Ultimate Guide To Folding@home

[Spicker]

thank you guyz the mods at this forum are GREAT!

i guess i better start telling you about other stuff about FAH

btw my first sticky i feel like im going to cry

once again thank you

[Spicker]

What is gromacs?

Gromacs is the new folding core (FAHcore_78.exe) GROMACS provides extremely high performance compared to all other programs. For some calculations, gromacs affords benefits over the current code in FAH (the current code is based on Jay Ponder's Tinker), especially a great speed increase (perhaps up to 10x-20x). This will substantially increase the power of FAH for many calculations.

some ppl say that it actually gives you more points as well...so its a WIn WIN! situation

Streaming SIMD(Single Instruction Multiple Data) Extensions

Processors & applications that do not use SSE process one data element in one instruction, a processing style called Single Instruction Single Data, or SISD. In contrast, processors having the SIMD capability have the ability to process more than one data element in one instruction. In other words the processor can work harder with the same two hands (if you get the metaphor). Using SSE requires support from the application, the operating system & the CPU.

Processors that have SSE are as follows..

Athlon XP
Duron 1 GHz & above (morgan core)
Pentium 4
Pentium 3
Celeron 566 mhz & above (coppermine & tualatin cores)

Processors that do not have SSE are as follows..

Duron 950 & below (spitfire core)
Athlon (K7, K75, & Thunderbird cores)
K6-3
K6-2
Celeron 533 MHz & below
Pentium 2
Pentium
All Via/Cyrix CPU's

Anything released before the processors listed of course does not have SSE.

Any version of Windows after '98 supports SSE (95' may just not sure). Any newer Linux distro should have support as well.

The Gromacs core also uses AMD’s 3Dnow! which was first introduced in their K6-2 CPU’s and underwent a facelift beginning with Thunderbird core Athlons & all Durons. The new version is often called 3Dnow! Professional, Extended3Dnow! and 3Dnow!+. However, this from Vijay Pande the leader of the project..

So what does SSE/3Dnow! do for your frame times? It depends on what processor you have. But generally, a whole damn lot. With any SSE capable chip your points will increase significantly, as much as 500%.

Why? Well Stanford has to set their point values and deadlines based on chips that do not have assembly optimizations (SSE/3Dnow&#33. If they didn't the chips that had no assembly ops and got Gromacs proteins would never make the deadlines. Their benchmarking machine is in fact a P2 based Celeron running at 500mhz.

Pentium 4s get an especially large boost from the Gromacs core. So much so it almost seems silly. Why do the Pentium 4’s get such a big improvement? It is not because of SSE2, Gromacs does not use SSE2..

how to add gromac
First off you must be using the 3.14 client or later. Make a shortcut to the console. Right click the shortcut & select properties. The target line should look something like this

"C:\Program Files\Folding@Home\FAH3Console.exe"

All you have to do is add -advmethods to the end of that line like so.

"C:\Program Files\Folding@Home\FAH3Console.exe" -advmethods

Remember to leave the quotes in! Click Apply then click Ok. Start the client with that shortcut and your chances of receiving Gromacs proteins will be increased significantly.

this is what i did...
in the START UP folder there already should be a shortcut to FAH just right click on that and edit that instead of making a new shortcut...but if u make a new one its easier to access and u can move it to your desktop..its your choice

MAKE SURE UR CPU COMES IN THE SSE RANGE OR DONT DO THE ADV METHOD
source

EDIT: forgot to add that the changes will take effect after you are done with the current WU

[HCT]

can you explain all this to me again cuz im confused?

[Spicker]

Originally posted by HCT@22 January 2004 - 06:56
can you explain all this to me again cuz im confused?

wt are u confused about?

[liquidacid]

Originally posted by HCT@22 January 2004 - 06:56
can you explain all this to me again cuz im confused?

It's explained very clearly here.

[HCT]

Originally posted by jaigandhi5+22 January 2004 - 16:49--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (jaigandhi5 @ 22 January 2004 - 16:49)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-HCT@22 January 2004 - 06:56
can you explain all this to me again cuz im confused?

wt are u confused about? [/b][/quote]
how is a computer going to fight cancer?

[RGX]

Originally posted by HCT+23 January 2004 - 21:20--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (HCT @ 23 January 2004 - 21:20)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>

Originally posted by jaigandhi5@22 January 2004 - 16:49
<!--QuoteBegin-HCT

@22 January 2004 - 06:56
can you explain all this to me again cuz im confused?

wt are u confused about?

how is a computer going to fight cancer? [/b][/quote]
How about you read the first post carefully again.

[Spicker]

1. What is FAH?
FAH is a distributed computing project, the purpose of which is to learn how proteins fold and misfold. By breaking down the process by which proteins are created we can find out what causes them to miscreate or misfold. The hope is that this will lead to future research that can help scientists come up with better treatments/cures for many of todays common ailments. But the most important part of the project is putting together an effective model of how to fold and unfold proteins with supercomputer power.

[Spicker]

and i want everyone to install the GROMACS thing its SOO EFECTIVE&#33;

i had a wu tht was 2500 thingies long and i got it done in 24HRZ&#33; thts over a 1000 in 12HRZ it helps ALOT&#33;&#33;&#33; install it will make ur score go up

[Afronaut]

Originally posted by jaigandhi5@23 January 2004 - 23:26
and i want everyone to install the GROMACS thing its SOO EFECTIVE&#33;

i had a wu tht was 2500 thingies long and i got it done in 24HRZ&#33; thts over a 1000 in 12HRZ it helps ALOT&#33;&#33;&#33; install it will make ur score go up

Hey, gimme a link where to DL FAHcore_78.exe
Cant seem to find it.
All this tech talk and no links.



Im on the team, i think, atleast im trying...