[MERGED] So what is Folding.....

[Money]

Could someone explain what folding is to me in relatively simple terms? Thanks! :D

[MicroApple911]

You download a program to your computer and it adds your computer to a network of lots of computers and basically turns them into one supercomputer to help scientific research about the process of protein folding. At least that's how I understand it ;).

[Money]

Can't tell if trolling me orrrrr... XD

[killerx525]

If you have a beefy system, you basically process it faster

[Money]

That's pretty fascinating actually.I might look into it!

[Whaler_99]

I have already started a post HERE about creating a team for @Folding with members from the LinusTechTips forum participating. Add your name and I will let you know when it gets going. :)

[MicroApple911]

You download a program to your computer and it adds your computer to a network of lots of computers and basically turns them into one supercomputer to help scientific research about the process of protein folding. At least that's how I understand it ;).

You're correct with one little difference. It a Cluster actually not a Supercomputer, but You got the idea.

Thanks for clearing that up

[KOtech]

Please explain what this is, never heard the term before.

Quick Google search,

Does it involve Creating a super computer and make it calculate "@home" ?

 

[ACK]

Folding, when used in pc forums, usually refers to the project Folding@home. Folding@home is a distributed computing system where users participate and give some of their computers processing power for protein folding simulations, hence the name.

[Whaler_99]

It is a distributed computing solution - all our PC's are used to process small peices of a very large and complex equations to work towards solving them. :) Basically you install an app on your PC and it uses free cycles to do this.

[Gavinhenderson5]

If I got it and started using it how would it benefit me? I've heard it slows your computer right down.

[Broseephus]

If I got it and started using it how would it benefit me? I've heard it slows your computer right down.

It's a way for you help out in the scientific process by lending your computing power. Not really an individual benefit to you. Some people have kind of turned it into a competition to build the ultimate folding rig.

[Nino]

I'm new to learning about computers and hear this term thrown around a lot, what does it mean?

[crispy345]

It's a option for everyone, but what you do is you are using the power of your PC while your away, to use for different projects, like medical research. There different variants of the folding program like for different research, but F@H is what the forum team is using. You just install a program on your PC, and when you're going away, you can turn it on, and it will use the most of you GPU and CPU to go trough WU's (work units) that will be sent to the project server. What it will do is putting them together it's like having a super computer to go through research much quicker! Your computer will get hotter, because of the program using 100% load of both your CPU and GPU, and of course it will be slower than usual. That's why you can turn it off when you're using it, and when you're away, you can use it for folding. You can join teams, and if you enter a passkey (found on the site), you can earn bonus points! I hope this clears up some stuff.

[mozoa]

Folding is a form of 'Distributed-Computing'. This means that a whole load of computers receive jobs from a mainframe. and send data back. This reduces the amount of hardware a group of researchers need, and allows tasks to get completed faster

In the case of Folding@home, Your computer uses it's Idle time for folding Proteins, Your computer researches what proteins do, and it predicts how proteins are going to 'fold' and sends this back to the labs.

It researches if the proteins have anything to do with some serious diseases, for example Cancer, Alzheimer or Parkinson.

That is one of the main reasons people fold with the computer power they are not using,

My personal second reason is that it gives me a pretty cool screensaver.

[Nino]

Thank you so much ^_^

[TicTac]

http://linustechtips.com/main/forum/community-portal/folding-home-boinc/22120-folding-team-team-wraptor-recruitment-pro-level

[Jrjy3]

Please explain what this is, never heard the term before.

Quick Google search,

Does it involve Creating a super computer and make it calculate "@home" ?

Best Regards

- K

Proteins in the body break down food into energy, regulate your moods, fight disease, and many other things. Before proteins can carry out these important functions, they assemble themselves, or "fold". While protein folding is critical and fundamental to virtually all of biology, much of the process remains a mystery.

When proteins do not fold correctly, also known as misfolding, there can be serious health consequences, including many well known diseases, such as Alzheimer's, Mad Cow (BSE), CJD, ALS, Huntington's, Parkinson's disease, and many cancers.

If we better understand protein misfolding, we can design drugs and therapies to combat these illnesses.

You can help by installing the FAH (Folding at Home) software and have it running in the background of your computer. It basically calculates how proteins fold and then upload the results for that specific protein to a very large database. Scientists can then use that data to try to come up with the drugs and therapies.

[Jrjy3]

Can't tell if trolling me orrrrr... XD

He isn't trolling. That's what really happens. Here's the link to the Folding at home website. They have more information there. http://folding.stanford.edu/English/HomePage

[MercedesBenzene]

About how much power does folding take?

[Whaler_99]

Depending on your system, hard to say. On an "average" computer doing SMP folding, your CPU will be running at 100% most of the time - but CPU's and PSU's are pretty efficient now. It is the GPU's that really soak up the power. So... you will notice it on your power bill. But if only running a system or two, maybe a few extra bucks a month. Don't ask what my power bill is. :D

[maximilian4o]

Could someone please clear things to me. One day I was noticing that my games were lagging like crazy. That was because my CPU was at 100% load (FX-4170) even when I was doing nothing on my PC. Than what I figured out, that the thing that was consuming all my power is a process called ,,fahcore''. When I removed it, everything was awesome. When I had ,,fahcore'' running on my background, I had AVG of 17 FPS on BF3 (low settings)---(HD7770). So I'm a little bit scared of downloading the program.

Any suggestions ? :)

[aerways]

Could someone please clear things to me. One day I was noticing that my games were lagging like crazy. That was because my CPU was at 100% load (FX-4170) even when I was doing nothing on my PC. Than what I figured out, that the thing that was consuming all my power is a process called ,,fahcore''. When I removed it, everything was awesome. When I had ,,fahcore'' running on my background, I had AVG of 17 FPS on BF3 (low settings)---(HD7770). So I'm a little bit scared of downloading the program.

Any suggestions ? :)

Yes thats the process for Folding@Home, its ideally meant to run at a low priority on your system but when running it alongside other intensive applications like games it can slow your system down. You can easily pause the current job in the Folding@Home client whenever you need the power for something else, any amount of folding will help the team :)

[Whaler_99]

Could someone please clear things to me. One day I was noticing that my games were lagging like crazy. That was because my CPU was at 100% load (FX-4170) even when I was doing nothing on my PC. Than what I figured out, that the thing that was consuming all my power is a process called ,,fahcore''. When I removed it, everything was awesome. When I had ,,fahcore'' running on my background, I had AVG of 17 FPS on BF3 (low settings)---(HD7770). So I'm a little bit scared of downloading the program.

Any suggestions ? :)

As AERWAYS says, it usually plays well with others. I can surf, read emails, watch HD movies, and even play World of Tanks with no problems. But, when playing something like Far Cry 3 which can demand just a wee bit from our system :D I will pause folding, and then resume when done.

[Liquidus]

We have 2 different folding team:

Team links:

Official Folding@Home Site:

http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/...teamnum=223518

Boinc Site:

http://boincstats.com/en/stats/-1/us...cfb82854273f#1

Bothe are called LinusTechTips_Team