Folding Question

[Mr. Brightside]

I 'retired' from DC quite a while ago, around the time BOINC was introduced. I then drifted around between projects (Climate Prediction, Predictor, and then Rosetta) but never really settled. Main reason is I always give in to the noise of leaving machines on 24/7.

I've decided to have a tinker (pun?) with F@H though - not being so dedicated as before though, which means if I feel like switching the PCs off at night I will. Better slow but steady I think. Will have to see how it goes and see if it's sustainable. Anyway, my question is this; I've installed F@H on my main rig (P4 with HT) and have FahMon running. I'm currently 55% through both WUs with an ETA of 2 and a half days is this normal? I downloaded them both on the 11th.

 

[KE1HA]

Look in your log files for the project type:

Your looking for somehtign like this:

[08:37:26] Folding@Home Gromacs Core
[08:37:26] Version 1.86 (August 28, 2005)
[08:37:26]
[08:37:26] Preparing to commence simulation
[08:37:26] - Looking at optimizations...
[08:37:26] - Files status OK
[08:37:29] - Expanded 769538 -> 4016141 (decompressed 521.8 percent)
[08:37:29]
[08:37:29] Project: 2369 (Run 1, Clone 102, Gen 1)

This one happens to be a 153 point WU and takes about a day on my laptop:

-- Dell D400 --

No Min. Time / Frame
Avg. Time / Frame : 12mn 22s - 178.16 ppd


From that you can tell what project your on, and then depending on the speed of your processors, ram and such, will determine how long it takes.

In short I've had some rather large work units take 3 - 4 days when I managed two get two of them on the same machine.
.

 

[Mr. Brightside]

Not sure what you're saying; is this normal?

According to FahMon the cores for both are Gromacs, projects 2051 and 2052, for 267 and 266 points respectively. Machine is a P4 3.0E, 512mB ram.

edit: Is it possible to change teams once you've started crunching? I never said before but I did quite a bit of F@H for CustomPC at one point and it would be good if I could move it over to TOcUK

 

[KE1HA]

I've only ran those work units on one machine, so this isn't a overall estimate, but my P4 that ran them is a 2.8Ghz machine and crunched one frame in 45 miniutes or there abouts, so if it has 100 frames, it would finish the work unit in:

(100 Frames * 45 mins) = Time in minutes or roughly ~ 3.0 days

I don't know if that is above average / average / below average
.

 

[Mr. Brightside]

Ok sounds good thanks . Also do you know anything about the question in my edit? I guess you replied while I was typing lol.

 

[KE1HA]

I've not changed teams with Folding at home, but Im sure Rich and some of the veterans of folding could answer that one.

I do recall seeing a couple of folders that had shifted, and I believe < but don't quote me on this > that your points stay with whatever team they were crunched for, but your overall rank with Stanford is calculated on your combined points total. So you'd start out on the bottom of OcUK, but have a combined points total from your other team and OcUK.
.

 

[Joe42]

Yes, you can't transfer points from one team to another, so its a fresh start i'm afraid.
All the more stomping...

 

[BillytheImpaler]

Those WUs are gromacs WUs so they should be fairly quick (at least in comparison to tinkers). Though you're going somewhat slowly for their point value I'd say that you're on target and there's probably no problem. Check to be sure that nothing else is robbing CPU cycles.

BTW, the WUs are benchmarked on a 2.8 GHz P4 with SSE2 and HT disabled. Gromacs WUs don't use SSE2 so you should see a number fiarly close to the benchmark, 110 ppd. I'm sure that running 2 in parallel with HT is hurting your single WU ppd a bit but I wouldn't be concerned.

 

[KE1HA]

Sorry for Hijacking this, but had to say something to ole BillytheImpaler here...

Just noticed your siggy [ 1967 Pontiac Catalina, 400ci, TH400 B&M St.II, 4.10s ].. I had a Buick Wildcat 455ci once upon a time .. talk about a tank .. but I tell ya what, the thing could launch the front wheels off the ground !! had a Dana 60 with 488's, Lenco CS3 5-Speed Tranny, Rear Tubs with monster M/T's & Centerlines, Dual 850's ontop of a 1071 Roots Blower... It didn't pass up to many petrol stations though ..lol.. could almost watch the needle droping when I was hammering it.

Went like snot in a straight line, but don't dare try to go around a corner with any speed lol
.

 

[Mr. Brightside]

Well I used the same name in both teams so they should contribute to the same account. Shame I can't transfer the points to OcUK though .

One more question: What are QMDs? I keep seeing people mentioning them but I would like more info.

Thanks, null

 

[BillytheImpaler]

One more question: What are QMDs? I keep seeing people mentioning them but I would like more info.

QMD stands for Quantum Molecular Dynamics. From Stanford's QMD FAQ: For other molecular dynamics simulation packages, interactions between atoms are described by an empirical potential energy (“force field approach”), which is an analytical function of atomic coordinates. In QMD core, there is no force field – atomic interaction is calculated using quantum chemical method or by solving Schrödinger equation.

For non-chemists we can say that it's one of the FAH team's newest and most advanced folding simulation. The units that use the QMD core, FahCore_96.exe, are 1910, 1911, and 1912. They're each worth 450 points and take about a day to complete at 100% utilization, give or take a few hours. They're only available to P4 (Netburst) based CPUs including Xeons, P4s, and Celerons. they get bonus points for using up to 350 MiB Physical RAm and even more virtual memory. their download sizes are in the mid 60s in terms of Mebibytes.

Sorry for Hijacking this, but had to say something to ole BillytheImpaler here...

Just noticed your siggy [1967 Pontiac Catalina, 400ci, TH400 B&M St.II, 4.10s ].. I had a Buick Wildcat 455ci once upon a time .. talk about a tank .. but I tell ya what, the thing could launch the front wheels off the ground !! had a Dana 60 with 488's, Lenco CS3 5-Speed Tranny, Rear Tubs with monster M/T's & Centerlines, Dual 850's ontop of a 1071 Roots Blower... It didn't pass up to many petrol stations though ..lol.. could almost watch the needle droping when I was hammering it.

Went like snot in a straight line, but don't dare try to go around a corner with any speed lol
.

Snap! That msut've been a wild ride on those narrow UK roads. I like my car a bunch but i do wish it were a bit quicker or a bit more comfy, one of the two. I only really get a chance to work on it in the summer time and I've been low on money lately. Oh well. It's gettin' there. Maybe this summer I'll invest in a new transmission. I've never liked automatics and I've always fancied a T56 6 speed.

 

[Joe42]

Well I used the same name in both teams so they should contribute to the same account. Shame I can't transfer the points to OcUK though

We need your contribution, however small it may be, and folding a bit is better than not folding at all.
The team is struggling atm, due to the loss of a few key contributors, bad units, and a drop in active users despite a rise in overall users.

 

[Mr. Brightside]

I take it QMDs don't run on Pentium Ms then? Just thought I'd make sure. Also, how can I make sure that I get QMDs on my P4 since the first 2 are Gromacs?

 

[BillytheImpaler]

You're right, there are no QMDs for PM CPUs. It benchmarks a PM just like it would a P3.

It's likely that with version 6 you will be able to run them. version 6 is supposed to contain a CPU-Z sort of function that gives very accurate hardware descriptions.

 

[rich99million]

to get QMDs on your P4 system you will need to have -advemthods and large WUs enabled, however at the moment the QMDs have been taken offline ready for the next batch which will hopefully be coming soon