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wheeles · Jun 19, 2002, 05:51 PM

I took a look just now at the current team standings for dfold and was a little surprised. Of the 77 team members 45 have not submitted any structures for the new protein. Is this typical of DC projects or have the weekly protein changes made dfold just too much bother? For a number of users - particularly those with dialup connections like myself I think this might be the case. Maybe it's just early for this protein to draw conclusions but I had started to wonder whether I could be bothered to do a weekly check to see if the update happened on my boxes and then fix it if things had gone awry.

Personally I've not crunched any dfold structures since before the last protein change mainly because of problems with my DP G4 like Marc2211 experienced. I have yet to get around to reinstalling dfold. The prospect of weekly protein changes (and the potential of accompanying problems) coupled with frequent crashes which lost all my structures hasn't made me hurry to do the reinstall.

Incidentally I have not had a crash since I stopped doing dfold. Coincidence? Admittedly I did disable 'Silk' around the same time so I'm not sure.

Although I am not a fan of RC5's aims I had wondered whether I would switch to that instead. The RC5 client is way ahead of the other DC clients particularly if you have a DP G4 given its support for Altivec, sensing the number of CPUs, configurable buffers and being able to work on multiple projects between uploads in your order of importance. Shame it doesn't do proteins or genetics.

Maybe the CASP proteins should be treated in the same way that distributed.net treats their adhoc competitions and allow you to ignore them if you wish and just continue to crunch their non-CASP protein.

What are your thoughts? Have others stopped or switched project due to increased hassle?

...or have they all just gone to Team Eagle? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

reader50 · Jun 19, 2002, 07:06 PM

I wandered back to SETI, mostly because it was familiar and easy to leave running in the background while working on new stats code. Besides, I'd like to reach the 1K milestone.

Folding looks good, but they are in a client transition now too. Still, we have been doing some damage on Folding. Uni of Hawaii got repassed, and we are gaining on MacPhilez.

Shaktai · Jun 20, 2002, 12:52 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by wheeles:
I took a look just now at the current team standings for dfold and was a little surprised. Of the 77 team members 45 have not submitted any structures for the new protein. Is this typical of DC projects or have the weekly protein changes made dfold just too much bother? <hr /></blockquote>I don't think it is typical, but I do think that the frequent protein changes may have contributed to the "inconvenience" factor for a lot of folks. Probably after CASP is over some folks will come back to it. It has been a source of discussion over in the official forums.

<blockquote>quote:<hr />...or have they all just gone to Team Eagle? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" /> <hr /></blockquote>Well, if they have, they must be hiding real well, or crunching real slow, because I sure haven't seen them. Besides, Team Eagles has taken on a regional flair, and is now known as the Northwestern Eagles - for anyone who lives in the Great Pacific Northwest, or just wishes they could.

[ 06-20-2002, 01:54 AM: Message edited by: Shaktai ]

wangdoodleUBERO · Jun 20, 2002, 10:01 AM

i went back to RC5 quite a while ago, simply cause rc5 has great altivec support. im producing 4000 stat units a day (on a good day), g4 867 and g4 450 are doing most of that.

it will be over soon anyway, so i thought i would put my G4 to GOOD use till then. i'll deal with the constant protein changes later

[ 06-20-2002, 11:03 AM: Message edited by: wangdoodleUBERO ]

wheeles · Jun 20, 2002, 10:02 AM

OK so I've reinstalled and checked it all out. I'll give dfold the benefit of the doubt. Maybe I was just a touch jaded by other stuff I got going on at the moment. Dfold is a worthwhile endeavour so I'll keep crunching.

jbcool · Jun 23, 2002, 09:47 PM

I got tired of the weekly updates with dfold.
They are willing to throw away donated cpu cycles at every protein change so I will donate them to F@H until they settle back down to long term crunching. I never did like the way they did their stats either.
All proteins have the same value instead of being weighted to adjust for amount of work done.

Off the soapbox now.

Now crunching dfold at 0 per week.

wheeles · Jun 25, 2002, 05:42 PM

Once again I am behind the times with the protein update. Has F@H got Altivec support yet? I think I might switch.

jbcool · Jun 25, 2002, 06:20 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by wheeles:
Once again I am behind the times with the protein update. Has F@H got Altivec support yet? I think I might switch.<hr /></blockquote>Not yet we are still hoping that the V3 will have the support added but no one is going to hold their breath on that one.

Shaktai · Jun 25, 2002, 11:05 PM

Actually it is the new Gromacs core that will have the Altivec as well as SSE and 3Dnow support. The client itself, can't benefit from it, but the new science core will, once it is finally released. They have trickled a few Gromacs cores out on the Linux and Windows machines. Overall, the gromacs core is still being tested. I don't expect that the Mac will see it for a few more weeks. The link for Gromacs info is: <a href="http://folding.stanford.edu/gromacs.html" target="_blank">http://folding.stanford.edu/gromacs.html</a>

v3 of the Mac Client is still in beta (and that expired with no replacement yet). It didn't work well anyway. Downloaded work units but wouldn't upload the finished results. Adam is working on the fix and then they will probably release another beta version.

jbcool · Jun 26, 2002, 12:44 PM

Shaktai: As always thanks for correcting my replies and keeping us informed.

rwhiffen · Jun 29, 2002, 07:15 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by jbcool:
Now crunching dfold at 0 per week.<hr /></blockquote>Me too... I lost 9k units in the "glitch in the back end database" the other day.

back to RC5... I've been falling in the rankings like a wet sock of a clothesline since I left my job.

Cheers,

Rich Whiffen

The Placid Casual · Jun 30, 2002, 05:46 AM

Combining the updating hassles, with a lack of Altivec support, and now the 'loss of units' fiasco I am tempted to turn my cubes to another project...alot of people on the Free DC boards seem to be feeling the same as it looks as though *lots* of units have been lost...

I am sticking with dFold for now, but should anything else come along I may be sorely tempted to jump ship...

Peace,

Marc

Shaktai · Jun 30, 2002, 10:41 PM

Well it isn't just Distribute Folding that is having problems. F@H has their share, and so do some of the other projects. Funny thing is, just when so many others are jumping ship, I am coming back to dFold at least until tomorrow. The project I was beta testing a Mac Client for (not F@H) has had their servers go down and I can't get any more work before tomorrow. Figured I would bring my Macs back over to dFold and crunch for MacNN until they get them back up. Nice thing about dFold is that you don't get stuck processing something for a long time before you can quit.

Problem is I don't know whether I am crunching as Shaktai or Eaglechild or both? I didn't pay attention to which ID the client was running under.

Doestn't really matter though, it will all go to a good cause and a good team.