Folding@Home

[CougTek]

Good laugh, but seriously, does using GPU over CPU folding lead to that drastic of an increase? Or do you guys just have a bunch of machines running it at once? Because I can't compete with that...

I run the FAH client on those virtual machine, each occupying about 79% of the available resources of servers worth ~13000$ a piece (in Fall of 2013 at least). If you check the overall worth of Handruin's Folding farm, it's at least 5000$.So no, you can't compete (but it doesn't mean you can't contribute to a small amount if it doesn't create too much drawback). And my previous synthesis remains : because we're older and use expensive hardware. Don't worry, the day will come...

 

[CougTek]

Should have been :

Good laugh, but seriously, does using GPU over CPU folding lead to that drastic of an increase? Or do you guys just have a bunch of machines running it at once? Because I can't compete with that...

I run the FAH client on two virtual machines, each occupying about 79% of the available resources of servers worth ~13000$ a piece (in Fall of 2013 at least).

If you check the overall worth of Handruin's Folding farm, it's at least 5000$.

So no, you can't compete (but it doesn't mean you can't contribute to a small amount if it doesn't create too much drawback). And my previous synthesis remains : because we're older and use expensive hardware. Don't worry, the day will come...

 

[timwhit]

You should really try the NaCl client, it's much better for slower hardware like your's. I bet you could hit over 1000 PPD with the NaCl client.

I get around 55k PPD with two i5 CPUs on the NaCl client. I don't have the exact model numbers handy. I also have 1 GTX650Ti folding that does ~40k PPD with the right WUs.

 

[Handruin]

I run the FAH client on those virtual machine, each occupying about 79% of the available resources of servers worth ~13000$ a piece (in Fall of 2013 at least). If you check the overall worth of Handruin's Folding farm, it's at least 5000$.So no, you can't compete (but it doesn't mean you can't contribute to a small amount if it doesn't create too much drawback). And my previous synthesis remains : because we're older and use expensive hardware. Don't worry, the day will come...

That's a good estimate; It's a bit over $3K in GPUs alone. I admit to going full-stupid on this after losing a parent to cancer. There are worse ways to focus time and money. I tell people it's my way of donating to a cause I believe in rather than sending money. I don't get the tax write-off but I don't care.

sedrosken, no one is laughing at you. Please contribute whatever you feel comfortable with. Every bit helps and we appreciate the contribution to the team and to the overall project/research.

 

[sedrosken]

Thanks for the support guys.

timwhit: I just got the NaCl client working, and holy crap is it quick. It's roundabout the only reason I put Chrome on my computer, but in case I need an alternate browser I installed Eversync on both Firefox and Chrome so I can sync my bookmarks between the two without much hassle.

 

[timwhit]

Sed, I get about 125 points per NaCl WU, I think it is a flat value no matter how long it takes to complete one. You should be able to calculate your PPD with that.

 

[sedrosken]

It'd be great if I could reliably get WUs - it finished that last one, and has been stuck on trying to get another one for the past couple of hours.

 

[timwhit]

The servers are somewhat unreliable at times. I have the same issue.

 

[sedrosken]

Yeah, I think we can say my issues have been sorted out -- I went to bed at about 3 AM (terrible sleeping habits, I know, please don't give me the lecture) and woke up at around noon to being about 2000 points richer. Is it 'richer'? I don't know. I had 2000 more points now than I did when I went to bed. That's a ~30% growth in nine hours.

 

[ddrueding]

3AM once or twice a week isn't bad at all. Been doing that for 20+ years.

 

[sedrosken]

In the past three days with NaCl I have roughly tripled a point count that I spent a couple months getting with fahclient. Of course, points aren't so much the issue here for me, but getting WUs in and out in a timely manner is -- I don't always remember to leave this on overnight and so I may not get a WU done every day with fahclient, but with NaCl I can crank them out almost crazily fast in comparison.

 

[CougTek]

We did more than 61 million points in January. Congratulations team StorageForum!

 

[timwhit]

We did more than 61 million points in January. Congratulations team StorageForum!

This was mostly you and Doug. Nice job guys.

 

[CougTek]

In case anyone wonders, the reason being my recent production drop is here :
https://folding.stanford.edu/home/big-adv-program-ends-january-31/

I knew it was coming and now it's effective.

I don't know what's the most effective way to contribute to the project from now on. Based on Handruin's results, GPU folding seems quite rewardly. However, I won't have money to re-equip myself before the end of the year and I'll have to stop running the client on the servers I was using in about a month, so my contribution will drop even more. This means that my run at the top of the team will probably last around two years. Way less than Mark's, but I'm still proud of it.

 

[Handruin]

Thanks CougTek for all your contributions and dedication to keeping the team going. You and Mark both helped push us high up in the charts. You should be proud of your contributions.

 

[Bozo]

Thanks CougTek for all your contributions and dedication to keeping the team going. You and Mark both helped push us high up in the charts. You should be proud of your contributions.

Ditto!

 

[sedrosken]

Thanks CougTek for all your contributions and dedication to keeping the team going. You and Mark both helped push us high up in the charts. You should be proud of your contributions.

What he said!

I had to go back to using the desktop F@H client -- for some reason, the NaCl client does not work in Chromium, which I chose to install instead of straight Google Chrome, which doesn't appear to be in Linux Mint's stock repositories, and I'm not too certain that I want to add another repository after I've gone to the trouble of installing and configuring Chromium.

Although... if I could move the configuration between the two... Chrome is based off of Chromium, after all. Or is it the other way around?

 

[CougTek]

I've stopped using the servers for running the FAH client. My production will be limited to my home system, so ~20,000ppd.

 

[sedrosken]

Figured out the issue. The NaCl plugin wasn't set to always allowed, for some reason. Fixed it. At it's finest, I can only expect to get maybe 5-10000 ppd from this Sandy Bridge i3, as GPU folding isn't an option for Intel HD chipsets. And that's if I let it run at full tilt all day, everyday -- I can't do that. This is just about my only machine that's usable for more than one thing at a time. I run it when I go to bed, when I remember. I just have the NaCl client open as a pinned tab in Chromium.

 

[Clocker]

I recently got a GTX 960 GPU. Will it make a decent contribution? How hard does Folding work these GPUs? My system pulls about 250W running the Furmark burn in test. Obviously much much less if just idling.

 

[Handruin]

That should make a decent contribution. Don't forget to get a passkey if you haven't already. That's where you'll get the bonus points. Once you've completed 10 work units successfully, you'll start to get the bonus.

I might guess your GPU will get somewhere in the 100K-150K points per day depending on the work unit being done. I don't have a way to quantify how hard a GPU is worked but it's safe to say they're being used heavily. I run my two GTX 980's 24x7 with the fans set to a very high speed keeping them around 55-60C in temperature. I do this when I'm away at work and not in the room. When I use my system, I ramp down the fans so that the system is quiet or stop F@H all together for when I'm gaming or doing audio-related things. I guess my point being, these new GPUs seem to be fairly resilient to constant use. I consider whatever electric costs to be my donation to the research.

I ran F@H on my GTX 780 24x7 also and that ran for a long time without problems. I've since stopped because I haven't found a system to put it into to run F@H again but once I find a home for it, I'll run F@H again. I've also been running F@H on my R9 290Xs 24x7 for a long time also without issue. I run their fans at 100% since it's in the basement.

 

[Clocker]

I've been folding for about 1/2 hr. Doesn't seem to be beating up the GPU too bad and CPU seems fine. Overall system is only 190W and the power consumption on the GPU is 61.2% TDP.

When I was running Furmark, the TDP was about 91% and overall system was 250W.

Any other settings I need to include?

 

[Handruin]

I've been folding for about 1/2 hr. Doesn't seem to be beating up the GPU too bad and CPU seems fine. Overall system is only 190W and the power consumption on the GPU is 61.2% TDP.

When I was running Furmark, the TDP was about 91% and overall system was 250W.

Any other settings I need to include?

View attachment 857

View attachment 858

One thing to keep in mind that not all folding at home processing will be the same workload. The project is setup such that at different times the client will download and use different fahcore processors. This all depends on what the scientists want to prioritize for completing work for their research and also depend on the purpose of F@H you may have selected to do work for. My point being is some fahcores can be more demanding than others. See screen capture examples below to compare the usage between core15 and core17 on my current system. You'll see core17 uses a lot more than the other core15.

One thing you will likely need to change is the CPU folding. Since you're doing both CPU & GPU you're unknowingly starving your GPU a bit from processing the work. With nvidia GPUs they use a decent overhead of CPU processing just to do the GPU work. The F@H client isn't smart enough to auto-configure this for you so you have to do it manually. To get the most out of your setup you will want to leave one full core of your CPU idle for GPU FAH. To do this, I typically open the advanced client utility to make the change.

Also make sure you register for a passkey and enter it into the Advanced Control under the configure section. There is a tab for Identity under Configure. In that section is a field for entering your unique passkey.

1. Right mouse click on the FAH icon in the task bar and select Advanced Control.
2. Select the Configure button in the top left of the FAHControl utility.
3. Click the Slots tab in the Configure dialog box that opened.
4. Click on the CPU Slot listed in the bottom section and click the Edit button.
5. In the CPUs section there is a box where you can change the value. It typically has a default value of "-1". Change this to a value of one less than the total number of cores minus one hyper threading processor (if you have hyper threading). For example if you have 8 logical processors (4 cores + 4 logical HT), enter a value of 6. Basically you want to remove one core and one hyperthreaded processor.
6. Click OK to save your changes. Click Save again in the Configure panel to complete the changes.

Core15 usage example

Core 17 usage example

 

[Clocker]

Thanks Doug. I'll have to look into it when I get a minute...

 

[Handruin]

You're showing up on the stats page! Thanks for donating your resources to the team I'm happy to see your name up there. Assuming you've put the passkey in, your points should increase after you've successfully submitted 10 or so work units.

 

[Handruin]

I'm seeing a bunch of points from you Clocker; thanks a bunch for joining the team! We appreciate the support and contributions.

 

[Clocker]

I'm seeing a bunch of points from you Clocker; thanks a bunch for joining the team! We appreciate the support and contributions.

No problem. I want to at least get past all the dead bodies laying next to the road.

 

[Clocker]

My GPU seems to handle it well.

I disabled the CPU folding. Contribution didn't seem to be that much with the i5 3570.

 

[Handruin]

You are certainly flying right by all the old contributors who no longer participate.

I don't CPU fold anymore either. It might help add a little bit but the GPUs do so much of the heavy-lifting.

 

[ddrueding]

You are certainly flying right by all the old contributors who no longer participate.

Is that a boot in my back?

 

[Handruin]

Is that a boot in my back?

I didn't mean it towards you. There are a lot of zero-point members and some with minimal to no points in the team list. You've contributed a lot in the past and that doesn't go unnoticed. We would be very fortunate to gain you back if you feel like you're able to contribute again with your quad SLI Titan X rig. ;-)

 

[timwhit]

Is that a boot in my back?

I didn't mean it towards you. There are a lot of zero-point members and some with minimal to no points in the team list. You've contributed a lot in the past and that doesn't go unnoticed. We would be very fortunate to gain you back if you feel like you're able to contribute again with your quad SLI Titan X rig. ;-)

I am going to go with "Yes".

 

[ddrueding]

Just threw a 4960X@4Ghz and a Titan (non-X) at it. We'll see how that does.

 

[Handruin]

Just threw a 4960X@4Ghz and a Titan (non-X) at it. We'll see how that does.

Hooray! Thanks man. Don't forget to leave at least once CPU core and a hyper-threaded logical core idle for the Titan. See my screen capture I posted for Clocker above.

 

[ddrueding]

Hooray! Thanks man. Don't forget to leave at least once CPU core and a hyper-threaded logical core idle for the Titan. See my screen capture I posted for Clocker above.

Done. 11x4Ghz cores assigned.

 

[Handruin]

Thanks for contributing once again ddrueding and thanks Clocker for continuing to donate your GPU power! I'm also happy for all those who continue to contribute to the team. Keep up the great work; it doesn't go unnoticed!

 

[ddrueding]

I still don't have anywhere near the production you do...time to fix that second Titan...

 

[Handruin]

Anything you can contribute is appreciated. If you think there is something I can help with your other Titan, let me know. That would be great to get it folding.

 

[ddrueding]

I just need to get around to replacing the heatsink. I keep forgetting to order a torx small enough to get the old one off.

 

[Handruin]

Check out this set of TEKTON 2841 Everybit toolset.