Folding@Home Windows Instalation

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[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]WINDOWS GRAPHICAL CLIENT INSTALLATION [/font]
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[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Note: As of version 5, screensaver functionality is built into the standard GUI client (which is suitable for Windows 2000/NT/XP).

Note: Win 98/ME users should use the version 4.00 Graphical client client. [/font]
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[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif](1) Download the client software (press back on the browser and choose the link for the Windows NT/2000/XP Graphical client or Windows 98/ME Graphical client depending on the OS your using. [/font]
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[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif](2) Run the (e-mail address removed) program (double click on the icon in the location where you saved it). Since we're constantly improving and releasing new clients, consider updating once in a while to get the new features.[/font]

[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif](3) The installation program will ask you some questions (e.g. where would you like to install the files). It is recommended that you choose the default values wherever appropriate (on most systems this will be in C:\ProgramFiles). It will install itself into the specified directory and create a program group (Start > Programs > Folding@Home by default). It will also put Folding@Home into Start->Program Files->Startup, so that it is automatically launched upon login. You may remove this if you do not want an auto-start.[/font]

[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif](4) Folding@Home is now installed and may be run by Clicking Start > Programs > Folding@Home > [email protected] (though if auto-startup is enabled -- see above point -- then this is not required). The first time it is run the client will ask you to enter some Configuration information -- if you would like to run the program as a Screensaver, then check the Screensaver box that is under the Display tab of the Configuration window (you may also wish to make F@H a Scheduled Task through Windows Settings, Figure 4, so that it launches automatically when you computer begins). The program will download the latest scientific core if the bundled core needs to be updated. This core is approx 400Kb, and could therefore take a little time to download, ~2-5 min on a modem. During the download the client will display the download progress in the lower left hand corner of the main window. [/font]

[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif](5) When it is running, Folding@Home will display a little red icon in the taskbar, which may be left-clicked on to enable the protein visualisation window, or right clicked on to switch to fullscreen mode or run the configuration window, where user/team information can be updated. [/font]

[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Further details can be found in the README file, which can be viewed through Start > Programs > Folding@Home > Readme[/font]

 

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

http://folding.stanford.edu/faq.html

Well I aint writing 'em all out again.

 

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Folding@Home points

[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Introduction. Much of what drives distributed computing is the sense of collegiate competition to compute the most for the project as possible. One way to quantitatively assess this is through the points that FAH keeps track of (in our statistics or "stats" pages). Here, we detail the nature of how our points are determined and why that method is used. There are lots of methods one could use, but we've found that over time (and with extensive discussions with Folding@Home donors) that our current method is a reasonable compromise, given all the complexity of awarding points for Folding@Home work units.

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[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]How do you decide how much credit a work unit is worth? Points are determined by the performance of a given machine relative to a becnhmark machine. Before putting out any new work unit, we benchmark it on a dedicated 2.8GHz Pentium 4 machine with SSE2 disabled (more specifically, as reported by /proc/cpuinfo on linux: vendor_id : GenuineIntel, cpu family : 15, model : 2, model name : Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.80GHz, stepping : 9, cpu MHz : 2806.438, cache size : 512 KB). This machine runs linux, so all WUs are benchmarked with the linux core.

We plug the results of this into the following formula: [/font]
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[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]points = 110 * (daysPerWU)[/font]

[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]where daysPerWU is the number of days it took to complete the unit. This equation was chosen to match the points for previous Gromacs WUs to the previous point system. The upshot is that Tinker WUs will be worth more than before we set up the new points (i.e. before April 2004).

Please note that the very concept of a reference machine will mean that some WU benchmarking will vary from the performance on your machine. Even between P4s, there are significant differences in architectures over the years. Moreover, variations between FAH WUs can also lead to differences in benchmarking points.

Our goal is consistency within a given definition of a reference machine setup (described above), but beyond that the natural variation from machine to machine and WU to WU will never allow any point system to perfectly reflect what you get on your machine. [/font]
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Why are some projects given significantly more points than others? Certain projects require substantially more donor computer resources than others, either in terms of more disk space, more network transfer, or more RAM used. By default, these work units are given out to clients which opt in to request them. To reward those donors for donating resources beyond the typical client, we currently give bonus points for these larger work units. [/font]
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[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]How big are bonus points? Currently the bonus points are a 50% increase over the standard benchmark point determination (described above). Please note that this value is subject to change.

How do I configure my client to get bonus point WUs? Please see our configuration FAQ for these details.[/font]
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Is there any risk of taking on bonus point work units?[/font][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] These work units are larger and more experimental: for example, they often involve new cores, such as the QMD core. Thus, they are more experimental. Thus, one should not run big work unit clients on non-dedicated machines. The bonus points are a reward for giving more resources to FAH and so one should not be surprised that these work units are very intrusive and take the complete resources of the machine. [/font]
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Why can't AMD machines get QMD WUs, which have large points? [/font][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Please check out the FAQ on the QMD core. We describe in great detail the situation regarding AMD chips and the QMD core. This situation is present only in QMD WUs, which represents a very small part of FAH. [/font]
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F@H ERRORs

http://forum.folding-community.org/viewtopic.php?t=4824&highlight=