We fired up
Folding@home on our PS3 today to see just how much damage that Cell processor could do to one of them work units. The app is a separate download from that of
today's 1.6 firmware, thought the update did land the Folding@home icon inside the "Network" section of the PS3 XMB menu without us having to do a thing. The 50MB download took a few minutes, but after that we were up, running and crunching a work unit in no time. It was also quite easy to join up with
Team Engadget -- which is incidentally ranked #32 right now, go team! All the stats and info menu options launch the PS3 browser, which feels a little inconvenient, but at least doesn't get in the way of the Folding@home app doing its thing. Sony predicted the average work unit would take an our to complete, but ours says it's got a good 6-7 hours to go on its first unit, so we're not sure who's in error here, Sony or the prediction algorithm.
Update: Added some shots of the new onscreen keyboard brought by 1.6, you can peep 'em with the rest of the shots in the gallery.
Update 2: Also for the inclined, this weekend is the unofficial Sunday Night Fold-a-thon, to get PS3 users to flip the switch and start crunching numbers. You get power from renewable energy, right? We hope so, because we've got some disease to bust. That link for
SNF and for
Team Engadget again. [Thanks, Ostego; via
PS3 Fanboy]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
humpty @ Mar 22nd 2007 6:43PM
My first one took 9 hours...
KineticOnline @ Mar 22nd 2007 6:50PM
I'd love to know if they are planning on doing something similar with the 360. I've got folding@home running on all the PC's at home and think it would be great to have it on my console too.
Will @ Mar 22nd 2007 7:00PM
mine is on pace to take about 8.5 hours
Russell @ Mar 22nd 2007 7:02PM
Finally something to do with my PS3 other than not playing Resistance!!!!
Nate @ Mar 22nd 2007 7:04PM
Im in, I've been folding for about 2 hours 6 more to go. I also joined the Engadget team.
Otsego @ Mar 22nd 2007 7:15PM
folding for team engadget as we speak. Why no mention of national fold day this sunday?
http://www.ps3fanboy.com/2007/03/21/leave-your-ps3-on-for-a-good-cause-this-sunday-night/
Ryan Block @ Mar 22nd 2007 8:34PM
Snap, we're gonna have to make mention! Thanks for the heads up.
Jerry @ Mar 22nd 2007 7:27PM
Mine says 8.5 hrs
kaztm @ Mar 22nd 2007 8:05PM
I thought Engadget sold its PS3 for charity.
Clayj @ Mar 22nd 2007 8:11PM
So... you're supposed to leave your 650W PS3 running all of the time so it can work on folding units? The GWR (Global Warming religion) people aren't gonna like that, Mr. Ranger... and your PS3's life expectancy is going to be sharply reduced if it's running all the time. PCs are different... they're usually more durable than a gaming console and people tend to leave them on all the time anyway.
Aclerok @ Mar 23rd 2007 12:39PM
@ Clayj
They discuss this here. Shouldn't be a problem leaving the PS3 on all the time.
Rick wilson @ Mar 22nd 2007 8:15PM
I wish you could see your CPU usage as its calculating stuff...
Derka @ Mar 22nd 2007 8:15PM
Almost done my first, 10 hours.
JK @ Mar 22nd 2007 8:21PM
@ Clayj
The power supply is rated higher than the power consumption of the system itself. This just means the peak power the supply can provide far exceeds the requirements, which is probably going to prevent voltage spikes in the system and help it last longer. I think they said it consumes roughly 300W?
For what it's worth, my 600W PC isn't nearly as efficient at folding as the PS3 claims to be, so computational power-wise, the watts/performance is fair.
Also, for those who run folding@home on their PCs, the usual work-unit is 5000 - 20,000 frames. I noticed in the screenshots provided, that the PS3 is working on a 400,000 frame work-unit. Assuming each 'frame' takes similar amounts of computation to complete, it seems the Stanford team is being more aggressive with work-units given to the PS3 to crunch through, which is why it's taking 8 hrs. One 20,000 frame work unit on my PC takes several days.
Btw, comparing 'frame/sec' isn't all that accurate, cuz in the folding@home forums, they say that the researcher is allowed to define what a 'frame' is, meaning different work-units for different research will have different definitions of 'frames', and the # of frames in one work-unit. It is not a standard for them.
syadasti @ Mar 22nd 2007 9:56PM
PSU ratings aren't actually consumption
Even a powerhungry PC only uses 214W/168W input/output folding@home. A core 2 duo system probably does around 130/100W input/output if that.
See SPCR PSU fundamentals: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article28-page4.html
ATI's X1900 series is seriously fast, probably the most efficient out of them all at the moment.
Darryl @ Mar 22nd 2007 9:06PM
That'd be cool to have a 360 folding@home client as well.. then we can have PS3 vs. 360 folding teams
Hooty @ Mar 22nd 2007 10:04PM
My PC takes 416 days to complete a 20,000 frame unit, lol. The PS3 must be pretty dam amazing...
Ayle @ Mar 22nd 2007 10:11PM
Interesting pictures but why on earth does it have to look better on the ps3???
Brook @ Mar 22nd 2007 10:18PM
i just started up today....i plan on leaving mine on for a good while it doesnt do much else except watch movies so y not use its power for good.
steven @ Mar 22nd 2007 11:30PM
9 hours for my first unit
Andrew @ Mar 23rd 2007 12:31AM
I thought it was also supposed to be able to run in the background while you're doing other stuff? Does it do this automatically, because I can't seem to find a setting for it. And no I'm not talking about the downloading.
Also my first unit took about 8.5-9 hours.
LinuxMasta @ Mar 23rd 2007 3:35AM
To make the folding automatically run when your PS3 is idle do the following:
At the XMB (menu) where you would launch the Folding client, instead press the green triangle. There you can pick the auto-start idle time.
brett @ Mar 23rd 2007 3:11AM
Yeah, i thought the point of this was to take advantage of unused processing power (like when I'm browsing all 10 things available for download on the PS store....)
How does one get this to run in the background continuously?
Scott @ Mar 23rd 2007 8:58AM
Does Engadget have a World Community Grid Team? It's an IBM project with the same basic idea as PS3's Folding, but for your PC. Help find a cure for cancer in your spare time -- pretty cool.
http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/
Hellmark @ Mar 23rd 2007 6:12PM
@Scott- Folding@home isn't just for PS3s, it has been at it for quite some time on computers.
Matt @ Mar 23rd 2007 9:33AM
"So... you're supposed to leave your 650W PS3 running all of the time so it can work on folding units? The GWR (Global Warming religion) people aren't gonna like that, Mr. Ranger... and your PS3's life expectancy is going to be sharply reduced if it's running all the time. PCs are different... they're usually more durable than a gaming console and people tend to leave them on all the time anyway."
Indeed.
Also, has Folding@Home actually offered ANYTHING to cure diseases in its YEARS of existence? Seems like they are just folding blindly...which mean it will take 30 years before they stumble onto something useful.
NP-Complete
JoshW27 @ Mar 23rd 2007 11:21AM
For a list of the current 49 reserach papers published as the results of the folding@home project check out -
http://folding.stanford.edu/papers.html
So I would say in the YEARS of existence, they have made some major developments that both enhance the effectiveness of the project and progress scientific research.
Castle @ Mar 23rd 2007 5:05PM
"So... you're supposed to leave your 650W PS3 running all of the time so it can work on folding units?"
uhhhhh. the PS3 has a 380W power supply and power consumption ranges from 150–200 watts during normal use; which is not much more then a PC.
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/docs/20061111/ps3.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3#Form_factor_and_power_consumption
adam @ Mar 23rd 2007 5:47PM
hey nice 360 in the corner i wish i had that cool faceplate.
Scott @ Mar 23rd 2007 7:10PM
Shows what I know - looks like it has been around since 2001 and there are about 200k active participants at the moment. Thanks for the info.
Court K. @ Mar 23rd 2007 11:07PM
Do any of you actually know what folding@home is? Or do you aimlessly donate your CPU cycles?
Let me explain a few things. Folding@home, is (currently) used to crunch numbers on protein strings, although the public project is just to verify the data done by the private computers. This data is in turn sold for BILLIONS (yes, billions) of dollars to drug companies, who then offer doctors "perks" to push the medicine back on you. And of course since it's the latest and greatest you spend $200/month on it.
Where's my f*cking discount for providing research power???/
It's just like seti@home, the project creator came out 6 months ago saying they found intelligent signals thanks to all the people who were running the project. Not only did he announce it at a major press conference, he showed the data, the solar system, and the actual signal and what made it unique in it's signature. He did to more public appearances, the AP, NY Times, Washington Post all carried the story. Then two weeks later at the space expo, he said the NSA had come in and they weren't allowed to talk about it, and that commenting on it would cost him more than his job. His partner at Seti who has all this time strongly believed in the idea behind seti, said in december (going against years of public statements) that UFOs and life outside our solar system doesn't exist. Now why would anybody say something stupid like that? Even if he had just changed what he believed, he had a good thing going with everyone running seti@home. Do some digging, call Seti, write them, ask about the event. And they will deny it EVER HAPPENED. I replied with quoted reports from AP, and links to videos of the press conference, I then received a letter stating that the matter was consider "closed" and statements made don't always reflect on them as a whole.
What a crock. Think about what your cycles are used for.
I'm going to start the beat_the_government_cpu@home project...