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[Tank_Guy#3]

Dam, I'm constantly playing AOM.

Also, though I have read this, but I am still drawing a blank. It uses your excess processing power to do what?

 

[BCLG100]

Cool, does the size of the units go up as you do more?

 

[Moss]

signed up, installed...

don't have a clue what the 0/500 thing means though...seems to work kind of slowly.

 

[Chukchi Husky]

The 0/500 thing is progress on a work unit I think.

 

[Tank_Guy#3]

What does this program use your excess processing power for?

 

[ironduck]

Tank Guy, the program simulates folding of proteins. Understanding the process of the protein folding is vital to figuring out what can go wrong during this process (when proteins don't fold the way they're supposed to they don't do their jobs properly, which can cause a number of diseases and problems). The calculations that take place on your computer (known as work units) are tiny timeframes of a possible way that a protein can fold in that given time frame. It's a very complicated process to simulate so it takes an enormous amount of computer power to simulate a full protein fold.

There's an explanation here: http://folding.stanford.edu/science.html

 

[Chukchi Husky]

Cross post.

 

[ironduck]

BLG - I get various sizes of work units, for some reason the larger ones seem to be less complicated so they take about the same time for me (I don't understand this).

Welcome Moss - an average computer will spend a day or two on a typical work unit. It's divided into 'frames', so 500 is 500 frames, once you're done with that the results will be uploaded to the server and you'll get a new work unit to play with.

 

[Tank_Guy#3]

Oh, so it calculates the outcome of fictioinal protein folding, and analyzes the results by using a little bit of processing power from a whole host of computers? It tests protein folding outcome digitally, so they don't need to use a living host?

Gives a steak and a pat on the head to Chukchi Husky for the help. And a "thanks" to ironduck.

THIS QUESTION WILL DETERMINE WHETHER OR NOT I CHOOSE TO TAKE PART IN THIS:
One final question: do you need a continuous connection to the internet, I only ask because as stated before, I'm a dial-upper at home, and that would be the only place I could do this.

The processing part wouldn't be a problem, I have a brand new AMD 64 bit processor.

 

[Till]

Since we are TeamCFC, who's going to be Captain Off Topic?

 

[ironduck]

Tank Guy, it would be impossible to not do it digitally I think. The proteins fold so incredibly quickly that we can't just observe it as it happens. It needs to be broken down systemically in order to be analyzed.

You won't need a continuous connection, I'm fairly confident it will just wait with uploading/downloading whenever there's a connection available. It is possible to run deadline-free units and download a bunch of them to process without any internet connection, but that shouldn't be necessary for you.

 

[IglooDame]

One final question: do you need a continuous connection to the internet, I only ask because as stated before, I'm a dial-upper at home, and that would be the only place I could do this.

The processing part wouldn't be a problem, I have a brand new AMD 64 bit processor.

You don't need a continuous connection, it only needs it to download the work unit and then to upload the results; in fact I think you can set it to download more than one at a time and upload at your convenience.

 

[Tank_Guy#3]

@ironduck: I mean systhesizing the process virtually to see how it happens and how it should happen.

@IglooDude: that being said, will it be a painful process for a dial-up connection (i.e. big file)?

 

[ironduck]

On some of the proteins that have and are being folded:

Since then, Folding@Home has studied more complex proteins, reporting on the folding of many proteins on the microsecond timescale, including BBA5, the villin headpiece, Trp Cage, among others.

More recently, we have been putting a great deal of effort into studying proteins relevant for diseases, such as Alzheimer's, Hunntington's, and Osteogenesis Imperfecta.

More info here: http://folding.stanford.edu/results.html
And published papers here: http://folding.stanford.edu/papers.html

Btw, I think there are several million computers folding these proteins; distributed computing is an amazing thing

 

[IglooDame]

@IglooDude: that being said, will it be a painful process for a dial-up connection (i.e. big file)?

On this workstation (which isn't set to minimize networking in any way), the "FahCore" files are between 1.2-2.2 megabytes, and the jobs themselves appear to be a couple hundred kilobytes. I've got six FahCore files here, and this machine has probably done at least ten work units, so I think the FahCores are reusable and after a dozen work units you probably won't need to get new ones very often.

 

[bhsup]

Remember that even though FAH gives up its processor cycles and drops to 0% CPU usage, it can still be taking up a whopping chunk of memory depending on the protein its folding and the options you used when configuring it.

I never try to play Civ III or Civ IV without stopping the FAH service first. Any memory intensive game may suffer if FAH is running in the background.

EDIT: Yes, IglooDude, there are only a handful of cores, and they are indeed reusuable. I have the following cores:
FahCore_65.exe
FahCore_78.exe
FahCore_79.exe
FahCore_7a.exe
FahCore_82.exe

 

[IglooDame]

EDIT: Yes, IglooDude, there are only a handful of cores, and they are indeed reusuable. I have the following cores:
FahCore_65.exe
FahCore_78.exe
FahCore_79.exe
FahCore_7a.exe
FahCore_82.exe

Exactly the same ones on my machine(s). So in all likelihood, once you have those five, you're not going to need nearly the download capacity.

Uhoh, are we getting too geeky again?

 

[bhsup]

Uhoh, are we getting too geeky again?

It's a geeky subject to begin with, there's just no way around that. I honestly never understood the point in shutting down the other thread, but I happily went "baa baa" and changed my link in my sig.

 

[Till]

How about an image contest of Particular Pretty Proteins to un-geek things?

 

[ironduck]

It's just that new people taking a look at the thread might lose interest after wading through page after page with nothing but info on computer files and hardware specs. Although it may be a geeky subject it's not really about computers it's about proteins - and of course making team CFC one of the biggest folding teams out there

More articles wouldn't be a bad thing either..