FAH-Addict

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This news is coming a bit too late but reminds us a little bit of nostalgia … or anger …

Citation:

Yes you read it accurately, if we folders now have wonderful multithread implementations of Gromacs core, MPI no longer being used for Folding@Home since the switch to SMP2, the rest of the world is still using it ! To summerize the optimisation by Christophe Yeoh, MPI used to generate two copy operations for each message exchanged. The new implementation only requires one, which greatly reduces the amount of data exchanged between processes.

Citation:

Those gains would have helped a lot our Core 2 Quad CPUs in the past ! Congratulations to Christopher Yeoh and to the other contributors to the Linux kernels to keep going further !

Even of we’re no longer using this technology in Folding@Home cores, some BOINC projects are working on SMP implementations of their scientific application using OpenMPI. We hope this technology will help to speed up their computations.

Source : Linux FR (in French)

Greetings noble visitor! The FAH-Addict team wish you a happy new year 2012, maybe the last one according to some predictions, but … let’s enjoy it

2011 has not really been a good year for FAH-Addict, the administrators being overworked for good, or very good reasons. Congratulations to Frodo The Hobbit who got married in the end of 2011 ! In 2012, we’ll try to do better, we owe it to you because of your continuous support to the site !

Feedbacks on what we announced

2011 Folding switch to v7 : TRUE !
Finally, it’s here, and it works pretty well. Although it is not mandatory yet, the v7 client are doing well though open beta and it’s way easier to use for the new donors !

2011 BigAdv returns on Linux : TRUE !
Thanks to the A5 core released this year, Linux users are able to fold BigAdv WUs again.

2011 ATI cards are able to fold more efficiently : TRUE !
With GPU3 (which require v7 client), ATI cards are back to the business. All issues are not sorted out yet and performance improvements are expected, but we hope the future ATI drivers and core releases will help.

This year has also seen the following changes : the extension of the quick return bonus to uniprocessor projects, the A4 core gaining the possibility run both in uniprocessor and SMP modes, some updates to the stat system and the opening of the closed beta.

Consulting the FAH-Addict’s crystal ball

For 2012, nothing is clear yet. Last week, BigAdv projects have been repositioned to aim 16 core (or better) machines, but excepted this obviousness there’s not a lot to speculate on. The project has gained in maturity, so it’s up to us to keep folding

So for 2012, are we going to see GPUs go back in the competition (with ATI’s Southern Island and nVidia’s Kepler) or a Folding core for ARM CPUs (which are growing in number and processing power) ?

Feel free to share your opinions on the Folding@Home project future …

This is like a storm in the most devoted folders world : starting January 16th, 2012 the BigAdv projects will require at least 16 cores (16 physical cores, or 8 physical core supporting HyperThreading technology).

Stanford is aware that this decision will result in many disappointment and frustration for those who won't be able to get BigAdv anymore, since the BigAdv projects are earning a substantial bonus compared to regular SMP projects. But this decision was made to focus BigAdv program back to its initial goals: to provide a group of machine with higher computing power than average ones to work on a limited number of big projects that require fast return rates.

Since the launch of BigAdv program, 8 cores have become the norm thanks to Intel’s i7 CPUs providing 4 physical cores with HyperThreading technology. The massive enthusiasm for these projects has created shortages, forcing researchers to open up more projects in parallel, which is not always possible.

So, on January 16th, the « -bigadv » flag on machine with 8 or 12 cores will no longer provide BigAdv projects. It will automatically fall back to regular SMP projects.

Source : Vijay’s blog

Dust, our beloved machines tend to accumulate it forever … at a variable pace depending on their situation in the house and the time they spent powered on …
Faced with this plague, we all fight it with our own proven weapons: can of compressed air, tooth brush, paintbrush, everyone has his own style.

Yet MSI seems to have discovered an innovation that could revolutionize our struggle, this innovation is ...

... the fan that removes dust from itself!

The idea is simple: during the first 30s of boot, your graphic card is cold and we are sure that it won't perform any intensive computation (you're still booting your OS).
The spin of the fan is then reversed compared to nominal functioning and the speed it runs is pushed at its maximum value. The intended effect is to get out some of the dust that began to take up residence on the blades and the bearings of the fan.After 30s of reverse spin, the fan spin is reversed again to enter its nominal functioning behavior.

This will never replace a good clean up, but that’s probably something that will help the graphic cards to handle the folding torture longer.

The first MSI card to use this new feature is based on a GTX 580, the GeForce N580GTX Lightning Xtreme Edition.

Source : Tom's Hardware France

SMP2 has greatly improved the efficiency of Folding@home in regard to memory usage, reducing its usage from gigabytes down to a few hundred megabytes of RAM. However if your machine has a limited amount of memory, what follows may please you!

Despite a major downward trend, DRAM manufacturers have massively overestimated the market for their products, resulting in an increase in inventories around the world. The memory type most affected is DDR3 (to be expected, as it is the current technology), it is trading at US$1.60 a unit and could fall as low as US$1.25 a unit (a 2Gb so 250MB chip), a decrease of 22%. The main cause of this decline in demand for RAM is considered to be increased demand for other forms of computer such as tablet computers replacing demand for PCs, which use different designs. This fall in prices cannot continue forever though, as there is already evidence that some chipmakers are moving their production capacity over to non-volatile flash memory for use in cell phones, tablet computers, memory cards etc.

Source : ZDNet (in French)

If, like us, you were a fan of Intel's Core 2 Quad Q6600, you'll probably shed a tear or two following the announcement of Socket 775's passing. The platform appeared in time with the Pentium 4/D and had its heyday with the advent of the Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad. Stocks still exist, but if you want to grab one for sentimental value, you'd better act fast.

The famous socket 775

Source: Tom's Hardware France

Too many cores? Too many threads? Do you want to return to the simplicity of the past?

Intel has announced the Celeron G440, a Sandy Bridge generation CPU lacking any special features: no turbo mode; no hyperthreading. This CPU offers up 1.6Ghz clock speed, and 1MB of L3 cache at 1GHz.

In short, it's a slimline CPU for the office environment. The unusually high TDP of 35W classes it above most of the mobile device range, making the CPU more or less destined for the desktop PC market. If you happen to pick one up and are bored, we'd be interested in the PPD yields for this processor on the F@H uniprocessor client.

Source: Tom’s Hardware France

This news may be of interest to contributors to both BOINC and Folding@home. It is not the often-requested integration of Folding@home into the BOINC system, merely complementary work on both platforms.

The project of interest is Rosetta@home, run by David Baker's laboratory at the University of Washington. R@h's goal is to predict the three-dimensional structure of the proteins it studies. The approach used is to test, by studying the energy of the molecular structures, the stability of various forms of the molecule, and predict which form is most likely to be stable.

TJ Lane tells us that the Pande Group is using some of Rosetta@home's results as the basis for some Folding@home projects. Rosetta provides the most likely structure, but without further analysis it is not known for definite whether this is the form the molecule takes, or even if that form is viable. TJ's projects model the predicted forms in Gromacs and then test them through the Molecular Dynamics simulations that all Folding@home projects use, to attempt to verify Rosetta's results. Additionally, Folding@home's methods allow for additional information to be gathered at the atomic level, along with detail on the methods that allow the molecule to change from one form to another.

Rosetta@home is therefore a starting point for TJ's research, focussing on those results most useful in relation to other Folding@home research. The projects referred to in this article are those in the 7600 series.

Source: Folding Forum

The Pande Group have decided to reset the points system for bigadv projects due to their unexpected success since they were released. Up until now bigadv units have attracted a 50% bonus over the SMP units, to compensate for the bigger demands they make of donor's systems. The number of users choosing to fold bigadv units is an indicator of how successful the bonus has been, however the Pande Group feel that it is distorting the points system a little bit, and so the bonus will be reduced.

This means that in future the bigadv bonus will be set at 20%, instead of 50%, for all work units (including previously released projects).

Based on feedback from users, other classes of unit may have their benchmarks reset too, but this has yet to be decided. More specifically, this would involve bringing the classic and GPU clients into the Quick Return Bonus programme, though there are apparently some unresolved issues with doing so for GPU WUs

Deadlines and k factors remain unchanged, but the base point values have been lowered as in the table below:

Standard points is what the base points would be set at for regular SMP. Old bigadv is the previous base points, while new bigadv is the adjusted base points.

Project Standard points Old bigadv New bigadv Preferred Final k-factor
2684 8529 12790 10235 4 6 26.4
2685 5970 8955 7164 4 6 26.4
2686 5970 8955 7164 4 6 26.4
2689 5970 8955 7164 4 6 26.4
2692 5970 8955 7164 4 6 26.4
6900 5970 8955 7164 4 6 26.4
6901 5970 8955 7164 4 6 26.4
6903 18923 28385 22708 7.2 12 38.05
6904 26284 39426 31541 10.2 17 37.31

Source: Official Forum and Vijay Pande's blog

Christian Schwan has just released some new projects, numbered 7800-7803.

Projects 7800 and 7801 attempt to study any differences between protein folding as it occurs naturally in cells, and protein folding in test tubes. They simulate a peptide in the ribosome exit tunnel to explore how the confinement and other interactions within the tunnel affect the folding process. The two projects study different peptides.

Projects 7802 and 7803 study the same peptides but without the ribosome.

All four projects use the A4 core. They are available for Linux and Windows SMP clients v6.34+ and Linux and Windows uniprocessor v6+.

Project stats:
p7800


p7801


p7802


p7803


All of these projects are served from the server at 171.64.65.98.

Source: Official Forum