Maximum PC Folding

[Sadasius]

Okay I have just started folding on 3 computers. Now I have used the same ID and team number and machine ID'd from 1-3. Now I noticed it has a maximum of 8 machine ID's. Is there any way to break this maximum barrier? I will tell you why. I work in a government building and have access to a network of about 600 computers. Is there a way to run all 600 on a single machine ID? The computers are sitting idle all damn night anyway and might as well use them. I know the administrator very well and can probably pull it off.

Also as this thread entails. If you know a way to maximize folding or any little tricks or tips it would be a great contribution. Thanks in advance! :icon_tiphat:

[sushrukh]

You can use the same machine ID in diff machines.That means, you can keep the machine ID no.1 or whatever it is for all the PCs.Though all the machines will have the same machine ID but they won't interfere with each other as they are physically different PCs.You just can't keep the same machine ID twice in the same machine but the same machine ID can co-exist in different PCs.

[westy87]

Totally off topic but damn sush you had me trying to scratch off a bug from my monitor! gah!

Oh and I was also wondering bout the max of 8 machine ID's, thanks for clearing that up

[Sadasius]

You can use the same machine ID in diff machines.That means, you can keep the machine ID no.1 or whatever it is for all the PCs.Though all the machines will have the same machine ID but they won't interfere with each other as they are physically diffrent PCs.You just can't keep the same machine ID twice in the same machine but the same machine ID can co-exist in different PCs.

Okay that answers a lot of my questions right there. Thanks!

[sushrukh]

Totally off topic but damn sush you had me trying to scratch off a bug from my monitor! gah!



That's the reason of putting it there.:lol: & welcome Westy & Sadasius. :icon_tiphat:

[Sadasius]

Well after talking with the Government Systems administrator it looks like I will not be able to use those computers. I guess it is against their security protocol. Oh well but I am getting a few people to help out our team from my own community at House of Ottawa.

Now since I am a complete newbie at folding I am wondering something. If I have several computers using my username will all the points be added to that one username or will it show a couple of instances of my username with its respective scores? The reason why I ask is that I have noticed a few usernames that are the same on the team stats page.

[sushrukh]

If I have several computers using my username will all the points be added to that one username or will it show a couple of instances of my username with its respective scores?

Yes, all the points will be added to your name if you use the same username on all PCs.There will be only your username/name.Only one instance will be shown on the Standford F@H stats page but you can see the number of CPU cores you are using.If you fold using " Sadasius " in 600 machines, all the points will be added to your username & you will only see your username " Sadasius ".No multiple instances.Just your username one time. :smile:

[Sadasius]

Yes, all the points will be added to your name if you use the same username on all PCs.There will be only your username/name.Only one instance will be shown on the Standford F@H stats page but you can see the number of CPU cores you are using.If you fold using " Sadasius " in 600 machines, all the points will be added to your username & you will only see your username " Sadasius ".No multiple instances.Just your username one time. :smile:

Thank you very much. Now to assemble my army of computers...muahahaha:ole:

[sushrukh]

Best of luck for that my friend. :)

[Acidtears33]

You could always just grab a PS3 and save the trouble and electric bill :grin:

[Sadasius]

You could always just grab a PS3 and save the trouble and electric bill :grin:

You can do this on a PS3? Well if I had one it would be handy...lol. I am not a console player so I doubt I would get one anytime soon and I highly doubt I would buy one just for the purpose of folding. But this is a good tip for this thread. Perhaps explain how you can setup a PS3 to do folding or something. That may be beneficial for someone who has one.

[Sadasius]

Also I wanted to know if this program works on a Mac system. I have a few friends who want to get on board that use Mac's.

[peti1212]

Also I wanted to know if this program works on a Mac system. I have a few friends who want to get on board that use Mac's.

Yes, It works on macs. Once you get to the download section on their website, you can download the console for a mac. :)

Here is the link to the downloads:

http://folding.stanford.edu/download.html

Cheers,
Peter

[Sadasius]

Thanks a million. I was just using the link that was in the sticky thread for the console. Still very new at this...lol

[Sadasius]

You can do this on a PS3? Well if I had one it would be handy...lol. I am not a console player so I doubt I would get one anytime soon and I highly doubt I would buy one just for the purpose of folding. But this is a good tip for this thread. Perhaps explain how you can setup a PS3 to do folding or something. That may be beneficial for someone who has one.

Yes I know I am answering myself here and that is because I found the article on the site for loading a PS3. Here is the link for those interested.

http://folding.stanford.edu/FAQ-PS3.html

[peti1212]

Yes I know I am answering myself here and that is because I found the article on the site for loading a PS3. Here is the link for those interested.

http://folding.stanford.edu/FAQ-PS3.html

Haha, I found this really funny, the way you wrote back to yourself. The reason why... There was this short Pixar Animated movie which was of a old man who was playing chess with himself. It is really funny the way the guy acts. Just like how you did above. :)

[sushrukh]

Thanks a million. I was just using the link that was in the sticky thread for the console. Still very new at this...lol

Well you can also try the latest version Sadasius.that thread had the link to the version that's extreme old because the person who wrote that article isn't with this forum now.So, he hasn't updated the link to the newer versions after he has written that article.For windows, you can now use the 6.00 version.Generally,it's better to use the newer versions because of less bugs.

For the latest Windows GUI version :- http://folding.stanford.edu/release/FAH6.00beta1-Windows.zip

For the latest Console version :- http://folding.stanford.edu/release/FAH6.00beta1-Windows-Console.zip

Latest Mac client :- Well my friend Peti has provided the link already.

Try to use the latest version for more features,performance enhancement & less bugs.

[Sadasius]

Thank you very much. Much appreciated. Some of these WU's are pretty big. Good thing I got a few people on board to help...lol. I will post the links you gave me on my site as well for those who want to help me out.

[Sadasius]

One thing I did notice on my rig is that to get the most out of it I do have to run 2 console's. When I run one because of the Hyper Threading it will only use 50% of the idle cpu speed. No matter what I do I cannot get one to run a full 100% unless I swichted off the HT but that is really pointless. Is there a way around this to run one console at a full 100% maximum speed?

[Kougar]

One thing I did notice on my rig is that to get the most out of it I do have to run 2 console's. When I run one because of the Hyper Threading it will only use 50% of the idle cpu speed. No matter what I do I cannot get one to run a full 100% unless I swichted off the HT but that is really pointless. Is there a way around this to run one console at a full 100% maximum speed?

Short of using a second F@H client I'm afraid not, that is basically what HT was designed to do. You would not see very much of a performance increase from doing so since both clients would be sharing the same physical core.

[Sadasius]

Short of using a second F@H client I'm afraid not, that is basically what HT was designed to do. You would not see very much of a performance increase from doing so since both clients would be sharing the same physical core.

Yeah thats what I figured. Oh well, looks like I will be the slow poke for folding on this rig then....Until I upgrade that is! But I have friends helping out so that is a bonus.

[tyle6]

if you read the FAQ for F@H they dont reccomend doing this actually as both consoles will be fighting for the same instruction sets from the CPU. You will see no real advantage other then finishing 2 units in twice the time.

[Sadasius]

So I might as well just run one at a time then at only 50% cpu usage...Thats great....Looks like an upgrade may be coming sooner then later.

[tyle6]

yea, i had the same thing going with my P4, luckily that machine had the radeon x1650 in with 512mb. it worked out well, CPU folding and the GPU running aswell only had the core up to 65%!!! seems the HT played well for that setup!! if you gotta radeon around or can get one cheap i reccomend it!!

[Kougar]

It doesn't matter, it does not mean you are only using 50% of your CPU's available power. The OS only thinks so.

[SonicWRX]

I remember reading something about this on the FAH forums. it has to do with how windows represents the CPU usage. Lets see if i can give you the gist of it since I don't have a link.

Windows treats the cpu usage as a representation of the CPU as a whole so 50% on the CPU usage is 100% on one core. 100% would be full tilt on both cores for a dual core CPU. A quad core CPU would only read 25% on one core 50% on two and so on. They gave an example for linix as it reads differently. In Linix on a dual core CPU it will read 100% cpu usage with one core running and 200% with both cores running.

Thats not exactly what they said but thats the basic idea.

[Sadasius]

It doesn't matter, it does not mean you are only using 50% of your CPU's available power. The OS only thinks so.

Really?!? Because HT is set in the bios and not the OS.

[Kougar]

Really?!? Because HT is set in the bios and not the OS.

Exactly. ;) Sonic has the idea.

Windows treats HT as if the CPU has two cores. Obviously both yours and my Pentium 4 CPU only has a single core, so 50% load means a full 100% load on a Pentium 4 CPU.

To look at it another way, if Windows was correct then using a second F@H client would yield almost double the results.

[Sadasius]

Well when I ran only one console it said the CPU was only 50% active. What backed this up was that the CPU temperature was also halved. When I ran 2 consoles then it read as 100% active and the CPU temperature was that much more. So the OS and the temperature readings are not accurate then? Okay, well I am running one console now and will gauge it to see if it made a difference.

[Kougar]

Well when I ran only one console it said the CPU was only 50% active. What backed this up was that the CPU temperature was also halved. When I ran 2 consoles then it read as 100% active and the CPU temperature was that much more. So the OS and the temperature readings are not accurate then? Okay, well I am running one console now and will gauge it to see if it made a difference.

Define that much more. Shouldn't have been more than a ~5c increase when running 100% active, certainly no more than 10c. If there is, then it wasn't fully utlizing the CPU due to configuration settings or something else.

I don't use the graphical client, and if you mean the basic command line client then that does not report CPU usage.

[Sadasius]

Define that much more. Shouldn't have been more than a ~5c increase when running 100% active, certainly no more than 10c. If there is, then it wasn't fully utlizing the CPU due to configuration settings or something else.

I don't use the graphical client, and if you mean the basic command line client then that does not report CPU usage.

The difference was 6 degrees using Asus Probe for the temp readings. This is interesting though. Perhaps it is some sort of setting or reserve or something. Was using the task manager to see the CPU usage. I am also using the basic console one that was in the sticky. No graphical interface at all.

[tyle6]

I really do think this is more or less just OS issues. aswell the P4's instruction set not being well suited to the folding clients needs. all in all the P4 seems to just not do to well with folding.

[Sadasius]

I really do think this is more or less just OS issues. aswell the P4's instruction set not being well suited to the folding clients needs. all in all the P4 seems to just not do to well with folding.

Yeah I have noticed that actually. It is weird. I have two machines folding that are P4's with HT on and they are actually slower at folding then the other computers that are helping as well. I guess it is just one of those things. Oh well it does not matter as long as I can keep up with the required 15 WU's a month for the contest. :wink:

[Sadasius]

Okay well after switching to one console I found that it was much faster so I am leaving at this. So yeah for anyone running a P4 with HT on, just one console. Much much quicker! Thanks for the help guys!:thanks:

Only 4 more WU's for me to go!!! Woohoo!