Folding@home Crackberry Team!!! PLEASE JOIN!!!
For anybody who doesn't know what Folding@Home is, it's a distributed computing platform run by Stanford University that helps to fold protein molecules to aid scientists in curing diseases. This is a good cause!!! I also know that a lot of Crackberry.com users are also computer enthusiasts, so I figured this is a good place to go! From their website:
"Folding@home is a distributed computing project -- people from throughout the world download and run software to band together to make one of the largest supercomputers in the world. Every computer takes the project closer to our goals. Folding@home uses novel computational methods coupled to distributed computing, to simulate problems millions of times more challenging than previously achieved. Protein folding is linked to disease, such as Alzheimer's, ALS, Huntington's, Parkinson's disease, and many Cancers. Moreover, when proteins do not fold correctly (i.e. "misfold"), there can be serious consequences, including many well known diseases, such as Alzheimer's, Mad Cow (BSE), CJD, ALS, Huntington's, Parkinson's disease, and many Cancers and cancer-related syndromes."
Folding@home is recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest distributed computing project.
If you would like to read some of the things they have achieved so far, check out this link:
Folding@home - Papers
I noticed that Crackberry does not have a team on Folding@home, so I renamed my team "Crackberry.com" in an effort to get the Crackberry community to join! The team number is: 196316 :cool:
Depending on how much of your computers resources you are willing to volunteer, there are several different clients to choose from.
If you want to volunteer your CPU only, go to the following link:
Folding@home - Download the Folding@home software application
The CPU client is limited to 1 core, so unfortunately even if you have a multi core system it can only take advantage of 1 core. Keep in mind that by default, the Folding@home clients CPU priority is set to "lowest" which means that all other Windows processes get priority. In short: You will not notice a hit on your system speed because as soon as a different process requests use of the CPU, the Folding@home client is automatically stopped.
UPDATE: There is actually a high performance SMP client that will load all your CPU cores! It's a bit more tricky to install, but instructions can be found at the link below.
Download: Folding@home - DownloadWinOther
Installation: Folding@home - WinSMPGuide
If you have a high performance video card, this is where you can really make a difference. My CPU is a QX9550 OC'd to 3.63 GHZ (for anybody who doesn't know, that's a pretty powerful CPU), and my video card is a Radeon 4870. My video card is able to crank out results almost 5x as fast as my CPU!!! You can download the GPU client, found here:
Folding@home - DownloadWinOther
The GPU client works in the same way as the CPU client. Priority will automatically be given to other applications. You can also pause the client temporarily if you want to play a game or something. Make sure to download the "GPU3" client if you have an Nvidia card, and the "GPU2" client if you have an AMD card. The GPU3 client is currently more advanced than the GPU2 client, but they are working on a GPU3 client for AMD based cards.
There is also a Playstation 3 client!!! I don't own a PS3 so can't comment on this one. Link is on this page, down at the bottom:
Folding@home - Download the Folding@home software application
I personally run the GPU and CPU clients in parallel to produce maximum results, and I don't notice a hit on my systems performance.
The team I started is already almost in the top 10% of all teams, and that's with only 3 computers contributing. I hope that this post will attract some new users, and together we can work our way up the ranks! :)
Installation tips:
- You have to manually add the folding@home client to your startup folder in order to ensure it starts up with your computer. To do this, simply copy the link from the Folding@home folder in your start menu, into the "startup" folder in your start menu.
- After installation, be sure to right click on the tray icon, and go into "configure." Make sure to set the team number to 196316. If you are using a laptop, go into the advanced section and select "pause work while battery power is being used." This will ensure the client doesn't run while on battery power and contribute to faster battery drain!
- You can run the client on as many computers as you want. If you put the same user name on each computer, all the computers will contribute to your score. Or, you can use different user names to see how each individual computer is doing.
Cheers!
P.S. - If anybody needs help with installation or has questions, shoot me a pin at: 21722789.