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continue from the last thread. also, the list will be updated here now...
Alright everyone, time to get official. And you know what that means...I use capital letters!  So, it has been long overdue for another competition, and I have had many people both on and off neoseeker express their interest in having another competition. Well, that time is approaching! When?
The competition will start on the 1st of July, at 00:00 GMT, and will last 8 weeks, just like the first competition. Between now and then, I will be accepting registrations for the competition (more details below).
Rules & Important Info:
This competition is simple. You notify me of your intention to compete in this thread, or via a PM, and I will record your name. Do this BEFORE the competition starts. I will accept late entrants again, but latecomers will not be eligible for the random prize draws, and your chances of winning in the other categories will be lower. All participants will have their names publicly visible, so you will know if I have put your name down, or not. If you do not see your name on the list, just notify me again. Likely, I just missed it.
You do not need to register on neoseeker to be allowed to compete, but it makes things much easier for me if you win, as I need to contact you. If you do not register, you can post as a guest, but I will need a method of contact. In addition, let me know if the name you use on neoseeker is different to the name you use in your Folding@Home settings.
You must have the team number (212997) added in to the settings of Folding@Home, otherwise I will not be able to find your stats and keep track of your progress.
Winners are chosen by me alone, and only I will contact winners of prizes through the winners preferred method of contact. The award process will involve all winners sending me an ordered list of prizes from most to least preferred. Once I have the preference list from all winners, the first place winner will have first priority, the second will have second priority, and so on. At this point, I will contact each winner individually, along with the donor of the prize they have chosen. Unlike the first competition, there will be different physical prizes. The shipping of smaller prizes, or prizes that will be shipped domestically, will be the responsibility of the donor. If you win one of the larger prizes, and the shipping would be international, you will likely have to pay for the shipping, which to my understanding, can get pretty pricey. Please be aware of this, if you are a winner, and choose one of those prizes.
Awards will be in three categories: Highest overall points, most consistent, and random draws. The highest total points category is self explanatory. The competitor with the most overall progress will be the winner of this category. The most consistent will favour a competitor who consistently produces work units at a steady rate, rather than progressing a massive amount in the first weeks, then slacking off in the later weeks. This gives others with slower computers a chance to win as well. The consistency category will determine a winner based on their output points, which are modified via a mathematical formula. This formula will be visible on the score sheet that will be publicly available throughout the competition. The final category is just random draws, which are self explanatory. Those that participate will have a chance at winning, regardless of how well they do. This is, of course, conditional, as mentioned a little later below. The ranking of the awards will be as follows:
1st place in overall points 1st place in consistency 2nd place in overall points 2nd place in consistency Random draws
No prize is attached to any award. As mentioned, the higher ranked awards have higher priority in choosing from the list of prizes. Random winners will be announced at the same time, and those winners will be first come, first serve. Random winners will only be announced after the first four winners have chosen their prizes. If a prize is not claimed within three days of being announced the winner, a runner up will be chosen.
Contestants may only win one prize each. No contestant may win, for example, an award in overall points, as well as consistency. This allows for more people to win, and avoid giving one winner up to three items.
I will emphasise again that latecomers will be excluded from random draws. This is to prevent someone from joining late, contributing barely anything, and then having a chance at winning something, when others have participated fairly.
If no progress has been made by a participant for two weeks in a row, he or she will be disqualified.
There is no limit as to how many computers and clients you have attached to your name. However, do not enter the competition with more than one name. Those who are found with multiple registrations will be immediately disqualified.
As the team founder, I am not allowed to join the competition. This is to prevent any disputes that may arise from others who might think that I would be cheating, and taking a free prize, should I end up winning. In addition, prize donors may not win their own prizes, nor would they get special consideration. This is a reason why I have the mathematical formulas that calculate everyones points visible to the public. Random prizes are awarded with the help of an online randomiser program.
Prizes:
Note that this list is still incomplete, and is subject to change between now, and the start of the competition. The donor is listed for each prize in parentheses:
17-19 inch height plush. Winner decides on one of either the mane six or Derpy. Designs: 1, 2* (KarasuNezumi, DeviantArt | karasu11, eBay | eBay feedback and sold items)
Fluttershy Plush ** (squeesha, eBay | eBay feedback and sold items)
Zippo lighter with a custom engraved character of the winners choice. Examples of designs: 1, 2, 3, 4*** (tiwake)
4x Steam game bundles. Winners choose three games from the following list of available games:
2x Copies of The Ship & The Ship Single Player 2x Copies of Nation Red 1x Copies of The Killing Floor + Defense Alliance 2 (Conversion mod) 1x Copies of Audiosurf 1x Copies of Bit Trip Beat 1x Copies of Cogs 1x Copies of Defense Grid: The Awakening 1x Copies of The Wonderful end of the World 1x Copies of The Ball 1x Copies of Amnesia: The Dark Descent (Shadow of Death)
Any WeLoveFine shirt under $50http://www.neoseeker.com/forums/54588/t1740410-brony-home-discussion-thread-vi/ (Schwabanator)
Any Steam game under $60 USD (StaCT13)
2x vectored OC drawings. Example with Fluttershy and Twilight (Naga)
*Due to the size of these items, international shipping is expensive. The shipping costs on these items will have to be paid for by the winner. If shipping is domestic, the cost will be covered by the donor.
**Winner pays for shipping, domestic, or international
***Text can also be engraved, but images may be a little more complicated. Available images for engraving are Octavia, Luna, Vinyl Scratch, Twilight in rage mode, filly Octavia, Chrysalis, a changeling grunt, and Spitfire. It is possible to choose any design that you want, if you have the line art of whatever design you want, with emphasis on line art. A filled in/coloured SVG will not work.
Participants:
Those who are registered for the competition will appear in this list. Post in this thread, or PM me if you wish to register, and your name will appear shortly after in this list:
CommuPony Shadow of Death (Kage_No_Shi) tiwake BrevityBrony Judas rTdBotacon FlutterPwn Spazturtle Jeolf derpyponie StaCT13 Loss| lucennox harbin91 ScootalooBoy Homage+Littlepup davidfg4 Pinkie_Swirl Alexstrazsa xanenightwing theburningfox wolfon33 CharmedPop Soggy_Doggy Shaddy_Moon ejm01 deeplove Arteus KejserKagespiser ScootalooUE Valor Force Anymse Littlejth Flutterguy27 Thoendithaas shakfar RarityRod DasHHat Jeolf chaoszero64 Stratoverge Barhandar CrumpetsOnToast gertopas Persona coggy9 Merrx flowandthought flutterguy44 Midnight_Mist GumballCrash EonGhost OtavaPanthar Funky_Goose TwistedKestrel xeon927 Famout Fozzy bronyhub Airtay MairusuPawa Angel-Molina JBrony MagicWuff Kamikazitwinkie Pagdzin Jasx Envoy jessewq immi49 Hippoqk Naga Szkieletor TheGreaterEvil TehRandom dutchscout Flashfire Berry_Punch Thoroar Lieutenant Chaser FireStorm020 Kalashnikov wayne90 Thestevebat Flaxative RainBohDah rainbrostache Bullet25 moonsmusume Junydabrony notoptimus Aquatice Inkhoof Unfoundedfall Staticmagnet bluepony98 dditto74 Framwinkle DarkStatic Tinf bronyracer kenji1349 SniperBrony1 Biglulu Slaigh VMiyuki victory7 ilmari Dat_Flank Colgate Pawmaniac Multifish InvisibleToner Cezzlo (L)
Competitors will also appear on the progress sheet, which will show the points shown by Stanford at each update interval, as well as the formula for each category.
Newcomer help:
Those that do not know how to use Folding@Home should read this section.
To download the program, visit the Folding@Home website here, and click the download button. The right program for your system should be automatically chosen for you. Once downloaded, open up the installer, and choose the custom installation, not the express one. Select where you want to install the program to, then type in your user name, team number, and passkey in to the appropriate fields. You can choose any user name, as long as you tell me which one it is, so that I can keep track of your stats throughout the competition. The team number is 212997. You MUST have this team number, or you will not show up on the stats. Having a passkey is not necessary, but it will qualify you for bonus points. To obtain a passkey, click here. Next, you need to choose how to run Folding@Home. You can choose to have it start automatically, but be seen in your taskbar or system tray all the time, have it completely invisible by starting it as a service, or by not starting it at all, and having it done manually. I highly suggest you start it as a service. You shouldn't hear from it ever again, but if you do want to check up on it, you can always open the FAHControl program, found in your installation directory. The final thing to decide on is what mode to run the program in. You can run it in the standard single CPU mode, SMP mode (high performance/multi core processors), GPU mode (folding using your video card), or SMP/GPU mode (a combination of the SMP and GP mode). The latter gives you the highest possible points. However, you need to choose the right one for your computer, or it will be counter productive. If you have anything slower than a 3 Ghz dual core processor, choose the standard CPU mode. More powerful processors should use SMP. Processors running slower, but with three or more cores should also use SMP. As for GPU, any semi decent video card will work, but if your video card is incompatible with Folding@Home, the program will simply ignore the video card, without any problems.
NOTE: If you wish to fold using GPU mode, or GPU & SMP, you may have to select the normal start mode, rather than starting it as a service, because the GPU does not work as a service.
If you are unsure about anything, don't hesitate to ask in this thread. Everyone is more than happy to help you out.
Disclaimer:
Folding@Home is designed to use your hardware, when it is not in use. By default, this means that at any given time, your hardware will be under a constant full load, with Folding@Home adjusting itself so that it does not interfere with your computer usage. However, it is important to know that under higher loads, your hardware creates more heat. At least initially, monitor the temperature of your hardware using a free program such as SpeedFan or CoreTemp. While there are safeguards in place to prevent hardware damage from excessive heat, do not run Folding@Home at full power if your CPU goes over 80 degrees (C). The same applies for the video card if it goes over 85 degrees. Go to the options, and drag the slider that determines that maximum CPU usage for the program.
Neither I, nor Folding@Home is responsible for any damage that might occur.
Other Notes:
This is just for any other important random things that dont fit in to the other categories above, and I will add to this anything that I might think of as a result of discussions here.
Anyone running Windows Vista or Windows 7 should have aero enabled. Most people think that disabling aero will improve their system performance, but when aero is enabled, visuals are shifted from being worked on by the slower CPU, to the faster GPU. Your system performance will increase. If you leave aero disabled, you may end up with horrendous performance that can be as bad as a lagging mouse pointer while Folding@Home is running (ironic, after I said that Folding@Home does not interfere with your usage of the computer...).
During the first few days of usage, check in the task manager to see if Folding@Home actually started up. It would be horrible to compete, and then find out you never had it open!
If you wish to compete to get maximum points, regardless of what you do on the computer, and you have multiple video cards in Crossfire/SLI, you will get more points by disabling Crossfire/SLI, and having one GPU slot for each physical GPU you have. If you have two GPUs on one video card, use two GPU slots.
You do not have to wait until the 1st of July to start folding. You can begin at any time. It will not affect the outcome of the competition, as I deduct your points before the competition, from the points at the end of the competition, so everyone starts out with 0 points as far as the competition is concerned.
With all that said, registration is now open! start posting!
Edit: Jul 24, 12 2:07am
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