what exactly is folding?

[joelthezombie15]

what is folding and does it make my computer unusable for anything other than it? also what are the requirements?

[warmon6]

Just quoting from my guide (*I'm apart of another team but i'm always helping other teams*)

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/34...esting#t499234

1. What is Folding@Home (F@H)?

F@H is a distributed computing project that runs on many computers that's provided by people like you to simulated protein folding and misfolding.

• 1.1. What the goal of F@H?
  

The goal of F@H is to figure out why when proteins misfold, they create diseases and cancers, such as Alzheimer's and Huntington's and find a ways to cures them.

More details here on F@H Science Page.

http://folding.stanford.edu/English/Science

• 1.2. How does F@H work?
  

F@H work by sending packets of data called Work Unit’s too computers that people provide for project.

As for your question on making it Unusable, Depends on what your wanting to run on.

If your wanting to run on your CPU, then no. Your computer should act as if F@H wasn't running at all.

F@H is designed to run with the lowest priority as possible. Meaning anything you do should on your computer will have priority over F@H. Even your scheduled anti-virus scan will slow down F@H.

Now if you want to run on a gpu on the other hand.... depending on the gpu and if it's running the display.... You will probably find the system unusable while it's folding. Although this might of changed with their latest client that I haven't had time to mess with yet so I might be wrong on this.

As for hardware requirements, It's pretty much anything you can throw at it in the cpu department (just a few short years ago, I was running a Intel Pentium 4 for F@H if this gives any idea's)

Now for gpu's, ATM you can run any cuda enabled Nvidia GPU (geforce 8 series and above) and AMD/ATI HD 5000 and above (there might be some work available for the HD 4000 and below but last i check they been slowly winding down support for these gpu's)

Although this will be changing for Nvidia. Soon, you'll only be able to run on 400 series and above (fermi gpu's and above).

If you have any more question, feel free to ask. Also check out this sticky at the top of this forum.

http://linustechtips.com/main/forum/...ps-team-223518

That thread has a ton of information that can help you get started and has a bunch of guides from different teams on how to optimize your system for the best F@H performance.

[joelthezombie15]

Just quoting from my guide (*I'm apart of another team but i'm always helping other teams*)

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/34...esting#t499234

1. What is Folding@Home (F@H)?

F@H is a distributed computing project that runs on many computers that's provided by people like you to simulated protein folding and misfolding.

• 1.1. What the goal of F@H?
  

The goal of F@H is to figure out why when proteins misfold, they create diseases and cancers, such as Alzheimer's and Huntington's and find a ways to cures them.

More details here on F@H Science Page.

http://folding.stanford.edu/English/Science

• 1.2. How does F@H work?
  

F@H work by sending packets of data called Work Unit’s too computers that people provide for project.

As for your question on making it Unusable, Depends on what your wanting to run on.

If your wanting to run on your CPU, then no. Your computer should act as if F@H wasn't running at all.

F@H is designed to run with the lowest priority as possible. Meaning anything you do should on your computer will have priority over F@H. Even your scheduled anti-virus scan will slow down F@H.

Now if you want to run on a gpu on the other hand.... depending on the gpu and if it's running the display.... You will probably find the system unusable while it's folding. Although this might of changed with their latest client that I haven't had time to mess with yet so I might be wrong on this.

As for hardware requirements, It's pretty much anything you can throw at it in the cpu department (just a few short years ago, I was running a Intel Pentium 4 for F@H if this gives any idea's)

Now for gpu's, ATM you can run any cuda enabled Nvidia GPU (geforce 8 series and above) and AMD/ATI HD 5000 and above (there might be some work available for the HD 4000 and below but last i check they been slowly winding down support for these gpu's)

Although this will be changing for Nvidia. Soon, you'll only be able to run on 400 series and above (fermi gpu's and above).

If you have any more question, feel free to ask. Also check out this sticky at the top of this forum.

http://linustechtips.com/main/forum/...ps-team-223518

That thread has a ton of information that can help you get started and has a bunch of guides from different teams on how to optimize your system for the best F@H performance.

so if i have a gaming machine and only one graphics card i cant use my pc?

[razersum]

Just quoting from my guide (*I'm apart of another team but i'm always helping other teams*)

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/34...esting#t499234

1. What is Folding@Home (F@H)?

F@H is a distributed computing project that runs on many computers that's provided by people like you to simulated protein folding and misfolding.

• 1.1. What the goal of F@H?
  

The goal of F@H is to figure out why when proteins misfold, they create diseases and cancers, such as Alzheimer's and Huntington's and find a ways to cures them.

More details here on F@H Science Page.

http://folding.stanford.edu/English/Science

• 1.2. How does F@H work?
  

F@H work by sending packets of data called Work Unit’s too computers that people provide for project.

As for your question on making it Unusable, Depends on what your wanting to run on.

If your wanting to run on your CPU, then no. Your computer should act as if F@H wasn't running at all.

F@H is designed to run with the lowest priority as possible. Meaning anything you do should on your computer will have priority over F@H. Even your scheduled anti-virus scan will slow down F@H.

Now if you want to run on a gpu on the other hand.... depending on the gpu and if it's running the display.... You will probably find the system unusable while it's folding. Although this might of changed with their latest client that I haven't had time to mess with yet so I might be wrong on this.

As for hardware requirements, It's pretty much anything you can throw at it in the cpu department (just a few short years ago, I was running a Intel Pentium 4 for F@H if this gives any idea's)

Now for gpu's, ATM you can run any cuda enabled Nvidia GPU (geforce 8 series and above) and AMD/ATI HD 5000 and above (there might be some work available for the HD 4000 and below but last i check they been slowly winding down support for these gpu's)

Although this will be changing for Nvidia. Soon, you'll only be able to run on 400 series and above (fermi gpu's and above).

If you have any more question, feel free to ask. Also check out this sticky at the top of this forum.

http://linustechtips.com/main/forum/...ps-team-223518

That thread has a ton of information that can help you get started and has a bunch of guides from different teams on how to optimize your system for the best F@H performance.

just keep the folding@home simulation at idle and you will be good to go when playing games. turn the simulation to medium or high, when you wont be using your pc, or when doing some light works, like watching a movie or something.