP Seesaw" to set the affinities so the client is off one core and the game is locked to the empty core.
Doing that on my Dual-Dual Opteron box gives me better gaming + folding than leaving everything to Windoze to sort out.

Luck ............ :D
 
digital_exhaust said:
<snip>
Click to expand...

See?

This is the type of advice I am forced to give because I'm stuck on ancient hardware.....

Seriously, on my P4 3g Northwood box, gaming and using Photoshop/Gimp is....well, difficult.. at best. Am I missing something, maybe a tweak here or there that might help smooth things out for me?

 
I rarely have issues with f@h interfering with other programs. If it does its real easy to close it out and restart it when your done. I have overclocked machines running folding 24/7 since december of last year with just basic maintenance every few months and they are still running better then ever.

Welcome to the team!
 
Stress yes there is stress. You are using more electricity, causing more heat. So using the best cooling options and keeping you computer clean inside and out means more then to your avg user.

http://techreport.com/articles.x/4341/1
That was an article done at Tech Report back in 2002 yea its alittle old but most of it still holds true.

I play alot of online games with Folding running in the background and never notice a difference. Though some will argue when playing more intense games like the top FPS games where 2 frames per sec matter.

You can run this 24/7 or you can run it as you sleep its really upto you.
 
In terms of running it 24/7, I've had my P4 1.8 rig running non-stop for over 2 months, and haven't even had to switch the monitor over to check that it's going, so as long as your temps are good, you can run away all day
 
Running the SMP client on my son's OC'ed q6600 at 2.7 Ghz.... some games will play fine with the SMP, and some won't even load. Others play poorly.

Some of my favorites, like TF2, play fine with SMP in the background. I have noticed that not much SMP happens while I am playing TF2. On other games, my son just turns off SMP until he is done playing.

Welcome to the [H]ardest Team in the World!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top