what is folding?

[drtitanium0]

what is folding?

[[XC] moddolicous]

It depends. Some programs fold just as a competition. Our D2OL team folds to find cures to diseases. When you are folding, it uses the extra clock cycles of your cpu.

[Craig]

Some programs fold just as a competition.


??????????????????????????????????????????????? What program are you referancing?????? No folding program I know of can be described this way!

[Craig]

what is folding?

"Folding" Is best known from the program Folding @ Home, which is a protien folding program. The idea is that the better the understanding of how protiens fold in nature, the better researchers can design treatments for differant deseases.

Distributed Folding was another program that also studied protien folding, that program is not now runnig, but may restart again after they've had time to go over the data already collected.

And moddolicous was right regarding how the folding programs use only spare CPU cycles to do the work, so these programs don't slow your system. When you start a highly intensive program the folding program slows to give top priority to what ever it is you are doing.

[krille]

ever heard..?

"To iron and fold one's barebone."

[IluvIntel]

No, I've never heard that saying, what does it mean? :confused:

[drtitanium0]

yeah wtf does that mean ¿¿¿¿¿¿

[Mangar]

Here is a link to the Stanford University site which "folding@Home" is controlled. http://folding.stanford.edu/about.html

I have been folding for 2 years now, 24x7

[csimon]

"Folding" Is best known from the program Folding @ Home, which is a protien folding program. The idea is that the better the understanding of how protiens fold in nature, the better researchers can design treatments for differant deseases.

Distributed Folding was another program that also studied protien folding, that program is not now runnig, but may restart again after they've had time to go over the data already collected.

And moddolicous was right regarding how the folding programs use only spare CPU cycles to do the work, so these programs don't slow your system. When you start a highly intensive program the folding program slows to give top priority to what ever it is you are doing.

great explanation craig.

basically it's also a great way to stress your cpu to make sure it's stable under full load.

[IluvIntel]

Oxford University in England has a distributed computing program running around on the net. Them and other institutions are doing it.

It pushes the CPU usage to 100% if you let it, you adjust your preferences from the user page at:

http://climateprediction.net/index.php

I've got 2 of these clients running on PC1. :clap:

[IluvIntel]

No, I've never heard that saying, what does it mean? :confused:

I was refering to post #5 from krille

[xman01]

i used to use UD but stopped when i posted a thread on their forum about the benefit wrt the econmy

they deleted the post, so i stopped

[Gray Mole]

This thread deserves a bump...

Folding is...

The cure for cancer...Seeing the light back in your grandmother's eyes when they make her alzheimer's go away...a young child who lives because she DOESN'T reject the heart that's been transplanted into her chest...opening your eyes after 3 years of blindness from brain injury...

Folding increases the chances of new medical technology to be found to make sick ppl better, and dying ppl live...

Folding is life...

Gray

[Disposibleteen]

the whole D2OL thing makes me wonder if that project has helped develop any real cures yet, you always hear them talking about it but what hard science and progress has come out of D2OL?

@Gray Mole- Very eloquently stated, i like that way of explaining it.

[conrad.maranan]

the whole D2OL thing makes me wonder if that project has helped develop any real cures yet, you always hear them talking about it but what hard science and progress has come out of D2OL?
Funny how you mentioned this. While driving home from work last night, I was asking myself the same exact question.

[jjcom]

mmmm...good question...just checked out their website and the last press thing seems to be from 2003 on new canidates...I would guess it's helping out their lab research

jjcom

[Gray Mole]

Funny, some ppl on another forum dropped out of folding, said it was getting boring and they couldn't stay competitive and wanted to go to another setup, I think it was Seti, which is fair enough...

I won't dis Seti, whatever I think the actual benefits might or might not be...

It's a little disheartening to see people get bored though, or when they give up doing it because they don't get the instant gratification of a great benching score...

Just remember whatever you're processing IS helping them with something VERY important...

Someone you know and maybe even love (or at least you've :bananal: ) might just benefit from it, and that's what really matters...the fact that it's got that little bit of a competitive gimmick is good to hook ppl in for a while, but the reason you don't stop when you question WHY is the stoic realization that you're contributing to the greater good...


K that was a just a little :sick:

lol

Someone delete this post please :rolleyes:

[Disposibleteen]

i dont think it should be deleted, its very true, i just wish they could give us some updates a little more often, i think it would help more people get excited and stay in the project, instead of people just saying that their work does good, they could see that it really does.

[Gray Mole]

I agree...

I haven't seen much of d2ol to be honest, though it looks similar to the Stanford setup, but the stanford site is constantly getting little hooky updates and stuff to read, so it gives you something new all the time I suppose...

It'd definitely work for all of them if they'd try to keep people in the loop, and keep them interested, does d2ol hand out the same type of tacky 'congratulations you've folded 1000 workunits!' e-cards like Stanford does? I love those things :rolleyes: , I'm tempted to print off my 10k one and get it laminated for the wall :woot:

lol

I'll have to go over to that site and have a look at it :)

Gray

[Disposibleteen]

no we dont get emails, we do have great team support though, maybe you could check us out and maybe give us a try:up:

[Gray Mole]

I might just have to do that :toast:

I've got a few rigs around here...

Can you bury the client so your wife can't tell she's got it running?

I've never been able to set her's up folding and she hates me doing it on mine :rolleyes: you can tell by the little flower in the tray but if I could hide it in there, she wouldn't have to know :D

Gray

[Disposibleteen]

yes you can run the client as a service so no one will know but you and your wife's CPU :D!

[jjcom]

yep, it can be hidden :D run it as a service, with Xtreme Watch Dog and it should work well

jjcom

[Gray Mole]

:woot:

I'm in...

I'll just have to get it in there when she's out tomorrow...

show off some 1337 :hm: skillz hehehe

I use my son's pc to fold a client as well :hrhr: I'd have a couple in the corner if she'd let me :rolleyes:

Thanks guys :)

Gray

[Disposibleteen]

hey no problem, always nice seeing new member on the team :up:

[IluvIntel]

Good to see some fellow O/C's beefing up this thread. I was a little concerned seeing it so quite. A good idea to get others interested in these sort of projects is to tell them how distributed computing projects are good torture tests for O/C rigs to prove there stable, amongst other programs running at the same time... dual core anyone ! lol.

Unfortunately unless you have experienced or seen a close family member suffering from one of the medical conditions that folding@home or D2ol are trying to solve, then there's not much kick to get people motivated.

I can't imagine people going through life, thinking "it won't hapen to me, I lead a healthy lifestyle and come from good strong genes" well, in case we have forgotten - your not perfect! your only human.

[Disposibleteen]

I had previous experience with DC from SETI and i got out of that from a lack of team/ faith in the project, i found D2OL and have loved it ever since.

[jjcom]

yeah, I ran Seti for a while...and tryed out F@H, but didn't like them. Then found D2OL for XS and the team support was good. Plus, I had more faith in this project then the others.

jjcom

[One_Hertz]

Wow never knew something like that existed... *starts up folding@home* gona run that anytime my comp is on, I do not run it 24/7 though i turn it off once in a while like one or two nights a week. I think A LOT more people would run it if they knew it existed. I, personally, have never heard of such a thing and I have been dealing with computers for many years.

[Ackbar]

Maybe this is redundant... but I thought my post on DC for folding/drug design answers some of the ideas behind "What is Folding?"
So, here... enjoy!
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=60999

Maybe I could create a short guide on the physics/chemistry behind folding/drug discovery and why it is needed/works well with distributed computing. So people can make an educated decision on what team to join. Would you guys like that?