Folding on an xbox (360)

[Awesomedude]

Now we've all seen the news about the xbox 360 and it's 3 processors, and i am going to assume that it's going to be cheaper than a pc with 3 processors, so when the box is released do u think there will be some way to fold on it? also w/ current xbox prices going to fall, can one fold on it? would folding on a farm of xbox's (360) be cheaper than boxless pc's?

I know u can get linux on the xbox, so hopefully you'll be able to w/ the 360 and fold.

 

[magnusvir]

this will all depend on whether there will be a distro which supports Xbox 360. The two main concerns are whether the 360 will come with a HD and whether you can perform a Live CD boot or not.

 

[IronBits]

[font=verdana, arial, helvetica]The important specs are

Custom IBM PowerPC-based CPU
• Three symmetrical cores running at 3.2 GHz each
• Two hardware threads per core; six hardware threads total
• VMX-128 vector unit per core; three total
• 128 VMX-128 registers per hardware thread
• 1 MB L2 cache

Memory
• 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM
• 700 MHz of DDR

Memory Bandwidth • 22.4 GB/s memory interface bus bandwidth
• 256 GB/s memory bandwidth to EDRAM
• 21.6 GB/s front-side bus

Overall System Floating-Point Performance
• 1 teraflop

Storage
• Detachable and upgradeable 20GB hard drive
• 12x dual-layer DVD-ROM
• Memory Unit support starting at 64 MB
• Built-in Ethernet port[/font]

 

[chileman]

I can't see Microsoft trying to sell that 360 for much more than $300 (maybe $360). Just think, $300 (system) $100 (2 games) $30 (2nd controller) and you'll be out $430 at launch! If they went higher they'd scare off a lot of mainstream they were targeting with the MTV gig.

So ya, when (not if) they get linux running on that and you can throw 9.6GHZ for $300 ya, it'll be a great way to fold. Plus it has WIFI so you don't have to run ethernet to all of them.

I'm pretty pumped about the system in general, once Gamestop takes preorders I'll be there.

 

[neisius]

Actually it's 3 Power PC 3,2ghz processors...At least that's my thoery on how they will be able to sell it for $300 ($400 with hard drive).
It will be a year or 2 anyway untill they have a linux out for it. just look at how long it took for xbox 1 and xbox 1 is closer to a normal PC then the 360 looks to be.

Plus we all know how well macs fold But when there is a way I will fold on my 360 just like I fold on my xbox.

My xbox folds ~15ppd so unless they start selling them for $50 I think you can make more points/$ with a cheap 2500+ setup.

 

[chileman]

Not to act like a know it all but

Three symmetrical cores running at 3.2 GHz each

Quoted from http://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox360/factsheet.htm

[off topic[ All I know is that I don't trust Sony with consoles (ok, my PSP is great, but I had 3 PS2's die, costing me $700). My xbox has been flawless and the wireless stuff is what's getting me going on the 360. [/off topic]

With all the ways you can get "media" into this (ie the interchangeable HD, memory units, wireless, media center extender) you know they will find a way in to get Linux on it. Mine will fold the minute it can.

Fold on fellas!

 

[neisius]

Not to act like a know it all but

Quoted from http://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox360/factsheet.htm

I guess it was just one place that posted 3,2ghz instead of 3.2
are any other powerPC chips even near 3.2ghz? let alone 3cored/6threaded?

 

[Duster]

reverse engineering is so cool/hard... depends on how much M$ built in things to stop this

they might have been rushed so they might haven't as many as they would like, of course they learned from the first one

it will have linux i am sure just give those people some time hopefully 6 months

 

[chileman]

Wish they'd be like Sony and just sell a kit and get over it. Sure it wouldn't be as fun, but you know it'd sell 360's.

Fold on Fellas!

 

[rodsfree]

I guess it was just one place that posted 3,2ghz instead of 3.2

[Useless Trivia]
Sounds like a European site....
They use the "," [comma] instead of "."[decimal point] for dimensions and calculations.
[/Useless Trivia]

 

[KodiakStar]

I was going to say

sounds a bit odd for a box to have that much [H]ardness...

 

[unhappy_mage]

If it's a powerpc architecture, it'll be slow at folding due to the lack of a fortran compiler that doesn't suck for that platform. The fact that there are 3 3.2 gHz processors will make up for it, though...

It'll need a mac-type linux, since it's not x86 like athlons or pentiums. But there are several out there. It would also totally and completely rock to get OS X on it. That'd suck for microsoft, putting out a console and then having it hacked to run an Apple os... Beats the hell out of the Mac Mini tho

 

[KodiakStar]

if there were 3 in there... let alone 1.. imagine how hot that would get under load..

you would have to w/c your xbox

 

[Irishllama]

if there were 3 in there... let alone 1.. imagine how hot that would get under load..

you would have to w/c your xbox

Hmm, That would be A Totally awsome mod...

 

[Viper87227]

if there were 3 in there... let alone 1.. imagine how hot that would get under load..

you would have to w/c your xbox

Don't start rolling your eyes just yet... remember, our dear friend Steve watercooled an Xbox. It can be done.

 

[wake6830]

According to microsoft, the xbox 360 is "watercooled."

Pictures and 3rd party people have told us that it's just their marketing-speak for heatpipe cooling.

 

[Irishllama]

Don't start rolling your eyes just yet... remember, our dear friend Steve watercooled an Xbox. It can be done.

Do you have link and pics?

 

[OSUguy98]

check the front page.... Kyle has an announcement about it...


Keep on Folding!! For the [H]orde!!

 

[Viper87227]

If you dont see it on teh front page, check out Hypothermia. It was probably 2 or 3 years ago, but the links are still up.

 

[SmokeRngs]

I wonder something about this setup, will OS X be able to be installed on the system. I wonder this because there won't be any drivers for a good chunk of the hardware I would bet. I know jack about Macs and I wonder if drivers could be written for it to make it work. Or is there an alternate OS that runs on the same CPUs that also has a folding client? Just remember, Macs generally do not fold the greatest and absolutely horrible on Tinkers, but with 3 processors and the price of the new Xbox, that would probably take care of any problems like that.

Besides the OS "support", I wonder about the processors themselves. Are they the normal processors that you might find in a Mac or are they neutered in some way that would kill their ability to fold?

One more point is the RAM. I wonder if you will be able to upgrade the RAM on this thing so you could run bigpackets on it. 512 meg of RAM isn't much when you're talking about running up to three clients at once.

 

[neisius]

I wonder something about this setup, will OS X be able to be installed on the system. I wonder this because there won't be any drivers for a good chunk of the hardware I would bet. I know jack about Macs and I wonder if drivers could be written for it to make it work. Or is there an alternate OS that runs on the same CPUs that also has a folding client? Just remember, Macs generally do not fold the greatest and absolutely horrible on Tinkers, but with 3 processors and the price of the new Xbox, that would probably take care of any problems like that.

Besides the OS "support", I wonder about the processors themselves. Are they the normal processors that you might find in a Mac or are they neutered in some way that would kill their ability to fold?

One more point is the RAM. I wonder if you will be able to upgrade the RAM on this thing so you could run bigpackets on it. 512 meg of RAM isn't much when you're talking about running up to three clients at once.

The 360 uses hardware similar to desktops just like the xbox. Once it's been out for a year or 2 they will have time to hack up their own drivers just like with the xbox. The only problem I see is that it uses 3 mac processors(not sure if any desktop out there has 3 mac processors). That alone is going to slow the OS hacking down.

Even now there still isn't a way to have hardware 3D on a xbox1 runing linux.

And RAM would be a problem because it could run 6 clients at once. that's less then 80mb/client. Not going to cut it for the big packets.
In the xbox1 since the dev kit uses the same motherboard as the normal xbox1 it has extra spaces to add RAM(from 64 to 128). A fun little mod...Just 400 little points to solder
But since the 360 uses G5s as the dev kit that means they probably will not give us the extra RAM spaces.

 

[Parja]

One more point is the RAM. I wonder if you will be able to upgrade the RAM on this thing so you could run bigpackets on it. 512 meg of RAM isn't much when you're talking about running up to three clients at once.

Considering they're talking GDDR3 for the memory on that sucker, I think it would be very difficult and cost prohibitive to upgrade the memory.

 

[neisius]

Considering they're talking GDDR3 for the memory on that sucker, I think it would be very difficult and cost prohibitive to upgrade the memory.

just gota find a broken one on ebay and steal the chips

 

[Duster]

just gota find a broken one on ebay and steal the chips

only work if there is extra space on board for it

which i bet they learned not to have for there first one

only time will tell

 

[Duster]

And RAM would be a problem because it could run 6 clients at once. that's less then 80mb/client. Not going to cut it for the big packets.
In the xbox1 since the dev kit uses the same motherboard as the normal xbox1 it has extra spaces to add RAM(from 64 to 128). A fun little mod...Just 400 little points to solder
But since the 360 uses G5s as the dev kit that means they probably will not give us the extra RAM spaces.

just b/c it can doesnt mean it can

u could prob run one or two clients and get better results b/c of this ram problem

plus it would run cooler

 

[unhappy_mage]

just b/c it can doesnt mean it can

I'm gonna have to argue with you on that one...

Even running 3 (6?) instances of normal packets would put out a heck of a lot of points. Might have to look into one of these...

 

[Nate53085]

What I think is interesting is you all think that Microsoft "learned" from the Xbox 1 to not make it modable. If Microsoft was intelligent they would WANT it to be mobable. So many Xbox 1 were bought for the sake of it....it would be really stupid to do otherwise.

 

[chileman]

They are talking about "customize it to make it your xbox". Well my xbox has Linux on it so I expect to be running it on my 360. Or am I reading the marketing speak wrong?

 

[SmokeRngs]

What I think is interesting is you all think that Microsoft "learned" from the Xbox 1 to not make it modable. If Microsoft was intelligent they would WANT it to be mobable. So many Xbox 1 were bought for the sake of it....it would be really stupid to do otherwise.

Actually, they don't want it to be moddable into things other than what they intend because of the price of the console. Microsoft loses money on each console sold. What they want sold are games and the services behind them. That is where they get their money from. Selling a bunch of Xboxen and not having people buy the games hurts their bottom line.