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What is Folding@Home/Brony@Home? Why can't they just use a supercomputer? How do I get started? Won't this affect my power bill? I can't do this because my computer is too slow Does this interfere with my computer usage? What has this project accomplished? Other FAQ Important notes Stats
2012 Folding Competition
What is Folding@Home/Brony@Home?
Folding@Home is the largest worldwide distributed computing project that assists in understanding what protein folding and misfolding is, and how they can lead to some of todays most well known diseases and cancers. It works by running a program that simulates a small stage of protein assembly. And now, our very first poni folding team, Brony@Home, is up for recruitment!
Why can't they just use a supercomputer?
Quite a common question actually - For something so important, why trust users with stuff that a supercomputer can do? The answer is simple. Because this is a massive project, if it can be divided up in to many tiny chunks, then sent off to volunteers, then no money is wasted on the group hiring a supercomputer. But theres more! Because Folding@Home is such a popular worldwide project, our combined computing power exceeds the computing power of supercomputers. In essence, we are one big global supercomputer.
How do I get started?
You can download the program from here (click the download button at the top). There are several different programs to download. If you have a single or dual core processor, then download the one that is recommended at the top of the download page. If you have a triple core or higher processor, or any high speed CPU, scroll down to the bottom of the downloads page and click the 'High Performance Clients' link, to download the SMP client. For minimum fuss, download the console client, not the systray client. This will allow you to start the program automatically, every time you turn your computer on, and you will never have to see or hear from it. Also, from what I have read, the console client is slightly faster in completing work units.
In addition, if you have a relatively new video card, you may also download the GPU client from the High Performance Clients page as well. However, while you wont notice anything with the CPU client, the GPU client will slow your system down if you make it work at full power, so don't use it while gaming, or change the settings to only use a low percentage of your video card power.
Once you have the console client downloaded, find a folder to put it in (just pop it in your program files folder), and open the program. It will ask you for multiple settings, with the first few being your user name and team number. You can pick whatever name you want, its not important, but you will need to enter the Brony@Home team number. You can ignore the passkey by pressing enter (again, its not that important). If you don't know what to enter for the rest of the settings, just press enter, and the default values will be used. However, when you get to 'Change advanced options', type in 'yes'. When it asks you for your CPU usage, you may enter a percentage value which specifies the maximum CPU usage to use. Again, as it is the CPU client, you can leave it at 100%, and it will always slow itself down when you need to do something on your computer, but if this is the GPU client you are using, this setting is more important for you. The next setting of importance is the 'Launch as a service' setting. Type in 'yes' to have it start automatically (as opposed to you manually starting it up all the time).
Won't this affect my power bill?
Of course it will. However, the amount that your power consumption will rise by is actually negligible. Personally, I have only had a few bucks increase on my power bill. For most people, it would be even less, as the hardware I use is pretty high end stuff.
I can't do this because my computer is too slow
Nonsense! Taken directly from the F@H website:
quoteA Pentium 3 450 MHz or newer equivalent computer (with SSE) is able to complete work units before they expire. Just because you have a slow computer, it doesn't mean you can't make a difference. I also run F@H on numerous old computers, and together, they output a significant amount of work.
Does this interfere with my computer usage?
As mentioned already, if you are using any of the CPU clients, then you will notice absolutely nothing. The GPU client will affect your performance, but you don't have to use it, of course. At the same time, however, while that is what ive been told, i have not had any performance issues whatsoever, while running my GPU clients at 100%
What has this project accomplished?
Most people probably wont understand the terminology involved in the accomplishments that this project has had, but if you are interested, you can go here and look at the information listed. You have to understand one thing though: Folding@Home is not a quick, cure-for-cancer program! If it was that simple, cancer would be much less of a problem. Before we can cure cancer, we must understand it. Know your enemy, if you will. We must understand how cancer becomes...well...cancer. Same goes for the other diseases that this project is working on. How can we prevent or cure something if we don't know how it works?
Other FAQ
For more information, you can check out the FAQ over here, or ask in this thread
Important notes:
If you are running windows vista or 7, along with a GPU client, you must have aero enabled, or else your system performance would be significantly affected to the point where videos (youtube, media player, or otherwise) would lag.
If you want to change your settings, the best way to do this is to create a shortcut of the program, name it something like 'change settings', or whatever suits you, then right click, go to properties, and in the 'target' field, add to the very end a space, then "-configonly" (without quotes). when, when you double click this shortcut, the settings will come up again, and then once you are finished, it will automatically close. you can change the settings like this even while you are running the actual client.
Having a passkey is not needed, but they do allow you to qualify for bonus points. For more information on passkeys, and where to get them from, click here.
Stats:
Now that we have access to user stats, you can see how you are doing compared to others in our team over here. In addition, banners with different themed colours showing this information may be used in your signature:
Fluttershy:
http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/sigs/sigimage.php?t=212997&c1=41D0B7&c2=FFFF90&c3=FFFF90&c4=FF70FF&c5=FF70FF
Applejack:
http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/sigs/sigimage.php?t=212997&c1=5EC04B&c2=FDBC5F&c3=B0822D&c4=EF4135&c5=FFF797
Pinkie Pie/Pinkamena:
http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/sigs/sigimage.php?t=212997&c1=186F97&c2=F8B9CD&c3=F8B9CD&c4=EF5091&c5=EF5091
http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/sigs/sigimage.php?t=212997&c1=9C2C83&c2=C8A0CC&c3=C8A0CC&c4=9C2C83&c5=C54B93
Rarity:
http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/sigs/sigimage.php?t=212997&c1=536CAC&c2=EAEBEE&c3=EAEBEE&c4=523D94&c5=523D94
Twilight Sparkle:
http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/sigs/sigimage.php?t=212997&c1=643189&c2=D7A5EA&c3=642F88&c4=293873&c5=E3488E
Luna:
http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/sigs/sigimage.php?t=212997&c1=FFFFFF&c2=00002E&c3=000000&c4=0000CC&c5=0C8ED0
http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/sigs/sigimage.php?t=212997&c1=7EDFFF&c2=7364B6&c3=532A6D&c4=C5CED2&c5=EDF2F9
Celestia:
http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/sigs/sigimage.php?t=212997&c1=f188ec&c2=fff9fd&c3=ffe592&c4=5dd6aa&c5=82b0fc
Spike:
http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/sigs/sigimage.php?t=212997&c1=aee162&c2=b981be&c3=54cf53&c4=4e943b&c5=dcf1b6
Trixie:
http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/sigs/sigimage.php?t=212997&c1=deeef7&c2=6daedf&c3=9373d0&c4=cd82c7&c5=bfe5f4
Bon-Bon:
http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/sigs/sigimage.php?t=212997&c1=255a5f&c2=f5f7d9&c3=39598f&c4=fb92df&c5=fb92df
Lyra:
http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/sigs/sigimage.php?t=212997&c1=41AF88&c2=92FFD7&c3=A4ECEE&c4=F0C152&c5=41AF88
If you would like to show your user stats along with the team stats, replace "t=212997" with "u=*YOUR USER ID HERE*". To find your user ID, click on your user name in the users list. For reference, here. Then, in the address bar, at the end of the URL, copy the numbers found after "u=", and add them in to one of the image URLs above.
2012 Folding Competition:
Note: This competition has not been fully finalised, but I will provide as much information as possible on what is definite, or almost definite - This information may change, so keep an eye out on it...
When?
1st of January 2012 - 26th February 2012 (8 weeks)
Rules & Important Info:
Participants will express their interest to join by posting in this thread, or sending me a PM mentioning they wish to join. I will ONLY start taking down peoples names TWO WEEKS PRIOR to the beginning of the competition (18th of December 2011). The names of all participants in the competition will be in a list below, so you know if I have put you down for the competition or not.
You may join the competition after it has started, but your chances of winning are going to be lower. You will also be excluded from random draws.
It is preferred, although not compulsory, to register a user name for Neoseeker. This makes identifying people easier, should they win a prize, as opposed to getting the mods to perform an IP scan.
Winners are decided by me alone, and I will contact winners to notify them, preferably via PM, or through any other means that the winner may wish to choose. Depending on the prize, I will then refer the winner to the relevant prize donor, who takes full responsibility for awarding their prize. Physical prizes that require shipping should not require the winner to pay for those costs.
There are three types of awards - The first goes to the person who has accumulated the highest total points by the end of the competition. The second award is similar, but using a different score system, consistency earns higher points, so those who are more dedicated to folding will have a greater chance at winning this award, and therefore, the winner won't necessarily be the one who has the most powerful hardware. The final award, or rather, group of awards, are random draws. Both the first and second awards have first and second places. In order of the true ranks of the awards:
1st place winner of the 'highest total points' category 1st place winner of the 'most consistent' category 2nd place winner of the 'highest total points' category 2nd place winner of the 'most consistent' category Random draws
No prize is attached to any award. Winners may choose whatever item they want. However, the winner of the first award has first choice, and vice versa for the second, third, and fourth winner. As for random winners, you will all be notified at the same time, so it will be first come, first serve.
Contestants may only win a maximum of one category. This is to allow more people to win something, and to avoid one or more people from potentially winning up to three prizes. 11 prizes; 11 winners.
Those who participate will be excluded from random draws if they try to get a prize by participating for a short period of time, and then abandoning the competition.
There is no limit as to how many computers and clients you have under your name.
I may not participate (so its just a rule for myself, really), and prize donators may not win their own prizes. I should also note that donators do not get special consideration.
Prizes:
Note: this list is incomplete, and can still change (donator in parenthesis):
Brink Collection (CrazedGeek) GeForce 7600GT Video Card* (hiigaran) Orcs Must Die (Shadow of Death) Terraria (Shadow of Death) Recettear (Shadow of Death) Any Steam game worth up to $60 US** (Shadow of Death) Half Life 2 (Spazturtle) Minecraft Gift Code*** (TheTux2 from Tux2's Minecraft Server) "Folding is Magic" Mixer/Rocks Glass**** (Pinkamena_Diane_Pie) $25 gift card for welovefine.com (GhostWolf) Cyan Complete Pack (BaconCat of IRC #brony)
*It should be noted that this is a used video card, and is NOT a powerful piece of hardware for modern games. This video card is best used in systems with onboard graphics (ie. no dedicated video card), or as a basic card to allow for more monitors
**Regional restrictions may or may not apply, depending on the game the winner chooses. This is unlikely to be a problem, but it should be mentioned anyway
***Register on minecraft.net, and apply the gift code to your account to receive a premium account
****Mixer/Rocks glass etched with the "Folding is Magic" logo on one side, and a pony design of the winners choice on the other side, similar to these (donators DA page). This is the glass itself (without the winners image on the other side, of course)
Participants:
If you wish to participate in the competition, notify me by posting in this thread, or sending me a PM
Granor Shadow of Death TheTux2 Pinkie_Swirl For_Luna ScreaminD TwistedKestrel PrincessKyli Pinkamena_Diane_Pie Flutterguy27 Shade_Pony xant TwilightSparkleburst Biglulu GhostWolf BrevityBrony cronoflash superwalnut baconpork CGAshford Pagdzin Joelf Nightmaremoon ThePaintedTarget SandmanTGaP Aesahaettr bronyhub Grimm Reelix XTUX345 Colgate LuffyZoro RainyRag industrialbrz Schwabanator Malix TwilightSparkle PhantomBadger Spazturtle Vectasus ShutterQuick FortressMagic Salamence_747 FoxFerret Shadowforce quakerassassin davidfg4 Gocnak
With all that said, good luck, and keep an eye on this thread, as I will be updating it!
Edit: Jan 01, 12 1:54pm
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