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I've chosen DF for now..

TallBill

TallBill

Lifer
I, along with many floormates are ready to hit up a dc project.. we just started D2ol and was looking good.. but server problems suck.. i guess i can wait it out a bit.. but i need to be decided by x-mas break. So heres a breakdown of why each project isnt good for me. Prove me wrong, and maybe i'll switch my power.

D2ol - good because, shows individual stats.. people can see there own progress within the mini-team. It also gets results often, and is easy to set up and is for a good cause.

Seti - just wont happen.. people dont want to search for ET. friends wont help me

Eccp2 - I personally love this one and if i had my own rack i'd run it myself, but most people are not interested in cracking encryption

F@H - I like it running in systray.. but it starts all over if you restart the client! ack.. some of my friends turn computers off.. that wont do.

G@H - Does it have the same problem? Is it quicker? I might try it out if it gives quicker Wu's

UD - Somewhat silly points system.. might be worth it if TA put in some more effort.

DF - Runs in taskbar! Hidden.. not good for friends...




Df gets my efforts for now!
 
Seventeen Or Bust - Is looking for the final 17 prime numbers. Anandtech is a small Team, so a small amount of work will get you high in the stats. Runs in taskbar, uses ~6-8MB RAM. Cons - site can sometimes be down or a little slow, but is back up within a couple of hours, and has only happened twice in the past 3 weeks (tonight is seems 😱 and weekend before last when the server crashed). If you want the latest Windows client and the page is down, LMK 🙂


Confused
 
I'm 99.99% sure that F@H doesn't completely restart if you close the client.

BUT F@H does have a time limit. Something like 3 days for the WU to be sent back to the server. That maybe a concern, unless they have fast computers 😉
 
DF - Runs in taskbar! Hidden.. not good for friends...
Click to expand...

Not true at all. DF can be started up and stopped using DFGUI (awesome add-on program) and will run in system tray. Or in windows 2k or xp it can be run as a service and not seen at all but can still be controlled by DFGUI. It is just as good for friends as Folding@Home since it has the same objective but looks to accomplish it in a differnet manner. Only problem is it has startup and shutdown prolems on some Windows 98 boxes.
 
Originally posted by: Baldy18
DF - Runs in taskbar! Hidden.. not good for friends...
Click to expand...

Not true at all. DF can be started up and stopped using DFGUI (awesome add-on program) and will run in system tray. Or in windows 2k or xp it can be run as a service and not seen at all but can still be controlled by DFGUI. It is just as good for friends as Folding@Home since it has the same objective but looks to accomplish it in a differnet manner. Only problem is it has startup and shutdown prolems on some Windows 98 boxes.
Click to expand...

True.. very true.. but is the project 75% finished? or will they keep going?
 
Many of the projects don't give guarnetees on how long they will run. Heck SETI was only supposed to last 2 years.
 
Originally posted by: Baldy18
Many of the projects don't give guarnetees on how long they will run. Heck SETI was only supposed to last 2 years.
Click to expand...

Seti is still running because of the many new quasars found by the program, and in a relitively short period of time. The way I understand it in 2 years we found almost or as many quasars as Nasa.
 
Just curious thats all.. completetion is good and bad for dc in general to the general public

If people are following the project, they are happy to see it finish.. they feel they did something.. deservingly
But, if they're not following it, they probably wont want to keep switching projects...

i could potentially lose some of my crunching with my friends upon completion... wont stop me from anything.. but another factor to consider 😛

Btw, we're definitly doing something for a disease or for good cause.. the SB client was pretty cool, but i cant justify trying to solve math like this.. maybe if i get more crunchers i'll put one towards this project

 
Actually, DF is just getting started.

from their site:
With your help, we will create the largest samples of protein folds ever computed. First we will make 1 Billion (1,000,000,000) folds for 5 small proteins, then we will try 10 Billion (10,000,000,000) for another 10 large proteins. By the end of our first phase, we hope to make over 100 Billion protein folds spanning 15 different proteins
Click to expand...

We finished the 5 small protiens (fun because they were fast) and are now at about 7 Billion folds on the first larger protien (129 Amino Acids)
In mid-december our next protien update is really an algorithm update as an alternate sampling technique will be tried (on the 129AA protien again)


The Client:

Lot's of ways to run it, depending upon your tastes.

want pretty? use the OpenGL screen saver installation (slow, but pretty)
want faster and visable? Text client runs in a "DOS" window with a little graphic thingy dancing all over the place
want faster and invisable? yep, you can install in quiet mode with no output to screen
want fastest? If you run Windows NT/2000/XP you can install as a service

you can make it fit YOUR system. You can choose to limit RAM usage to 25MB if you need to or you can set it loose and use up to 150MB (depending upon protien size) and crunch at nearly twice the speed!

The dfGUI utility mentioned above is a great way to spy on your client, set it's options without a text editor, and control the client. (start, stop, upload, etc.)

It is by far the friendliest client I have dealt with. Did I say friendly? yepperz! I don't even bother to shut it down when I game, burn, or anything else! This guy steps right out of the way and is truly transparent when you need to get some work done (or blow something up 🙂 )

The only problem I see right now is that the threads are a little quiet for my taste............ but YOU could fix that

-Sid
 
I almost forgot one of the very important points of DF!

YOU DON"T HAVE TO DOWNLOAD WORK! => If the server goes down, you WILL NOT stop folding and NOTHING will be lost <=

Yep, you heard it right. When a protien is begun, the algorithm is set and the crunching is based upon random number generation within your system.
So the only contact necessary with DF servers is to get the updates (it is automatic if you allow it) when the protien changes and upload your results.

If the server is unavailable when your client wants to upload, it just saves the work and trys again after you crunch another 5,000 folds (about an hour on a fast machine). You are given the choice of whether you want to limit the stored data to 6 buffers or let it continue to build up as long as necessary.

The buffered results are pretty small and you can easily store (literally) millions of results without a major hit to your free space. (which, is cleared upon a successful upload.

when/if you shutdown windows, the current results are saved and will be uploaded when you restart..... again.... you loose NOTHING!
 
A Folding@home wu has most of the time 100 "frames", and saves the progress after every frame. Some wu has only 20? frames.
For wu-score and time-limit, look at Currently Running Projects

Genome@home is either using the same folding@home-client, or the old "classic" v0.99 with automatic caching. In both cases, there's 30 "frames".
There's no time-limit on genome-wu.
 
Another nice thing about the DF client (this also applies to the SETI client) is that it can be run as a service totally hidden so it runs when the user is logged off and doesn't get in the way when the user is logged in. 🙂
 
I'm gonna come in and represent for DF because it's a cool project like that. 🙂 Also give the EON Project a look. Our TeAm has four members and we're currently #6. Every little bit will make a big impact. I haven't had problems with either the DF or EON clients.
 
Originally posted by: Robor
Another nice thing about the DF client (this also applies to the SETI client) is that it can be run as a service totally hidden so it runs when the user is logged off and doesn't get in the way when the user is logged in. 🙂
Click to expand...
Not sure how DF does it, but to run SETI (and most other DC clients) as a service, one must use a program such as FireDaemon. I run the Folding@Home CLI on my computers, and monitor them from a central location using the KDFold program. This is, IMHO, the best way to run Folding@Home; it's easy to monitor, and it also runs even if noone is logged on.
 
That does sound lilke a nice way to keep a handle on things.

The DF client has it built-in (you run a "DOS" command to set it up... it's in the readme1st.txt) I don't know if there is anything like KDFold for DF or not.
 
Originally posted by: Insidious
Actually, DF is just getting started.


The Client:

Lot's of ways to run it, depending upon your tastes.

want pretty? use the OpenGL screen saver installation (slow, but pretty)
want faster and visable? Text client runs in a "DOS" window with a little graphic thingy dancing all over the place
want faster and invisable? yep, you can install in quiet mode with no output to screen
want fastest? If you run Windows NT/2000/XP you can install as a service


So if you run DF as a service with extra RAM power, is it faster than running the DOS thingy with the extra RAM option? Also, after going to their website, I still don't know what running it as a "service" means. Can someone sum it up in layman's terms, please? Thanks.
Click to expand...
 
The command line is foldit.bat, but to install as a service you type foldtrajlite.exe /install, and it will install as a service. You still have to run foldit.bat for the basic setup, and off ya go! Love the program, no downloads of data, just updates, and have only seen 1 with this new proteinm. It's a nice little program, and the extra ram option makes it run like crazy! I have a total of 7 machines running it now and I actually like it better than RC5, considering was involved with that project for over 3 years! JOIN TEAM TA DF!
 
sure,

Running as a service means that it will automatically be started when you start windows and it is completely in the background. It will run invisibly (nothing showing in task bar) but if you use task manager (cntrl^alt^del) you will see it in the processes list (not the applications list)

I don't think there is a big difference in speed between running the text client windowed vs. running it as a service. There is a small difference because no resources are used to make display entries. (Probably if you used the regular text client, but set it up for quiet mode (no output to screen) and selected the use extra RAM option results would be the same.) The major difference would be that you would need to put foldit.bat in your start up folder to get it going when you booted if you are not running as a service.
 
Originally posted by: jliechty
Originally posted by: Robor
Another nice thing about the DF client (this also applies to the SETI client) is that it can be run as a service totally hidden so it runs when the user is logged off and doesn't get in the way when the user is logged in. 🙂
Click to expand...
Not sure how DF does it, but to run SETI (and most other DC clients) as a service, one must use a program such as FireDaemon. I run the Folding@Home CLI on my computers, and monitor them from a central location using the KDFold program. This is, IMHO, the best way to run Folding@Home; it's easy to monitor, and it also runs even if noone is logged on.
Click to expand...
I don't need FireDaemon with either service install (SETI or DF) that I use. I don't know what happens behind the scenes and I wish I could credit the authors but I can't. Anyway, both installs I use for DF and SETI are simple one step installs.

I also use KDFold to monitor my 8 networked DF clients. 🙂

 
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