First of all this is a great project! My computer is a 24/7 on, type computer.

I (my computer) just completed the 1st WU. It was 400 (nodes?) and now working on a 500 (node?) unit.

1. Are they all different sizes?

2. Why is the 500 unit processing at a significantly faster rate? (I am not using my computer any different today)

3. It took about 38 hrs for this first WU and a score of 71 posted at the rankings website does this sound right?

4. Are there any tweaks to speed up things? (besides typical computer tweaks)

5. Why am I enjoying this sooooooo much?



XP 2200, 768 meg DDR2700, Asus, XP Pro, nearly quiet-newly folding computer.

1: Kinda...There's 500, 400, 100 and 200, that I've seen.

2: The 500 is using the GROMACS core, whereas the 400 used the TINKER core. The GROMACS one is for different calculations (explicit rather than implicit) and has more optimizations for SSE/SSE2/3DNOW, so it works faster.

3: Yes

4: Kinda. With an Athlon XP, you should be running the 3.25 beta client, with the execution option "-forceasm", which will force it to use optimisations, even if it doesn't think it should. Speeds things up a bit...Also, you can convince friends to fold for you (using your username, which is case sensitive, and SPCR's team code) and SPCR (even if they don't want to give you their WUs, they can at least give 'em to SPCR by putting the team code in their config).

5: Good, clean, healthy competition, and you can help do some research at the same time. What's there not to like?

2: Aside from the two different calculation cores, different work units are also working on different proteins. Differently sized proteins will require considerably different processing time.

Well this new WU is processing fast!

Thank you Semm for your answers.

I've been quieting down this box since I found SPCR,(got some good pics as soon as I get the next phase done) now, 24/7 this computer is quietly helping out.

I'm gonna try that beta, and the next "charity" build that I do is going to include folding@home. A free computer with 1 hitch ain't bad.


I got some other questions but I will search and lurk first before I start another post.

ONE more question....... How many computers would I have to have to take over the #1 position before the folding project ends!!!!!!!!!! Kidding of course

my computer's currently churning away at a 1000-thingo WU

Yep, that's what I've been doing: repairing PCs for free or peanuts, if they let me borg them Trouble is they're neither quick, nor on an always-on connection, so the going will be slow. Hopefully I'll make up for it in pure numbers, though.

Semm

You won't believe it, chylld, but I just checked my f@h icon...This WU is a 2500-thinger :shock:

hehehe - nice one!

i think it's based on some simple computer stats. my 24/7 computer/server is an xp 1600+ w/ 512mb ram, its first WU was 500, it's second was 400

obviously this is wild speculation since i'm currently churning away at only my 2nd and 3rd WUs

Whooooa! I just got a 2500 thingy WU, guess that will take a couple more days.

Not necessarily. I've found that when I get 2500 frame WUs, my "frame rate" goes up by 2.5 or 5 or 10X or something like that. If you have Electron Microscope, it will tell you how fast you're running frames and when the WU should complete.

It even recalculates it if you shut your PC down for awhile, like I do with my laptop. After I restart, the estimated time is way off because of the long delay during the frame it's processing (while the PC was off.) After a frame or two, it figures out the frame rate and gives me a correct time for WU completion. My current 60 point (oh yeah, it knows how many points the currently processing WU is worth) WU is going to complete at 6:19 AM tomorrow, if I keep the laptop on continuously until then and I don't load it down with a CPU-intensive application. I know the laptop will be off for at least a couple of hours before then, so maybe 8:30 AM is a better estimate. I'll know for sure when I fire it up at home tonight.

It takes a little more time to set it up than the Stanford GUI client, but Electron Microscope rocks!

True, it does. But I'm much preferring FAH Stats recently.

Not quite as much fancy info as EM, but easier to set up.