Folding@home on Xbox 360 under consideration

There's no question that the PS3 version of the Folding@home project has been an unbridled technological success, not to mention a public relations boost for Sony. Folding@home on the PS3 has more than doubled the overall computational power of the distributed supercomputer in terms of raw Teraflops, and given PS3 owners the chance to increase the warmth and fuzziness factor that comes from aiding medical research. Peter Moore of Microsoft has gone on record by saying that the Xbox 360 could also join the project, although he made sure to include a jibe at Microsoft's primary competitor by mentioning the 360's much larger install base, and quoting Xbox 360 processor's "equal power to the PS3." He even went so far as to cast doubt regarding the value of the 250,000 currently registered PS3's on the program, saying that "we'll continue to look at this and see whether there's real value." We're forced to ask: how is this kind of attitude in aid of the project? By reducing something as noble as the Folding@home project to a PR battle, Moore's indication sounds bitter and petty. He might as well have said, "ok, we'll fight disease, but only 'cause the Xbox 360 is better than the PS3." The irony is, it probably isn't.

[humpty @ May 13th 2007 9:56AM]

Most likely they will do another 'competitors' distributed system... they will never do folding at home because it offers a direct comparison with PS3.. which they know they would lose.

And, who in their right mind would leave their 360 on to do a cpu intensive task like folding.. you're just asking for the RRoD.

[Davis @ May 13th 2007 9:56AM]

the 360 CPU's "equal power to the PS3"?

yeah the f*** right.

[dylan b @ May 13th 2007 11:48PM]

the cpu is of equal power it just has 3 cores instead of 8

[Craig @ May 13th 2007 9:56AM]

Way to stick your foot in your mouth, Peter Moore. You should be ashamed for making a comment such as that.

Folding is not to see which system has the bigger...unit. It's an attempt to find a cure for the worlds most serious diseases.

Shame on you.

[Dan @ May 14th 2007 10:44AM]

Peter Moore never got proper credit for the Dreamcast failure. Pretty amazing he wasn't tarnished by that. I was pretty close to the scene and it was under his watch that major retailers didn't support the platform.

The only smart thing I've seen him do is jumping ship from Sega to MS.

[Calvin @ May 13th 2007 9:57AM]

Nice weak copycat PR move MS. Smacks of a little desperation as well.

[Blackster @ May 13th 2007 10:15AM]

yeah know sony is the real copycat in almost everything they do ;)

[kman79 @ May 13th 2007 9:59AM]

While I understand that the main cause of both Sony and Microsoft is for profit, Peter Moore's statement above is pretty shameful. Do it because you want to be part of something good and helpful, don't be a smart ass and be cocky about it by stating if there's any real value to the program. It seems its all about the bottom line these days doesn't it!

[elijakill @ May 13th 2007 10:09AM]

can't you see?
it is so obvious, this is sony (and probably MS) way to lure you all into 24/7 online connectivity
sure, we are all helping man-kind by giving away processing time but what are we loosing here?
is it that those guys know something we don't?
can they explore our consoles for piracy without our permission?

think about it

[Chris @ May 13th 2007 10:57AM]

@ elijakill:

paranoid much?

[dootdoot @ May 13th 2007 10:13AM]

The only reason why folding@home is even used at all on the playstation 3 is because PS3 owners don't have any games to actually play on it. As for the comments about the Xbox 360 not being as powerful as the playstation 3, well so far every Xbox 360 game has looked better then its playstation 3 counterpart. Its not just because the PS3 is new either. Game developers are coming right out in the open and expressing their frustration with the PS3. UBISoft is making the next Splinter Cell game an Xbox 360 exclusive, stating that the PS3 simply can't do what they want, but the Xbox 360 can.

You PS3 owners can have your folding@hold if it makes you feel better about buying your $600 system that already has a dieing, buggy exclusive DVD format, and no exclusive good games coming out in the next 12 months that show off your $2000 HDTV.

Peter Moore doesn't need to worry about the xbox 360 having folding@home because he doesn't believe any of the 360 owners are going to run it. They are going to be to busy playing VIDEO GAMES ON A VIDEO GAME CONSOLE. I think the PS3 forgot what it really is and is having an identity crisis. This doesn't bold well for Sony 6 months into the PS3's life.

Besides my PC beats out both systems period and I can run folding@home on that while I play Command & Conquer 3 at the same time.

So in closing the PC is better than both the 360 and PS3, suck it nerds.

[humpty @ May 13th 2007 10:29AM]

The point of distributed computing is to use it during IDLE time.. it doesnt matter if 360 has 100x more games on it.. are you going to be playing 24hr a day, 365 days a year?

Well, most people arent.. they need to sleep, go to work, eat, exercise, do the dishes, take a shit, go out and socialise, go on vacation, and live life in general ...

[ssuk @ May 13th 2007 10:47AM]

Your bias is obvious, and although I probably agree with most of what you've said, bluray isn't dieing, not in the least. It outsells HD DVD by quite a bit. And with Disney backing Bluray, I think it's game over already.

[Faisal @ May 13th 2007 12:25PM]

u are a real fanboy u know that? The PS3 has been on the market for only 6 months so it needs time. Remember when 360 came out and everybody was complaining how bad 360's graphics looked? Now look at it! gears looks AMAZING! But gears came out a year after 360's launch...wait till PS3's 1 year launch anniversary comes up. Then you will see the true power of the PS3. And no the 360 is not more powerful than the PS3. I don't know much technical things, but I know that 360 can do some things PS3 can't and PS3 can do things 360 can't. But overall, no matter what, most developers are actually saying the exact opposite of what you said. If you ask lots of developers, they would agree that the PS3 was fucking annoying at first, but when they learned more from the CELL, their only limitation right now are their "imaginations". Remember when PS2 came out? Developers said it was really frustrating and hard to program for PS2, but now looks where PS2 is now. Read this article...sound familiar?

http://archive.salon.com/tech/log/2000/10/27/playstation_rant/index.html

Also, I play resistance and motorstorm online almost the WHOLE DAY!! and like humpty said...not EVERYONE plays all day! I leave my PS3 on almost 24/7. After playing a few hours of resistance and motorstorm, I leave on F@H. And yes I leave F@H on almost every night. I'm close to 80 work units (just bought my PS3 two months ago). And just beause the PS3's F@H teraflop power is SO high in the stats page of the official F@H site, it doesn't mean lots of people are NOT playing their PS3s...it just means it's a really powerful system. Several universities actually buy PS3 clusters JUST to do F@H (they probably play resistance online after teaching hours...hehe).

[Jeremy Charette @ May 13th 2007 10:20AM]

http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/articles.php?action=expand,12133&sid=d5dbc8de5d93518c7b03469c3f8c4996

"Earlier this year, Sony and Stanford University teamed up to release a Folding @ Home client for the PS3. Part marketing, part philanthropy, they've managed to increase the overall processing power of the F@H project by three-fold. Xbox 360 fanboys have been clamoring for a F@H client for the Xbox 360, wanting to put it up against the PS3 in a fight to the death (of a disease, that is). In a recent interview with Dean Takahashi, Peter Moore stated that Microsoft has been exploring the idea, with encouragement from Bill Gates. Presumably Gates, being the philanthropist he is, would love the opportunity to leverage the worldwide base of 10M+ Xbox 360s and help solve some problem of a global scale. So why hasn't Microsoft rushed to bring a 360 client to the marketplace? Two words: fatal flaw."

[jaapV @ May 13th 2007 10:26AM]

The one laughing here is Stanford university, the university for the rich must be very pleased that companies are fighting over who can give them computing power.
As to all other university projects invloved in opensource project Boinc: tough luck.

[steven @ May 13th 2007 10:34AM]

"dootdoot"

What u are saying is all false... get real the cpu in the ps3 is alot better then x360 and pc's for this (not saying it is for games). Just look at their homepage the cpu in the ps3 is up to 10 times faster then pcs do to the way in handels this stuff it got nothing to do with games... but this dosent make it a better gameing system thats right.

And what u say about games looks better on x360 is not really true (or well we dont know yet) as those games that have been tested so far wasent games made for the ps3 but just copies from other consoles that dont support the cell cpu there will still go some time before games the supports the ps3 full comes out just as when the ps2 came out. Look here what many said about the ps2: http://archive.salon.com/tech/log/2000/10/27/playstation_rant/index.html

And blu-ray is not loosing at all as u say its winning with sales going up each week and now with blu-ray players for less then 500$ its getting closer to hd dvd prices and bd movies outsell HD dvd'd 3-1

[RyanTV @ May 13th 2007 10:36AM]

either way - i'd love to see what my 360s would do in the folding arena... I'd love to move up a few more places on the team engadget leaderboard - I'm number 17 now and moving up from here is few and far between :)

[I.P. Freely @ May 13th 2007 10:38AM]

1st - "1080p doesn't matter" (they add 1080p capabilites)
2nd - "Blu-Ray doesn't matter" (they add HD-DVD)
3rd - "Motion Controls don't matter" (working on motion controls)
4th - "HDMI doesn't matter" (added HDMI with the Elite)
5th - "Folding at home doesn't matter" (Moore makes ass of self)

[Zebulunite @ May 13th 2007 10:38AM]

“The only reason why folding@home is even used at all on the playstation 3 is because PS3 owners don't have any games to actually play on it.”



What?! Folding@home runs in the background on the PS3; its not something that you do instead of playing a game. Even if the PS3 had the best game library in the world, unless your playing games 24/7, there will be plenty of times where you can leave it running folding@home for a long period (i.e. during school, work, while your sleeping, etc).

“Peter Moore doesn't need to worry about the xbox 360 having folding@home because he doesn't believe any of the 360 owners are going to run it. They are going to be to busy playing VIDEO GAMES ON A VIDEO GAME CONSOLE.

Since when does Peter Moore know what nearly 10 million people are going to do? And, again, folding@home doesn't require user interaction, it runs in the background. So unless every 360 owner is someone who views gaming as a 24/7 activity like you evidently do, there will be plenty of idle periods where the 360 could be making contributions.


“As for the comments about the Xbox 360 not being as powerful as the playstation 3, well so far every Xbox 360 game has looked better then its playstation 3 counterpart.”

Folding@Home performance has little to do with gaming performance. A Core 2 Quad-based computer paired with Intel graphics would suck at gaming compared to a Pentium 4 system with a fast videocard, but for Folding@Home performance the Core 2 system would be far faster.

“You PS3 owners can have your folding@hold if it makes you feel better about buying your $600 system that already has a dieing, buggy exclusive DVD format, and no exclusive good games coming out in the next 12 months that show off your $2000 HDTV. “

So blu-ray is dying despite having sold more movies than HD-DVD?

And if blu-ray is so “buggy” compared to HD-DVD, why is it that significantly more movie studios are supporting blu-ray over HD-DVD?

And, not that I'm defending the PS3 (I don't own nor am I currently planning to get any of the next-gen systems), but I think its pretty absurd to state as “fact” that the PS3 will be receiving no good exclusive games over the next 12 months.



Lastly, I think its pretty disgusting that you view a program designed to do calculations that could one day cure cancer as nothing more than a fanboy-target of criticism. I'd be very happy to see Microsoft and Nintendo get on board with Folding@Home. Who cares which one is faster, the point is that every additional work unit generated is one step closer to curing a terrible disease.


“I think the PS3 forgot what it really is and is having an identity crisis. This doesn't bold well for Sony 6 months into the PS3's life. “

Yeah....ok. I guess then, according to you, all CD-based systems also had identity crisis, since they can play audio-CDs, and according to you a game console can ONLY be used for playing games.


“Besides my PC beats out both systems period and I can run folding@home on that while I play Command & Conquer 3 at the same time. “

So what? An older computer will lose out to a newer, faster computer in folding@home. Does that mean the developers should disable the program for people with slower computers? No, obviously not.

“So in closing the PC is better than both the 360 and PS3, suck it nerds.“

I think the only one here that is clearly a nerd is you, seeing as how you wrote up several paragraphs bashing the PS3 because it can run folding@home, then concluding that the PC is faster.

[Anonymous @ May 13th 2007 10:49AM]

"I think the only one here that is clearly a nerd is you, seeing as how you wrote up several paragraphs bashing the PS3 because it can run folding@home, then concluding that the PC is faster."

Says the nerd who countered the other nerds argument with a few paragraphs himself. Ooh the irony. Arguing about gaming consoles on the internet is fun for the whole family.

[Anonymous @ May 13th 2007 10:39AM]

I love it how Engadget is somewhat of a 50/50 split between neutral journalism, and stories like this one where they call someone (in this case Peter Moore) a greedy bastard, and then go so far as to imply that he doesn't care about curing disease, all in the same article. What he means by "Value in it" is if the user base would even use a Folding@home client if they were to put one on the 360. Would I? Hell no. The 360 is pretty loud, and that's fine when guns are going off, and explosions are happening, but would I want to listen to it by itself? No, absolutely not. It's not as if putting the client on the 360 would be free, it would take man hours to get it up and running, and like it or not they DO have to take into consideration whether or not it would be good for PR or bad for PR. And like it or not, but Sony made this a PR battle long before Microsoft did. The only reason that Folding@home was including with the PS3 was for PR!

Like Microsoft or not, implying that Peter Moore is some sort of diabolical anti-curing disease PR monster is out there, and a little crude.

[Zebulunite @ May 13th 2007 10:42AM]

Whoops...my post was directed at dootdoot's absurd comments.

[cochell @ May 13th 2007 11:24AM]

great, now we can experience the red ring of death while we are not playing the game. What fun is a hardware failure when you didn't cause it yourself?

[Pc_Madness @ May 13th 2007 11:25AM]

Why not spend your time adding useful things rather than pointless crap like Folding@Home.

[Daryl Herbert @ May 13th 2007 11:35AM]

Of course the Cell CPU will be better than Xenon CPU at folding. That doesn't mean the 360 can't fold as well as the PS3. The new R600 cards are much better than Cell at folding, and the Xenos GPU in the 360 is similar enough to the R600 that it should have similar capabilities (but different enough that programming drivers to enable F@H on it would be a headache)

MSFT is frustrated because it is wondering whether it should take the time to write drivers for the Xenos GPU so that it can run general purpose calculations (like F@H).

It would take a lot of work on MSFT's part, and it would only be useful for XBox 360, because nothing else uses the Xenos card and nothing else ever will.

There is no way in Hell MSFT would release a F@H client using only the Xenon because then the PS3 would get more points.

[futurepastnow @ May 13th 2007 11:47AM]

:It would take a lot of work on MSFT's part, and it would only be useful for XBox 360, because nothing else uses the Xenos card and nothing else ever will."

The Xenos GPU can't be *that* different from other ATI products, and Folding clients have already been written for the X1900 and X1950 graphics cards (and R600). Microsoft has complete access to the hardware specs and can no doubt obtain the source code for the Folding client, so I doubt this would be as difficult as I think you're making it sound.

[Joel Laumans @ May 13th 2007 11:36AM]

Although this is most likely just a response to the PS3 superb performance at Folding@Home, I think it is for a good cause, and hope they can make it work seamlessly with the current Xbox/Dashboard experience

[sendeth @ May 13th 2007 12:03PM]

almost forgot, there is a patch coming out (may already be out, haven't been on in a while) to deactivate most of the system except for the drives to download in standby. this could easily be adapted to power down anything not essential to the client.

[sendeth @ May 13th 2007 12:04PM]

something other than folding??? like what??? there aren't that many grid computing projects out there. i run boinc and wcg on my pc. it's about time this came out for 360.

and it's not necessarily the computing power. it's the computing power vs the power consumption that determines if running the program is even worth it. those are the words of the designer of boinc, not mine.but even older computers with under a gig of processing power are still worth it, that unfortunately leaves "worth it" to mean money.

since the 360 is on par with the average pc, i don't understand how it wouldn't be worth it to do this. we all are suceptible to the sicknesses that folding is helping us to understand.

as for the processors, they aren't even remotely the same. it's difficult to compare when they don't function even remotely the same way. correct me if i am wrong, but the 360 uses 3 3gig processors and the cell uses one main processor to route 10 spe's right??? and don't forget, some grid projects also use the gpu as a secondary processor to do more work, so you have to take that into account also. maybe peter moore is an ass, but maybe he had to watch what he commits to before consulting the m s army of attorneys. who knows??? maybe he just doesn't know any details about the project. maybe he was drunk!!! but most of you seem to be over looking the rest of the comment. "we'll continue to look at this and see whether there's real value." they may be an overbearing monopoly, but gates is personally VERY serious about projects like these and it seems to me they are giving it serious consideration.

a side message to the people saying "who in their right minds would leave their 360 to use this???" (including peter moore if he falls into this catagory)ask yourself the same question when you have a friend or family member with cancer, or one of the other ailments this helps. or better yet, wait until it's you and you don't understand why people like you don't give a shit and don't want to leave their machine on. that's the ultimate in selfishness. all you have to do is NOTHING to help people, but you won't even do that. tell that to my cousin who had cancer at 5, or my friend who got it at 16. my computers haven't slept in years.

[Mike @ May 13th 2007 12:24PM]

I'm glad someone's article on this non-story actually pointed out what a smug and condescending ass Mr. Moore is. And no the Xbox is not equal to the PS3 especially when it comes to the folding program, that's why there was a PS3 version of it created. I call this a non-story because Moore just made the stateent to get people talking (and to take a jab at something good Sony is capable of and is doing), there is no validity to it in any way shape or form. I think it was about a weel before more made this statement that Vijay Pande said that the Xbox 360 would be of limited value to the folding at home project. So no Mr Moore, Microsoft is not possibly participating in the Folding@Home project. Microsoft was not invited. You might be considering it, but Vijay is not.

[Jim @ May 13th 2007 12:26PM]

It is goody good that folks wish to contribute to this, I do not wish to run my machine at 100% for hours/days on end, thank you.

I also think it is nice that folks have at last found a good use for the PS3.

Perhaps next year, Sony will consider expanding the tasks to include gaming? ;)

[jorgemsousa @ May 13th 2007 12:43PM]

I think it is a good idea but with the bad reputation the 360 has with overheating and breaking for no apparent reason it will probably make 360 owners a little reluctant before using it.

[Paul Westbrook @ May 13th 2007 1:29PM]

What is the effect on power bills for those who run the client. Running a 200 watt device all the time could start to add up.

[Joe @ May 13th 2007 1:34PM]

What's with the PS3 fanboy comments in most of the comments? It doesn't really matter whether or not the processor in the PS3 is "better" than the one in the 360. Even the notion that one is better than the other is subjective because they're both running different types of RISC processors with different specs, and that, on RISC platforms, program optimization play a huge role in getting better performance.

What really matters though is helping out in research that could benefit everyone. And for people to ignore this and focus on processing power means they are missing the point of Folding@Home. You could run it on a 486 doing tickets without deadlines, and it would be more helpful than not doing it at all.

Regarding the comments Moore made, about looking into it to see if there was any value; besides general PR BS, this could be looked at from another angle. After having to send in my 360 recently due to hardware failure, I would prefer Microsoft examine Folding@Home and see if it could be implemented without causing premature hardware failure.

Until the day I can leave my 360 on to do Folding@Home, I'll just have to relegate my PC rig to do it instead. ;)

[TheTruth @ May 13th 2007 1:55PM]

...once again proving that Peter Moore is a terrible PR man...and of course he says that the xbox360's cpu is similar to the ps3's even though the graphics cards are what do the real work and are what really matter for parrallel computing like folding involves...

Oh yeah, whoever says that Gears of War looks good is a complete tard...because the framerate is sooo f*cking bad it makes me sick to play it! HL2 looked way better when I played it like 3 years ago on my PC.

XBOX360 SUCKS and everyone I know that ever got one eventually got the RED RING OF DEATH...reminds me sooo much of the BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH, except it costs ya like $500!

[Virtual Boy @ May 13th 2007 2:09PM]

Who are the real losers in this arguement here?

[Anonymous @ May 13th 2007 2:47PM]

those who bought a video game console

[FrankTheCrank @ May 13th 2007 2:27PM]

800 points

LOL.

[MegaMan @ May 13th 2007 2:28PM]

Monkey see, monkey do.

[Walk_this_way @ May 13th 2007 2:37PM]

Actually the 360's performance will be on par(or better) if they do the crunching on the 360's GPU. Since it's not too far removed from ATi's x1900 line, programming a GPU client for it shouldn't be too difficult.

[James Scott @ May 13th 2007 2:54PM]

Look, the PS3 is only fast at folding because it's doing just a couple extremely specialized and simple tasks. A PC is slower because it works on more intensive methods of folding for different types of tasks that the PS3 doesn't do.

The 360's 3 cores are based off a desktop CPU, an IBM PowerPC 970. There's some desktop-centric components missing that arent required for a console missing but thats mostly it. I think the 360 could be more versatile, thus more useful than the PlayStation 3's very specialized folding. Include the GPU's processing power and I think the 360 would drastically increase its power.

[pyro @ May 13th 2007 2:54PM]

pure processor, the ps3 wins. processor and gpu, 360 wins. The inquirer has an article about it.

[myscrnnm @ May 13th 2007 3:20PM]

Peter Moore's an idiot. He's turned a charitable cause into a "competition". I put competition in quotes because it's obvious that the PlayStation 3 has superior processing power compared to the Xbox 360. The Cell beats most processors in the area of floating point calculations, which is what makes it so good at folding proteins. But if the Xbox 360 does get Folding@home running on it, we'll all see how much better the PlayStation 3 is. Then Microsoft will have just shot itself in the foot.

[JD @ May 13th 2007 4:16PM]

Um, does nobody remember that the Xbox has UNIFIED SHADERS?!?! Those are awesome at running raw computations, much better and more efficient than any CPU. The PS3 has a GeForce 7900. No unified shaders there. If F@H ran on the GPU of the 360, I'm willing to bet it would pwn cell- anyone see that AMD teraflop in a box setup? That was because of the GPU's. Just my 2 cents. And I'd love to let my 360 help cure disease alongside my computer.

[God of Biscuits @ May 13th 2007 4:26PM]

First of all, how do you get F@H running in the background automatically on a PS3? I've just assumed you were only able to run a single "first class" application at once on it.

Second of all, the PS3 userbase being significantly smaller is a better, safer way to roll out a significantly different F@H client, or any software, for that matter (how many major OS releases have there been for the Mac in the last 5 years vs. how many major releases for Windows?), plus Sony was footing the bill for the engineering and other resources to get the client developed, tested and deployed—WHATEVER THEIR REASONS FOR DOING SO.

MS could have done the same thing for XBox 360 when it first came out, had very few games, and was tanking in sales, BUT THEY DIDN'T. and they still haven't footed the bill for the development.

MS's PR guy could have just said "we dropped the ball on that one, and we're going to fix that" just like Gates did about the internet way back when, just like Steve Jobs said when Apple rolled out iTunes.

But he didn't, he spun it. And took a potshot at the competition.

I'd say engadget's article was prety reasonable and neutral. the MS guy was an idiot, or was directed by his bosses to say idiotic things.

[brtha-man @ May 13th 2007 4:31PM]

engadget....arnt WE the readers supposed to make the judgement on Moore's comment. Talk about a leading article....

[Zman @ May 13th 2007 8:15PM]

If the FAH client on the 360 used the CPU then yes, the PS3 would smoke it, but there talking about creating a client that uses the Video card of the 360 which would easlik smoke the PS3: http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39508

[Tom @ May 13th 2007 8:32PM]

Holy crap every article on here regarding the 360 and/or PS3 quickly turns into a pissing contest in the comments section. Almost makes me angry enough to wish you'd all just get cancer and die.

[Tubal @ May 13th 2007 9:34PM]

http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/articles.php?action=expand,12133