The momentum and excitement for the Folding@home project continues. This time it's something that the Folding community and the computer science field as a whole have been anxiously awaiting - the crossing of a milestone known as a petaflop.
Maximum PC: Walking into the Pande Lab at Stanford University is somewhat of a hardcore geek’s ultimate dream. This is, after all, where the real work gets done—or should we say, work units. For the various desktop systems and consoles scattered around the area are all a part of a larger initiative that likely you and I, as well as Stanford graduate students, researchers from around the globe, and consortiums of geeks and enthusiasts alike, have all contributed to.
Dr. Vijay Pande, an associate professor of chemistry, structural biology, and computer science over at Stanford—as well as the longtime director of the Folding@Home distributing computing project, which his aptly titled “Pande Lab” oversees—estimates that around 400,000 systems actively “fold” at the current moment. Given the program’s fairly linear growth of around 40,000 new systems a year, Folding@Home should be able to push past half a million “connected” PCs easily before its crystal anniversary.
Amazing project.
Amazing feature on PS3 to help the project.
Critical Gamer writes: There has been a lot of hype about the power of the Cell processor residing inside the PlayStation 3. Whether or not we will see its full power being exploited remains to be seen, but it has been put to good use by medical researchers in America with the folding@home project.
I’m sure a lot of PS3 owners are unaware of the program folding@home residing on their PS3. This little piece of software has been designed by boffins at Stanford University in the USA, and is used to perform mathematical calculations of proteins when they misfold in the human body. I know you’re probably wondering what I’m wittering on about, so here’s what it is all about.
I know that pc's use folding@home as well. I think all computers should use this as every little helps. Wii doesn't have it as it doesn't really have the power for the tasks at hand, and Stanford university said that the 360 is of limited help to them
http://n4g.com/news/37648/x...
PS3 CPU is 3 times more capable than Xbox.
"And in terms of performance measured in gigaflops, the PS3 tops out at nearly three times that of the Xbox. "- IGN
http://gear.ign.com/article...
for a same gen console, that is extremely large difference. Also the reason why 360 does not have folding@home as Shadow Flare said
Didn't heal my shoulder injury. I better go to a real doctor. /s
do you realize the importance of protein folding to finding cure to many diseases and many other scientific advancements??
only injury you have is stupidity. and no doc can fix that
My problem is I can't do anything with my PS3 when using folding@home if it was in the background I would use it more
If I'm using my ps3 just to play some music in my room, then I'll put on folding@home since it plays music while it does it
I'm going to start doing it because my ps3 is very rarely on. Might as well do some good for the world.
I don't own a 360 you spacker. It may come as a blow, but some people don't worship a piece of plastic and metal the same way you do.
EDIT:It's amusing how you get labeled as being a 360 owner because you dare to downplay anything wrong with the ps3. I haven't owned a 360 for over 2 years, I sold it because it had nothing out I wanted.
Which would be the same fate for my ps3 if it had nothing coming out next year. This year has been dismal.
yeah gow iii, heavy rain, 3d dot heroes, wkc, rof, ffxiii, modnation racers, 3d dot heroes, demon souls (eu), move, sports champions, start the party,tumble
thats alot of game/peripherals already out this year that i bought alone, not to mention upcoming games such as time crisis, the fight, gt5.
if that is a lack of games then i call you blind
Microsoft should be supporting folding@home as well on the 360. Bill Gates is always seen donating money to charity, so why not help with this project? They should try and get it integrated into the OS of PC's, Mac's and all the consoles, and have it running in the background.
yea the 360 fans would never us it. Not because they dont care per say but because they dont want to risk it overheating and causing RROD.
MS won't support folding @ home on the 360, and I'll tell you why:
The TFLOPs fact reports like this one.
A task like protein folding is something the Cell processor is exceptionally good at (as you can see from the numbers) -- and the 360 would look weak, in comparison, despite its being a decent games console.
MS will never, ever, do something that would make the 360 look markedly inferior to the PS3. Like having folding@home. Doesn't matter to them if it saves lives or not. It would be bad publicity, and would hurt their brand, and that's all they care about. Sad but true.
Honestly the RRoD issue mentioned in a comment above is also a concern. MS doesn't want *every* old 360 coming back for a free refurb. The publicity issue is the main reason, though.
I use my console for gaming and blu-rays, sorry. I also turn off my console when it's not being used for said activities.
How a couple of egos and extrinsic motivations turned Folding@home into a bloody cold war competition, where work units were as valuable as kill counts.
I wonder how many people would fold is they gave out trophies for certain number of work units....
Looking at the lights (Places where Folding@home users are supposed to be). I noticed a few of them where in places I don't think I'd ever expect them to have any sort of technology, much less a PS3, EVEN moreso Folding@home. Such as:
- An isolated island
- The middle of Atlantic (No Island here, WTF)
- Some where in the nether mountain regions of Nepal (possibly Shangri-la)
Damn, PS3 you scary...
-End statement
lls good post. Funny story. I'm tempted to start a Folding war with some of my buddies now :)
it's all fun and games until your PS3 gets YLOD from folding 12 hours a day :(
Nice to know we're making a difference by just sitting down and doing nothing while our PS3's do the calculations for a good cause. I'm sure with future firmware updates we will be able to fold much faster.
GO STANFORD!!
PLAY B3YOND!!!!!!!!
That's really awesome. I realize that for most gamers the importance of Folding is difficult to understand, but just wait til you've had a loved one get afflicted by one of these horrible diseases. I wish I could convince everyone to contribute, because every little bit helps. I have some friends in the biotech field that wish they had access to this kind of computing power. Sure, you won't get "achievement" points for it, but this has real life tangible benefits.
How did scientists cure diseases and create vaccines before Folding at home was invented?
I think what they need to do is create a detailed report on what advances have been gained from all this as its all coming at a price.
If everyone left their PS3s on all the time to do Folding then just think of the amount of power that it would consume, in a world where everyone is being encouraged to save electricity for the sake of all our futures.
Don't get me wrong its not that I don't agree with Folding, in fact I think it is a great idea and if it does do what they say it will and can cure diseases and help people then thats amazing.
I'm just a bit concerned that after another 12 months or so when they reach another Petaflop will the advancement they have made be worth the cost in power and to our environment or will it be just so they can say "hey great, we've reached 2 petaflops, keep leaving your PS3s on so we can get to 3".
So in my humble opinion I think it would be a very good idea if an independant company (not Sony or Microsoft) were to create a detailed report into the acheivements already made from Folding and the long term effects and benefits from doing it.
Most businesses leave there workstations on 24/7 yet nobody says anything about power use...the PS3 is using no more power than a typical ps3...but yet only 33k PS3 will give folding@home 800 teraflops!!!
People please use [email protected] 1 million out of the 5+ million PS3 users fold then we would be over 10+ Petraflops!!!
Believe me, your PS3 will not die. I am over 500 workunits runnign 24/7 since March...the PS3 was built like a rock...