5th Annual Folding@Home Holiday Season Race thread.

[Markfw]

now i have to decide if I want a 460 gtx 1GB or a i7 760.... I assume for folding the gpu would be a better option. Any thoughts?

Simple... The 460 frozer is $170 and 11,500 ppd....

The I7 is $200-300 depending on the exact model, but requires a $200 motherboard, and at least $70 memory in addition to get 25k ppd (bigadv and overclocked)

 

[tivo20]

i'm in if there is room

 

[filibusterman]

Simple... The 460 frozer is $170 and 11,500 ppd....

The I7 is $200-300 depending on the exact model, but requires a $200 motherboard, and at least $70 memory in addition to get 25k ppd (bigadv and overclocked)

I do have a 1156 board lying around but would have to get ram and cpu. Although this is cheep there may be heat issues with it: http://www.mwave.com/mwave/SKUSearch...OptionsBD11622

what are your thoughts?

the 768mb version is only 114 : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814121390

 

[ZipSpeed]

That's a good price. If all you plan to do is fold, the 768 MB card is all you need. Overclock the core to 850 to get around 11000 PPD.

 

[biodoc]

I'm starting to do some testing. The windows smp2 client is a breeze to set up now. The multi-threaded app makes a big difference.

64 bit Win7 pro
1090T@3.6 GHz
No GPU client running yet.

Fahmon reports ~15,000 ppd on project 6023 WU

Is fahmon accurate these days?

 

[Philippart]

I saw on the folding forums that there's a new smp version for windows: 6.30, does this finally solve all the troubles everybody had with mpi and deino? Do I still need a user password? Is it easier to set up?

Has anything changed with the ati gpu client? Is it still hard to find your perfect mix with environment variables on a HD3xxx series?

I haven't crunched for folding in a year, that's why I ask...

 

[biodoc]

I saw on the folding forums that there's a new smp version for windows: 6.30, does this finally solve all the troubles everybody had with mpi and deino? Do I still need a user password? Is it easier to set up?

I haven't crunched for folding in a year, that's why I ask...

The smp client no longer requires mpi or deino and the crazy install.bat script. It runs as a single multithreaded app like aqua@home. The installation instructions are thorough and easy to follow. You need the password though to receive bonus credit, I believe.

 

[Philippart]

The smp client no longer requires mpi or deino and the crazy install.bat script. It runs as a single multithreaded app like aqua@home. The installation instructions are thorough and easy to follow. You need the password though to receive bonus credit, I believe.

Thanks!

I'm not talking about the passkey, but I'm asking if you still need a password protected windows user account.

 

[filibusterman]

ubuntu 10.10 seems to be having trouble with fah I am using google and will see of the workarounds are successful.

I have been semi successful so far. As I haven't done F@H on ubuntu recently I found some websites that helped in getting me up in running (although its only using a single core now, maybe this is an issue with leaving the advanced commands alone while setting up the program in the terminal?).

To get the client working I referenced:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=10108631

and

http://en.fah-addict.net/news/news-0-299+folding-home-and-ubuntu-10-10-a-rocky-start.php

and changed the /etc/nscd.conf file to enable-cache hosts using the command gksudo nautilus

The last time I was using linux with F@H it was on single core rigs so I will have to find out how to run two cores. Hopefully this partially helps linux noob like myself. I will continue looking for using 2 or more cores but I am sure one of you guys probably know how to do this. Any help would be appreciated.

EDIT: I started setting up the smp client on my one windows rig and for using more than one core I just installed the fah6.exe under a different folder and run two command prompts, would this be efficient?

 

[brownstone]

Thanks!

I'm not talking about the passkey, but I'm asking if you still need a password protected windows user account.

Nope. That has been done away with.

 

[Peter Trend]

EDIT: I started setting up the smp client on my one windows rig and for using more than one core. I just installed the fah6.exe under a different folder and run two command prompts, would this be efficient?

I don't think that works particularly well. You need to use the -smp flag to use more than one core (and you only need one .exe), even when running the SMP client. You may need to put -smp 2 to use two cores although as far as I know number of cores is now detected automatically just by putting -smp.

Sorry can't help with linux.

 

[SemperFi]

I checked a week or so ago for this and nothing. I just come back and there is 4 pages. Nice response. Count me in this year. I have put on just shy of 1.5 million points over this past year.

I plan to do an upgrade over the next couple of weeks so I may be down a day. Jumping to 6 core AMD so should see a good boost.

I fold using jtmilleratwoh.rr.com

 

[PCTC2]

I'm worried about the wiring in my apartment. It's not that great. I hope I don't flip breakers when I'm not home... My UPS's will only keep them on for a matter of minutes before they shut down...

 

[Uppsala9496]

ubuntu 10.10 seems to be having trouble with fah I am using google and will see of the workarounds are successful.

I have been semi successful so far. As I haven't done F@H on ubuntu recently I found some websites that helped in getting me up in running (although its only using a single core now, maybe this is an issue with leaving the advanced commands alone while setting up the program in the terminal?).

To get the client working I referenced:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=10108631

and

http://en.fah-addict.net/news/news-0-299+folding-home-and-ubuntu-10-10-a-rocky-start.php

and changed the /etc/nscd.conf file to enable-cache hosts using the command gksudo nautilus

The last time I was using linux with F@H it was on single core rigs so I will have to find out how to run two cores. Hopefully this partially helps linux noob like myself. I will continue looking for using 2 or more cores but I am sure one of you guys probably know how to do this. Any help would be appreciated.

EDIT: I started setting up the smp client on my one windows rig and for using more than one core I just installed the fah6.exe under a different folder and run two command prompts, would this be efficient?

What processor are you using? I have an X3 with the 4th core unlocked and am running the windows smp client under wine on my ubuntu 10.10 machine. The ppd kind of sucks at ~4,500, but it's not terrible. Only have about 13 wu's completed, so not too many with the bonus points to get a more accurate picture of the true ppd on it.

EDIT: I remember getting help with F@H under ubuntu last year. Maybe search my username on here for post back in November and December of 2009.

 

[biodoc]

What processor are you using? I have an X3 with the 4th core unlocked and am running the windows smp client under wine on my ubuntu 10.10 machine. The ppd kind of sucks at ~4,500, but it's not terrible. Only have about 13 wu's completed, so not too many with the bonus points to get a more accurate picture of the true ppd on it.

EDIT: I remember getting help with F@H under ubuntu last year. Maybe search my username on here for post back in November and December of 2009.

That probably was me. Last year on Ubuntu 9.xx, there were no issues running the linux smp client. With the new distro releases of Ubuntu 10.xx and other distros, there have been problems. Fortunately there a a lot of linux gurus that support F@H that have been able to work around those problems. It looks like a recent release of libc on Ubuntu linux 10.04 has broken the smp client again so I rebooted into Win7 and ran the apps there. The F@H linux app is compiled using static libraries and therein lies the problem. All the other DC linux apps are compiled using dynamic libraries and I've never had problems running them. Apparently F@H doesn't have the resources to fully support linux and have focused on Windows as a platform.

You can however, run both Windows GPU clients and the smp client under Wine in linux. I will test both in the near future.

filibusterman, you can run the smp client on a dual core but you may not finish before the WU deadline.

 

[Rudy Toody]

I have an X3 with the 4th core unlocked...

If a triple core X3 is a quad with one core locked, shouldn't it be called a quipple?

 

[biodoc]

If a triple core X3 is a quad with one core locked, shouldn't it be called a quipple?

:biggrin::biggrin:

 

[petrusbroder]

 

[Rudy Toody]

If a triple core X3 is a quad with one core locked, shouldn't it be called a quipple?

I got this idea from Elmer Fudd, who chases "that qweasy wabbit."

 

[biodoc]

i'm in if there is room

Welcome aboard tivo20! Petrusbroder, could you add tivo20 to the race list?

SemperFi, you'll like the AMD x6. I built one a couple of months back.

 

[Philippart]

what is more advisable for a quad?

* running two -smp 2 clients

* running one -smp client

Given the new fast return bonus plan.

 

[petrusbroder]

Welcome aboard tivo20! Petrusbroder, could you add tivo20 to the race list?

Done!

 

[Peter Trend]

what is more advisable for a quad?

* running two -smp 2 clients

* running one -smp client

Given the new fast return bonus plan.

Running one SMP (-smp 4) client is almost certainly the better option, you won't see any bonuses for running two SMP clients with -smp 2 flags, and risk missing both WU deadlines. As far as I'm aware the SMP client now auto-detects number of cores if you use the '-smp' flag i.e. there's no need for the 'X' in the '-smp X' flag (where X is the number of threads); it will still run four threads on a quad. You will also likely see significant bonuses for sticking with one client with passkey.

I'm not sure if this also applies to 6 core processors or greater, we might still need to use -smp X to force f@h to run more than 4 threads. There's also -bigadv for 8-core and above processors and very fast quads with hyper-threading. Maybe someone running -bigadv could help clear this one up.

Which quad is it you were planning to use?

 

[Philippart]

running one smp (-smp 4) client is almost certainly the better option, you won't see any bonuses for running two smp clients with -smp 2 flags, and risk missing both wu deadlines. As far as i'm aware the smp client now auto-detects number of cores if you use the '-smp' flag i.e. There's no need for the 'x' in the '-smp x' flag (where x is the number of threads); it will still run four threads on a quad. You will also likely see significant bonuses for sticking with one client with passkey.

I'm not sure if this also applies to 6 core processors or greater, we might still need to use -smp x to force f@h to run more than 4 threads. There's also -bigadv for 8-core and above processors and very fast quads with hyper-threading. Maybe someone running -bigadv could help clear this one up.

Which quad is it you were planning to use?

q9450@3.4Ghz

 

[Peter Trend]

q9450@3.4Ghz

That core doesn't have HT so you can't use -bigadv. Best to use one SMP2 client with the -smp or -smp 4 flags (they should do exactly the same thing, although -smp 4 is more explicit).

I'm itching to begin this race!