Часто задаваемые вопросы Folding@home (FAQ)

Содержание

- О проекте, полная картина

Что такое Folding@home? Что такое сворачивание белков?

Folding@home это проект распределённых вычислений, который, говоря по-простому, изучает сворачивание и агрегацию белков. Более подробно про сворачивание белков можно узнать в научном разделе.

Что такое распределённые вычисления?

Распределённые вычисления это метод компьютерной обработки данных при котором несколько частей программы или несколько порций данных одновременно обрабатываются на двух и более компьютерах, которые связаны между собой сетью или интернетом.

Кому "принадлежат" результаты"? Что происходит с ними?

В отличие от других проектов распределдённых вычислений, Folding@home ведётся некоммерческим образовательным учреждением (в частности группой Панде химического факультета Стэнфордского униврситета), занимающимся научными исследованиями и образованием. Мы не продаём эти данные и не зарабатываем на этом деньги.

Более того, мы плнируем предоставлять эти данные для использования. В частности результаты Folding@home будут доступны на нескольких уровнях. Более того, анализ процессов будет отправляться в научные журналы для публикаций и эти статьи будут размещаться после журнальнгой публикации в сети. Затем, после публикации статей с анализом данных, результаты вычислений будут доступны на этом веб-сайте всем желающим, включая других исследователей.

Как я могу увидеть как много людей принимаю участие в проекте? Сколько "свёрнуто" на сегодня и сколько свернул я?

Мы ведем разнообразную статистику пользователей и выполненной работы в разделе "Статистика". Вы можете ознакомиться с индивидуальной статистикой, статистикой команд и общей статистикой проекта. Вы также можете ознакомиться с разделом "Результаты и награды"

Чего достиг проект на сегодня?

Мы смогли свернуть несколько белков в промежутке времени от 5 до 10 микросекунд с экспериментальным подтверждением нашей кинетики сворачивания. Это фундаментальный прорыв на фоне прежней работы. Научные публикации, описывающие наши результаты можно найти в разделе "Результаты". Сейчас мы переходим к другим важным белкам, используемым в структурно-биологических исследованиях сворачиания и белкам, вызывающим болезни. Многие из полученных FAH белков проанализированы и опубликованы в топ-изданиях (Nature, Nature Structural Biology, PNAS, JMB, и др.). На сегодняшний день проект FAH опубликовал данных больше чем все другие проекты распределённых вычислений вместе взятые!

Почему нельзя просто использовать суперкомпьютер?

Современные суперкомпьютеры на самом деле являются кластерами сотен процессоров связанных высокоскоростной сетью. Скорость этих процессоров сравнима (и часто даже ниже) со скоростью процессоров в обычных компьютерах! Таким образом, если алгоритм (такой как наш) не требует быстрого сетевого подключения, он будет исполнятьбся с той же скоростью, что и суперкомпьютер. Конечно, нашей программе нужны не сотни процессоров современных суперкомпьютеров, а сотни тысяч процессоров. Следовательно, вычисления выполняемые Folding@home невозможны иным методом! Более того, даже если бы нам дали доступ ко всем суперкомпьютерам мира, мы всё равно делали бы меньше циклов вычислений чем на нашем кластере под именем Folding@home! Это возможно потому, что процессоры сейчас очень быстрые и в мире простаивают сотни миллионов компьютеров.

Могу ли я запускать Folding@home на компьютере, который мне не принадлежит?

Пожалуйста, запускайте Folding@home только на машинах которыми вы владеете или с разрешения владельца компьютера. Любое другое использование Folding@home нарушает наше лицензионное соглашение (и вообще не очень хорошая идея).

Каковы минимальные системные требования?

В проекте могут принимать участие любые компьютеры. Однако, если компьютер слишком медленный (например, приобретен позже чем 3-4 года назад), то он может не успеть к сроку исполнения задачи. Пентиум 3 с частотой 450МГц или выше (с SSE) в состоянии справиться с задачей в срок.

Почему вы не публикуете исходный код?

Большинство важных частей FAH доступны всем желающим. Исходные коды Тинкер и Громакс могут быть скачаны и запущены. В отличие от большинства компьютерных проектов наша нглавная забота не о функциональность, а научная целостность, и размещение исходного кода в любом виде позволит людям использовать его для фальсификации результатов, что сделает весь проект бессмысленным.

However, we stress that the vast majority of our code is already open source. We have an Open Source FAQ with more details.

Тем не менее мы акцентируем внимание на том, что большинство нашего кода уже находится в общем доступе. Мы создали раздел ответов по открытому коду, содержащий больше информации.

Сетевые проблемы

Время от времени у нас не бывает заданий которые подходили бы к любой компьютерной платформе. Когда это случается, мы не посылаем вам заданий, которые не нужны. Ваш компьютер периодически опрашивает сервер о новых заданиях, вместо выполнения ненужных. Несмотря на то, что ваш компьютер вынужденно простаивает, мы всё равно оцениваем ваше участие. Если это состояние продолжается долгое время, обратитесь за помощью на форум, потому что это ненормально.

У меня модем; могу ли я использовать Folding@home?

Да. Программу можно настроить на автодозвон или на ожидание соединения. Возможны проблемы при использовании модема и версии с хранителем экрана. Если проблемы возникают, используйте консольную версию Folding@home.

Я защищён фаерволлом. Могу ли я использовать Folding@home?

Да. Сконфигурируйте ваш фаерволл или прокси-сервер в конфигурационной панели графического клиента. В панель можно попасть щёлкнув правой кнопкой на экране прогшраммы или щёлкнув по иконке на панели задач. Консольный клиент настраивается с помощью ключа -config при запуске.

Ошибки

Установщик Folding@home для Windows не работает.

Если вы пытаетесь установить графического клиента или хранитель экрана и видите окно "Setup is starting...", но больше ничего не происходит (и не появляется сообщение об ошибке), проблема скорее всего в наличии файла "setup.exe" в одном из каталогов, описанном в ваших системных настройках (скорее всего этот файл находится в каталоге с установщиком FAH, на рабочем столе или врменном каталоге). Поммните, что вы можете иметь много врменных каталогов в зависимости от вашей операционной системы. Переименуйте, переместите или удалите лишние файлы "setup.exe" и всё заработает.

Folding@home выглядит странно (Windows) или закрывается (Linux).

Folding@home требует как минимум 64 Мб памяти. При нехватке памяти в Windows происходят необъясниме вещи, а консольный клиент в Linux при нехватке памяти просто закрывается.

Хранитель экрана выглядит как чёрный экран с маленькми летающими точками.

Похоже, мы выяснили причину. Это происходит на мониторах и графических картах, которые не поддерживают 8-мибитный цвет. Мы также обнаружили проблемы со старыми видеокартами. Если у вас проблемы, убедитесь, что у вас установлены свежие драйверы видеокарты и OpenGL.

У меня появилась ошибка "Network Recv Timeout" или другой текст в консольной версии (также в файле scrlog.txt)

Если текст содержит примерно следующее Deleting files IP = 171.64.122.81 Network Recv Timeout GetWork Failed

... то не волнуйтесь. Это проблемы при соединении с сервером и программа пытается соединиться с сервером снова. Время от времени у нас происходят проблемы с сервером и у пользователей возникает именно это сообщение. Просто немного подождите и соединение установится. Если проблема сохраняется день и больше, то лучше перезапустить программу или даже переустановить. В консольной версии нажмите ctrl+c для безопасного выхода и запустите программу снова. (Учтите: эта функция появилась недавно, поэтому в вашей версии она может быть недоступна и вам придётся удалить процесс).

Open GL games don't work or get minimized when running the FAH graphical client.

OpenGL games don't work or get minimized when running the FAH graphical client. There is a known issue that can occur when running FAH and any other application that uses OpenGL, which are mainly games. This issue is not due to FAH itself, but rather that OpenGL, which is used in the FAH graphical client, does not allow itself to be used by two programs simultaneously. The workaround for this issue is to uninstall the FAH graphical client and install the console client. Thanks to [Spectre] and ellroy80 for contributing this FAQ entry.

Folding@home and Genome@home

What is the Genome@home project and how does it relate to the Folding@home project?

Genome@home was another distributed computing project from the Pande Group Lab. As of April 15, 2004, the project has concluded. You can find more details at http://genomeathome.stanford.edu

The goal of Genome@home is protein design and its applications. One central application of ours for protein design is the creation of large libraries of designed protein sequences, in a sense "redesigning" or "reverse-engineering" an existing Genome (hence the name "Genome@home"). Another application of protein design is to understand why proteins fold and why they misfold and aggregate. This is a central question of Folding@home and directly relates to our study of protein folding and misfolding, as it is related to misfolding-related diseases, such as Alzheimer's, ALS, etc.

What does the 'gah' selection do now?

We have developed certain work units that do not lead to new work and hence do not need deadlines. These so-called "timeless" WUs are on a server and you can request one with the gah selection in the client. These WUs are best for slower machines or machines which are not connected to the Internet. The client is capable of caching these WUs as well. For clients version 5.00 and newer, deadlineless WUs are listed explicitly.

Notes:

Recently, deadlineless WU's have been unavailable due to the science we have been studying (which is not compatible with them), but this WU type may return.
When you configure a slower machine for deadlineless WU, you will be assigned ONLY deadlineless WUs (and nothing else) so your machine may remain idle for many, many months.
For systems that can meet the deadlines, please reconfigure the client to accept normal work units.

Running

I just finished a WU and now I got another for the same protein. Is there something wrong?

No, everything is fine. We're studying the dynamics of several proteins, so you may receive work units from the same protein (and same project number) multiple times. Each WU gives us additional information about the dynamics of that protein, so it is important to us. Indeed, if we did only 1 WU per protein, we would not learn very much. A Project number, and a Run, Clone, and Generation number distinguish each work unit.

Does Folding@home run on dual processor or multi-core machines?

Yes it can, by running one of our high performance SMP clients, Linux-64, OSX/Intel, or Windows. See the client Download page.

For other platforms, additional processors must run more than one console client (with the "-local" command-line argument if run on Windows). First, make additional directories for each processor and copy the FAH Console executable file into each. Then configure them with the -config switch, filling in settings for each. It is very important to make sure that under the "Advanced Settings" option each copy is given a unique machine ID (from 1 to 8, up to 16 on v6 clients). The first copy will default to a machine ID of 1, so additional copies should be given IDs of 2, 3, 4, etc. Each may then be run out of their installed directory, using the -local switch on Windows. We recommend running no more than one CPU FAH Console client per physical processor/core.

Is there anything special I should do to run on a cluster?

The main aspect to consider is to make sure that the CPUID for each machine is unique. To help fight from having duplicate IDs, the Windows versions (v3 and later) keep their IDs in the registry and the Linux version (v3.11 and later) keep it in a special file MachineDependent.dat.

Ways to avoid duplicating IDs:

If you install each client individually, then it's impossible for there to be problem with a duplicate ID. If you use the recent Windows version and have single processor machines, then you should also be fine (for duals, see the above). For a Linux cluster, make sure that if you copy the directory, you DO NOT copy the MachineDependent.dat file. This file will be auto generated by the client to get a new ID.

Why should I update my Folding@home software to the current version?

We are continuously improving the Folding@home software and adding new features. We release new versions to fix bugs reported by the users to help make the project run as smoothly as possible.

How do the results get back to you?

Your computer will automatically upload the results to our server each time it finishes a work unit, and download a new work at that time.

Can I download more than one unit at a time?

The algorithm we use works best if everybody downloads one work unit at a time, and checks back after each unit is completed. Therefore no option to download multiple units is available. If you have multiple processors in your computer, it is possible to have each processor work on a different unit; see what to do here. Do not try to run two copies on different machines that use the same directory on the same file system. Each client NEEDS to run in a separate directory.

How long does it take to finish a work unit? How do you measure a work unit?

This varies, of course, on the speed of the computer and the size of the protein under study. Depending on the protein and the properties studied, different size work units may be used. The Project Summary page has information on particular proteins' sizes and the deadlines allotted for completion.

Can I run both the GUI version and Console version at the same time? What happens if I run two console versions?

Yes, but ONLY if you multiple processors/cores, and install in different directories. Also, DO NOT just copy the files from one directory to each other. This will cause the clients to get confused.

You won't get credit for the work you do. It will be no use for science. Instead, install a client once into each directory. If you have already copied the program into multiple directories and are trying to run it, find the client.cfg file and delete it. The next time the FAH client starts, it will create a new client.cfg file and get a new ID from the project servers. The Windows GUI CPU client Machine ID must be 1, so all other clients must use 2, 3, 4, etc.

How can I make sure my results are being sent back and used? How can I tell how much work I've processed?

To find out data that has been reported back you can check the Stats page for Individual stats, Team stats, and overall Project stats. If your computer is returning data, you should see your username there along with the number of work units completed. If your name isn't there, and your screen saver or console version seems to be working fine, then either it hasn't finished a unit yet (this can take a few days, or even longer with an older computer), the list hasn't been updated yet. Check back in a day or two, and it should be there . . . as long as you remember correctly what you typed in for your donor user name. :)

Why does adjusting the core process priority via the task manager not affect its performance?

How do I manually adjust the priority of the Folding@home core?

The work is done by the fahcore, not the client process, so changing the priority on the client has no impact on performance. The priority for the fahcore is set to "Idle" by default (but displays as normal in Task Manager). The client is already designed to use all spare CPU cycles, so changing the Windows priority is unnecessary. If the FAH client is competing with another process running at "Idle" such as a background AV scan, there is a client option to run at a "Low" priority. Run the console client with the -config switch to change the setting.

Can I run Folding@home when SETI@home is running?

Yes, SETI@home and other distributed applications can be run alongside Folding@home, provided you have enough system memory. Some programs, including SETI@home run at a higher priority than Folding@home, which prevents FAH from progressing if it is run at the same time. If you notice the FAH client is not progressing, you can fix this by enabling the "Slightly Higher Priority" Option in the FAH client. This can be done through the advanced options page for the Windows GUI client, or by running the Console client with the -config switch. versions.

Note: FAH work units are time sensitive, while work units from other projects typically are not time sensitive. Therefore we strongly recommend giving the FAH client a higher priority, or to dedicate a processor to FAH while allowing other projects to use the remaining computer resources.

Are there any limits to how long my machine can take to finish a work unit (WU)?

Yes. Work Units are serial in nature. When a completed WU is sent back, a new work unit is generated from those results. This must happen many times over within each project (group of work units). A generation 1 work unit must be turned in before a generaton 2 work unit is created and sent out.

To keep these generations moving along, we have to set expiration deadlines in the event a work unit is not uploaded in a timely manner (lost, deleted, whatever). These unfinished work units "expire" and are reassigned to new machines. You will still receive credit for all WUs completed and uploaded prior to the preferred deadline. However, after the preferred deadline, your contribution is not as useful scientifically because another copy of that work unit had to be sent out to another contributor. Even if you eventually complete the work unit, that other contributor still had to process duplicate work to assure the science moves forward. And it would be unfair not to also credit that second contributor.

Even so, full credit is given up until the final deadline. After the final deadline has expired, the client will automaticlly discard the work unit and download new work. If you have trouble completing work units before the preferred deadline, it is recommended to either run the FAH client more hours each day, or to run the client on a faster computer.

As we move to larger and longer WUs, we will extend the expiration time as needed. Deadlines vary on the order of a few days to a several weeks, depending on the nature of the WU. Turn in a work unit just before the deadline is not the goal. It is most helpful to the project to return work units as quickly as possible. And how these deadlines are determined is explained a few answers below.

Can I run the Linux version on FreeBSD?

Yes. Please do the following:

Install emulators/Linux_base from FreeBSD CD.

Edit /compat/Linux/etc/yp.conf and put the correct server in there.

Download the Linux folding console (FAHxConsole, where x is the version number) and cd to the directory.

% brandelf -t Linux FAHxConsole

As of Version 3.24, all you have to do from here is specify the "-freeBSD" flag when you run the client,

% ./FAHxConsole -freeBSD and it will automatically brand the scientific cores it downloads. For clients prior 3.24, the -freeBSD flag is not supported and you have to do the following:

after starting the client, wait till it download the core than kill the fold job.

% brandelf -t Linux FahCore_65.exe

% ./FAHxConsole

and you're done! (Thanks to "gotti" for the suggestion).

What about OpenBSD?

It works almost as easily as FreeBSD (see the FAQ entry just above). Just follow these steps:

1. Install /usr/ports/emulators/redhat/base from ports on 3.4 or later. If you're on an earlier version, or just prefer packages, install redhat_base-8.0p2. 2. Set up a script that redirects the brandelf call to elf2olf, so that core binaries can be marked properly. This script can be downloaded from http://www.schnarff.com/brandelf, or simply set up on your own:

/bin/sh

elf2olf -v -o linux $3

In either case, make sure the brandelf script is executable and in the path of the user running FAH. 3. Make sure to use the Linux Console version B, as version A will coredump. 4. When running the client, use the -freeBSD switch, so that it will automatically mark core binaries properly.

Thanks to Alex Kirk for the OpenBSD info.

What is simulation instability?

The simulation of molecular motion involves a great deal of computation. Each run consists of a number of time steps (each very small). At each time step, the position of the various atoms is calculated and updated, based on a number of factors. Sometimes, the simulation enters into a state that is not legal (i.e. atoms are too close, bonds are in impossible angles, etc.). At times like this, the Core exits, and information is uploaded to the server. The client will then get another assignment. If your computer is stable, then you haven't done anything wrong. On unstable computers, it is possible that the simulation instability was brought on by a fault of the system rather than something intrinsic to the work unit. Because of this, a work unit may be sent out again at some time if it is returned as having run into instability. In a given project, we expect a small percentage of units to encounter legitimate instability.

What if I turn off my computer? Does the client save its work (i.e. checkpoint)?

Periodically, the core writes data to your hard disk so that if you stop the client, it can resume processing that WU from some point other than the very beginning. With the Tinker core, this happens at the end of every frame. With the Gromacs core, these checkpoints can happen almost anywhere and they are not tied to the data recorded in the results. Initially, this was set to every 1% of a WU (like 100 frames in Tinker) and then a timed checkpoint was added every 15 minutes, so that on a slow machine, you never loose more that 15 minutes work.

As proteins become more complex and run longer, it is better to have more frames in a WU so that you don't loose so much progress if you have to restart - - hence WUs that have 400 frames instead of 100. That still doesn't take the speed of the machine into account. A fast machine completes a frame in a few minutes while a slow one may take hours, and the donor with the slow machine still doesn't want to lose 99% of those "hours" yet the fast machine doesn't really want the overhead of writing the checkpoints every "few minutes" - - and neither of them wants the upload time associated with results containing many frames.

Starting in the 4.x version of the client, you can set the 15 minute default to another value (3-30 minutes).

Thanks to Bruce Borden for this FAQ entry.

Statistics, teams, usernames

How can I change my username (donor name)?

The simplest way to change your username is go to the configuration panel (right click in the graphical display or click on the sys tray icon). You can change your username at any time. However, old work units will remain credited to the old username.

How can I join/create a team?

To create a team, please fill out this form. To join a team, just put the team's number in the configuration panel (on graphical clients) or enter the team number at the first time you run the client (for text console versions).

I'm running multiple machines behind a firewall. Can they all have the same username?

Yes. They can all have the same name.

Are there any characters I should avoid in a username?

We strongly recommend sticking to just letters, numbers and underscore. Right now, we reserve the characters # ^ ~ |. # is used for firewall differentiation (see above). We want to save ^ | and ~ for other problems which might come up. Also, don't put spaces in your username; please use some character like "_" instead. Finally, please note that usernames are case sensitive, so "Dave" and "dave" and "dAVE" are all different usernames.

How do you decide how much credit a work unit is worth? How do you determine how many points a work unit is worth?

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:

points = 110 * (daysPerWU)

where daysPerWU is the number of days it took to complete the unit. This equation was chosen to match the points for 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. See also the Points FAQ

How do you set the deadlines for the work units?

Each work unit is benchmarked on a dedicated 2.8 GHz Pentium 4 machine with SSE2 disabled. For most work units (although there may be exceptions, described in the next paragraph), we apply this equation:

timeout = 20 * (daysPerWU) + 2 deadline = max(30* (daysPerWU) + 2,10)

where daysPerWU is the number of days it took to complete the unit. The "+2" days is there to give an additional buffer for fast WUs (to allow for servers down, etc). If 30*daysPerWU is less than 10 days, we set the deadline to 10 days, as a minimum time for all projects. The timeout is the time at which the WU is resent to another client and the deadline is the last time that we will give stats credit for the WU.

Occasionally, deadlines may be set shorter or longer than the above calculation indicates, but the reason for having deadlines at all is that the sooner we get back work units, the sooner we can put the results to good use. Also, different projects have different requirements server-side and may require shorter or allow longer deadlines (e.g. "pfold" calculations can often be run without any deadlines, whereas MREMD calculations work best with very tight deadlines). The assignment server does take machine performance into account in making assignments, thereby allowing slower machines to receive more appropriate work units.

How can I get a copy of all of the current stats?

Please feel free to download http://fah-web.stanford.edu/daily_user_summary.txt or http://fah-web.stanford.edu/daily_team_summary.txt These files are updated every 6 hours. Please DO NOT run a crawler on our cgi pages. Such actions will result in your IP being permanently banned.

Misc

What do the pictures of proteins show?

We use several representations for showing proteins, including all-atom, stick, and Richardson cartoon representations. The colors are used to highlight specific parts (but that may be specific atoms, atom types, or structural characteristics, depending on the context). To learn more, Wikipedia has some nice articles about this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_structure http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_helix http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_sheet

Where did the logo come from?

Our logo is an abstract representation of our goal: to go from the protein sequence encoded in the genome to the protein's structure. The double helix on the left of the logo denotes the genome (DNA is a double helical molecule) and the arrows on the right are representations of protein structure (beta sheet structure is often drawn as ribbons with arrows).

Do you have web buttons that I can download to use with links to your site?

How about this (thanks to RPH IV)

How much power/money does keeping a FAH running 24/7 on a computer use?

Roughly, a CPU uses about as much power as a watt light bulb. Here's a report on computer power management from Lawrence Berkeley government labs, and there are other references on the web you can find. Although power supplies on most computers are rated at 400 watts, average usage is lower. On average, a Pentium-type computer uses about 100 watts (if the monitor is off). So, the daily difference between off and running FAH is about 24x100 = 2.4 kWh. At $0.15 per kWh ( from PG&E here in California), this works out to about $0.36 per day. In general, lighting and climate control use a much larger share of household power than computers do. So the best bet for cutting costs and conserving energy would be to turn off lights, turn off your computer monitors (which use more power than a CPU), and turn down the heat.

What about security issues?

We have worked very hard to maintain the best security possible with modern computer science methodology. Our software will upload and download data only from our data server here at Stanford. Also, we only interact with FAH files on your computer (we don't read, write, or transmit any other files, as we don't need to do so and doing so would violate our privacy policy). The Cores are also digitally signed (see below) to make sure that you're getting the true Stanford cores and nothing else.

How is this possible? We take extensive measures to check all of the data entering your computer and the results we send back to Stanford with 2048 bit digital signatures. If the signatures don't match (on either the input or the output) the client will throw away the data and start again. This ensures, using the best software security measures developed to date (digital signatures and PKI in version 3.0), that we are keeping the tightest possible security. Finally, the client/screen saver are available for download only from this web site, so that we can guarantee the integrity of the software. We do not support Folding@home software obtained elsewhere and prohibit others to distribute the software.

Why no IRIX, Solaris, OS-2, AMIGA, Macintosh OS9, etc version?

We've been deluged by requests for other versions. Due to limited resources, we can only support a few client versions. We try to pick operating systems which are likely to be popular with donators and that we can suitably support in house. We do support BSD via its Linux emulation layer (see above).

What are you going to add in later versions of the software?

A good place to hear about new versions, beta versions, etc., is the Folding-Community forum.

Screen saver (Windows: version 4 and earlier; OSX: all versions)

Should I run the screen saver or console version?

The graphical console version shows the same info as the screen saver, just in a window. You should run it if you

    * want to be running Folding@home all the time
    * don't want a screen saver
    * like to see the guts of what's happening

You should run the "screen saver only" version if you

    * you don't want to run Folding@home all the time, just when you're not using the machine

If you're still not sure, try them both!

What's the screen saver showing?

Our graphical client shows real time visualizations of the simulations being performed. The molecule drawn is the current atomic configuration ("fold") of the protein being simulated on your computer and the graph on the bottom shows the potential energy in femtosecond increments. We display the protein in a variety of visualization styles and orientations both to get a better look at the protein fold as well as simple aesthetics. The fact that the protein visualization "scrolls" out does not have any biological meaning; it's just a non-CPU intensive and visually appealing way to show the protein.

There are currently two visualization modes: Space-filling and ball-and-stick. In ball-and-stick mode, each small ball represents an atom, and the sticks represent bonds between atoms. In the space-filling model, each filled sphere represents the approximate volume that the electrons occupy around each atom. In both modes, carbon atoms are drawn in dark gray, hydrogen atoms are drawn in light gray (although some hydrogen atoms are not drawn at all), oxygen atoms are drawn in red, nitrogen atoms are drawn in blue, and sulfur atoms are drawn in yellow.

The pie charts denote the completed fraction of the current run and the fraction of the frame completed, respectively.

My monitor is set to turn off after a while.

Can I still run the screen saver? Energy saving features, which turn the monitor off after a specified period of time, does not affect the screen saver. As long as the computer is running, the screen saver will continue to run and accumulate useful data, even if the monitor is off.

Does the screen saver use a lot of CPU time?

The screen saver is designed to use very little CPU time. Even without any OpenGL hardware, the screen saver only uses about 5% of the CPU time for graphics. If you have some sort of OpenGL support on your graphics card, the CPU time becomes virtually zero. Since the space filling ("orb") drawing of the atoms can be seen in the process of drawing, it may look like it is taking a lot of processor space, but that delay is set by a timer, and does not occur because it takes a long time to draw.

Will extra 3D hardware help make the screen saver go faster?

3D acceleration cards will make some difference for complex proteins.

How do I shut down the screen saver?

The screen saver is designed so that it shuts down on mouse click or key press. It will NOT shut down by simply moving the mouse. This is to prevent users from inadvertently closing down Folding@home, since it takes a short while to start processing every time it starts up.

For More Information, Please See:

FAH FAQ Index Folding Community Forum Pande Group on YouTube�