Just Friday we weregushingthat the Folding@Home labor , with the help of a few Spartanesque PS3s , had transcend 500 teraflops . obviously , that was too good to be true . Just now , as about 30k PS3s were about to press fold over a PFLOP ( 1000 TFLOPS ) , Folding staff at Stanford seem to have reestimated the PS3 ’s big businessman of calculation to be about 50 % less than antecedently thought . No matter . We ’re not that far off from PFLOPing , according to the FAQ , if you all get off your asses and bribe PS3s for Folding .
https://gizmodo.com/breaking-ps3-triples-folding-at-homes-computing-power-246664
Here ’s how :
fundamentally , If we can get another 20k of the 2 million PS3 ’s out there now to start close , the Stanford distributed computing project can still be the first to hit the Petaflop stratum . That ’s more crunch than the firm A-one computer we make love of , theMDGRAPE-3 in Japan . For now , Folding is merely the most knock-down stagger computing system in the world … never mind the only organization capable of play HD games and motion-picture show .
While we wait for the PS3 to make history , Stanford ’s put an FAQ up that answers some of the mystery story we ’d be wondering about .
- The Cell central processing unit ’s strength is in crunching small sets of datum — the PS3 ’s 512 MB of RAM limits
The PS3 use 200w per hour while turn up .
The PS3 ’s GPU is being used by the Folding client .
Jump for more …
Folding@Home on the PS3
INTRODUCTION
Since 2000 , Folding@Home ( FAH ) has conduce to a major jump in the capabilities of molecular pretending . By joining together hundreds of M of PCs throughout the creation , calculations which were previously consider insufferable have now become routine . FAH has target the study of of protein fold and protein folding disease , and numerous scientific advances have come from the project .
Now in 2006 , we are depend forth to another major advancement in capabilities . This advance utilizes the unexampled Cell processor in Sony ’s PLAYSTATION 3 ( PS3 ) to achieve operation previously only potential on supercomputer . With this unexampled applied science ( as well as new advances with GPUs ) , we will belike be able to attain performance on the 20 gigaflop exfoliation per computer . With about 50,000 such auto , we would be able to achieve performance on the petaflop plate . With software package from Sony , the PlayStation 3 will now be able-bodied to contribute to the Folding@Home project , labour Folding@Home a major step forward .
Our goal is to apply this new technology to drive Folding@Home into a raw spirit level of capabilities , use our simulation to further bailiwick of protein folding and related diseases , include Alzheimer ’s Disease , Huntington ’s Disease , and sealed forms of cancer . With these computational advances , coupled with new pretence methodologies to harness the new techniques , we will be able to address questions previously considered insufferable to undertake computationally , and make even greater impact on our knowledge of folding and folding related to diseases .
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ( FAQ )
BASICS
How do I get a copy of Folding@home for the PS3 ?
If you have PS3 system version 1.6 or later , you will see a Folding@Home picture in the connection pillar of the XBR ( PS3 menu ) . Just get through on the ikon and that ’s it . If you do n’t have 1.6 or afterwards , please perform a organization rising slope .
Which discover do what ?
mechanical press square to see what the other controls do .
What is the power consumption of the PS3 operate the FAH guest ? Is it safe to launch the PS3 24X7 ?
We have a bun in the oven the PS3 to expend about 200W while running Folding@Home . We have several PS3 ’s running in our lab , running Folding@Home 24/7 and have had good result so far .
What type of calculation the PS3 client is capable of running ?
The PS3 right now runs what are call inexplicit solvation calculations , including some simple unity ( sigmodal dependent dielectric ) and some more advanced ones ( AGBNP , a type of Generalized Born method acting from Prof. Ron Levy ’s grouping at Rutgers ) . In this respectfulness , the PS3 client is much like our GPU node . However , the PS3 customer is more flexible , in that it can also run explicit solvent calculations as well , although not at the same speed increase relative to PC ’s . We are working to increase the f number of explicit solvent on the PS3 and would then run these computation on the PS3 as well . In a nutshell , the PS3 takes the midway ground between GPU ’s ( extreme speed , but at limited types of WU ’s ) and CPU ’s ( less velocity , but more flexibility in types of WU ’s ) .
Can I change the donator name and team act ?
Press triangle while in the visual customer to alter your username and squad number .
STATS
How long will it take to complete the body of work unit ( WU ) ?
We have set PS3 WU ’s to take approximately 8 hour to fill out . The logic behind this was to ensure that the PS3 could be operate only over nighttime and still yield a useful result . We will in all likelihood decrease this clock time in the futurity to try out to make it easier for PS3 donors to only briefly run their machines , but still make utile contribution .
When will my tip show up in my account ?
It can take 1 - 2 hours after the WU has been received for the point to be enter into our database . We normally move hourly update , but during menstruation of heavy activeness , it can become less frequent .
How are the number of alive machine calculate ?
One central problem in distribute computing is the computation of how many computers are actively part of the undertaking . Many projects simply cite the “ total number of twist ” , i.e. the number of computer to ever be a part of the computing . This can of course of action grossly overvalue the current power of the distributed computer science meshing .
or else , we calculate the phone number of “ combat-ready ” clients , i.e. machines that have returned work of late . Active PS3 ’s are limit as those which have return Wu dialect within 2 days . This is a much shorter timeout than what we set for normal CPU client , as the PS3 clients Work Unit deadline is much shorter ( typically 2 days ) . However , as we pass along with the lot clients fairly infrequently ( no more ofttimes than every 8 hours ) , it is hard to precisely know how many machines are running and these numbers are best used as an order of order of magnitude estimate of the power of our internet .
How are the FLOPS calculated ?
masses often use the number of Floating breaker point operations per second ( dud ) as a metric for the speeding of a computer . One head that get up is how to liken machines with radically dissimilar computer architecture . In particular , what necessitate only a few operations ( or even just a individual operation ) on one machine could necessitate many operations on another . Graeco-Roman examples are evaluations of functions like the exp(x ) or sin(x ) . One GPU and Cell hardware , functions like this can often be calculated very quickly , say in one cycle , while this is often calculate as 10 - 20 operations for other machines .
We take a buttoned-down approach path to FLOP calculation , show quantities such as exp(x ) or sqrt(x ) as a single washout , if the computer hardware supports it . This can significantly underestimate the FLOP tally ( as others would count an exp(x ) as 10 or 20 FLOPS , for example ) . Others take a much less conservative coming and we are considering giving two counting , impart a more traditional ( less conservative ) count as well .
The idealistic comparison would be to run Folding@Home on the supercomputer itself to essay its speed . In this kind of comparability , Folding@Home would in all probability do very well , and we are investigate the upright mode to execute this benchmark , as we await people would be interested .
It seems that the PS3 is more than 10X powerful as an intermediate PC . Why does n’t it get 10X PPD as well ?
We equilibrise the point based on both focal ratio and the flexibility of the customer . The GPU customer is still the fastest , but it is the least flexible and can only run a very , very limited stage set of WU ’s . Thus , its point are not linearly proportional to the hurrying gain . The PS3 take the midway ground between GPU ’s ( utmost speed , but at circumscribed types of WU ’s ) and CPU ’s ( less speed , but more flexibility in type of WU ’s ) . We have pick the PS3 as the born benchmark automobile for PS3 computing and set its points per solar day to 900 to excogitate this middle ground between speed ( faster than CPU , but slower than GPU ) and flexibleness ( more flexile than GPU , less than CPU ) .
The PS3 is outrunning all the rest of the FAH client type . Should I stop my subsist personal computer / GPU/ … FAH client ?
No , the other client are worthful to us too and we have pick out a point system to endeavor to reflect the comparative merits of each different platform to our scientific enquiry . For deterrent example , the SMP guest has been bring forth some very exciting scientific results and carry on to be very important in our work . By supporting machines with Lot of different functionality , we have a very fat set of hardware on which to run calculations , allowing us to tailor calculations to the ironware to achieve maximum functioning .
Folding at HomeStatsandFAQ[Stanford ]
PS3 Folding[Gizmodo ]
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