Folding@Home on the PS3

Azza

Azza

Azza

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This looks very interesting. HDR visualizations, how wonderfull is that.


'Future PS3 owners rejoice as Folding@Home will be available for the PS3 console. The Cure@PS3 project puts the PS3’s Cell processor to good use by folding proteins which is somewhat in line of Sony’s overconfidence of the PS3 rendering the PC useless. Folding@Home performance from the Cell processor is expected around 100 gigaflops per PS3 console and top out one petaflop with 10,000 PS3’s.

In addition to the 100 gigaflop protein folding capabilities, Cure@PS3 will have enhanced visualization features. The enhanced visualization capabilities will take advantage of HDR and ISO surface rendering features of the NVIDIA RSX graphics processor. Molecules can also be navigated in real time using the PS3’s motion sensitive controller allowing users to view the proteins from different angles.

With the PS3’s high price pushing away developers, PS3 owners will have something to put all those unused processor cycles to use.'

Link

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=3910
 
Azza said:
With the PS3’s high price pushing away developers, PS3 owners will have something to put all those unused processor cycles to use.'
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lol

Its not good if those unused cycles are in boxed consoles on store shelves
 
I really doubt most ps3 owners will know what folding@home is to use it, yea it could be 'ok' if you can run it in the background whilst playing a game if it doesnt affects the gameplay but I seriously doubt people would leave their ps3 on just to fold overnight?
 
lol...i'm sure theres plent of ppl who'd leave it folding over night if they're into folding in the first place!!!
 
I would leave it folding overnight, would be good to have running if u can be watching a blu ray movie on it or downloading stuff, just have it folding away in the background.
 
vaultingSlinky said:
Well judging by power consumption of the xbox and its reliabilty, I certainly wouldnt leave my 360 on crunching when I wasn't using it.

Same goes for a brand spanking new £500 console, I would be worried, whilst watching the pennies flow out the plug.
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dirtydog said:
An ingenious way of increasing your electricity bill and prematurely wearing out your PC or in this case, PS3 ;)
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LOL.

TBH I don't get it all either. I went in to the seti/folding forum once by accident and it was all "WU's" "*parp*'s" "'tificate's" and other random stuff I didn't understand :o

I get the concept but can't see how in reality it has any huge impact. Its good for the number junkies though I guess :confused:
 
theres people even on this very forum who build pcs specifically for folding , if the ps3 is doing a good job of it maybe they should buy one ;) :p

i dont see the point in it tbh but ALLOT of people do
 
I think its a good thing but I dont think they expect you to leave your ps3 on all the time
but maybe when your ps3 is idle or maybe your doing something not cpu intensive and it can use the cpu during that time :confused:
 
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folding uses 100% cpu power constantly, using the cpu at 100% increases the temps quite a bit especially if it has 2 cores nevermind 8. consoles are not supposed to run at 100% and they are definetely not designed to run for more than 3-4 hours at a time. now you buy a £425 console with a 1 year gaurantee to run folding? you sir are a complete *** and should have all your fingers and toes chopped off before i take a grater to your manhood then slowly squirt acid in your eyes before handing you over to jack bauer to interrogate you for your stupidity

p.s. anybody who is contemplating buying a ps3 just for folding, send it to me, ill set it up so you get all the points, and i get a free console thanks
 
JaFFa said:
Wouldnt the visulisation just slow down the WU?
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The visualization is run in OpenGL code that runs on the GPU and its dedicated memory. The Cell processor does the Folding work. The overhead from the visualization should be very low, on the order of 0.25%-0.5% I reckon.
 
Psycho Sonny said:
consoles are not supposed to run at 100%
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Of course they are. What stresses your PC the most, taxing all your hardware to the max?: playing games. What is essentially the only thing consoles are made to do?: play games.
 
I think its an interesting idea between Sony and Stanford Uni, never tried it with my PC though. Just thought if sony sell half as many PS3's as PS2 and half them used it it would equate to about 30 million PS3's working on folding. If you belive the hype about it being able to fold 20x faster than a standard pc thats about the same as 600 million PCs!! This surely can only be a good thing, not sure how many PC owners "fold" but i guess its nowhere near that! Even a tenth of that figure would be good for the folding project.
 
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