Most scientifically useful DC project?

[Jakalwarrior]

Gettin sorta cold and running a DC client on the two computers in my room with all of the other house heating off at night sounds like a viable energy saving plan with a bit of philanthropy thrown in for good measure. Competition, points, etc... aside, which program has the highest viability?

 

[Wheresatom]

Folding@home has the best GPU support as of right now, which would increase your heat output if you are trying to heat your room.

I am not sure where you are located, but might I suggest that you set your heat to 55 or something rather than off at night. Water pipes only have to burst once to make a huge headache.

Also, what kind of heat do you have? If it is a heat pump you will cost yourself money by forcing the emergency heat to run to recover in the morning unless you slowly step up your heat setpoint. Just a warning...

 

[alan2308]

We're a bit biased, almost everyone will tell you F@H or WCG, that's what we do here. But I would suggest you check out the projects for yourself:

http://folding.stanford.edu/
http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/

and of course, a list of most of the active projects out there

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_distributed_computing_projects

 

[Jakalwarrior]

Folding@home has the best GPU support as of right now, which would increase your heat output if you are trying to heat your room.

I am not sure where you are located, but might I suggest that you set your heat to 55 or something rather than off at night. Water pipes only have to burst once to make a huge headache.

Also, what kind of heat do you have? If it is a heat pump you will cost yourself money by forcing the emergency heat to run to recover in the morning unless you slowly step up your heat setpoint. Just a warning...

Just plain ol central gas heating (forced air?). In louisiana it rarely drops bellow freezing but you are right, it wouldn't hurt it to set it high enough to keep things from freezing.


I completely forgot about GPU support though! The lil 4850 could pump make some serious heat.

 

[jws2346]

We're a bit biased, almost everyone will tell you F@H or WCG, that's what we do here. [/URL]

Yep, yep, yep, seeing that the [H]orde team 33 is the number one team in Stanford's F@H project and we're making inroads into the USC WCG project (seems less particular about equipment and for CPU folding it seems pretty stable) I'd say we're a little bias about which DC program to use.

ATM I'm personally only running 2x stock WC'ed 24/7 Q6600's with a 8800GT in one and a 9600GSO in the other. The quads do GPU2 on core #3 for Stanford's F@H and the cores #0, #1 and #2 do the USC WCG program. The programs seem to play nice with each other and I've never experienced any problems.

Now as far as the heat goes, it really depends on where you live and what kind of heating you have. If you live in the Artic or there abouts I don't think any type of DC'ing with a computer would help in the heating process. (in other words if you live somewhere where it gets as cold as shite outside in the winter ) I live in a 1x bedroom apartment, on the 7th floor, on the "left" coast. I have had my electric baseboard heater breakers pulled for a couple of years. I usually have at least 3x 24/7 boxen going (I had a problem with my E6600, but only temporary ). Other than a few days in the winter when it gets extremely cold to me (remember anything to me below 20 F is extremely cold ) I put on a warmer shirt and wait out the chill (it usually gets warmer in the afternoon, more sun ).To me it stay pretty comfortable in here. I have a breathing problem so 21c to 24c are optimum temps for me. (I find it's easier to breathe)

What's cool for me (pun intended) may not be cool for you. I realize everyone has different sensitivities to hot and cold. (in other words, one size doesn't fit all)

Folding and WCGing for a CURE