Modding Google Compute!
Another boring day here at the rig, so I got to wondering how I could make my AMD silicon get a higher percentage of Tinker WU's and I remembered that Google Compute, which is their version of the F@H client, has around 90% Tinkers assigned. I had messed with Google Compute over a year ago and it was pretty easy to mod it then, but I knew that they had changed some stuff up so that it was harder to mod it for any other team besides their's by putting the entries in the registry. I went ahead to the Google Compute web page and installed their folding client on the Google toolbar, then shut it down on my laptop here at work. I then opened up regedit and went looking for the username that Google Compute had assigned me. That was easy to do because they've added a way to change the username from their toolbar, which they didn't have when I messed with it earlier. Sure enough, when running a Find on the username that Google Compute had assigned me, it led me to where all Google Compute's settings were in the registry. The only mods necessary in registry were to change the username (2 lines) and the Team number. For you folks that want to be able to get a great majority of Tinker work units for your fast AMD silicon, this is a viable alternative for you to consider, if you're not scared to make a couple of registry entry modifications.
Here's a pic of the mods I had to do to subvert their install to fold for Team 93.
Also, here's another pic of where Google compute puts all it's files on your computer if you want to monitor it with EMIII. EMIII will monitor it but it kind of baulks when you show it the GoogleFAH.exe file as the program to monitor, but it will monitor the Google client.
Here's a pic of the mods I had to do to subvert their install to fold for Team 93.
Also, here's another pic of where Google compute puts all it's files on your computer if you want to monitor it with EMIII. EMIII will monitor it but it kind of baulks when you show it the GoogleFAH.exe file as the program to monitor, but it will monitor the Google client. 0
Comments
since my setup on the v5.0+ client I've gotten nothing but tinkers ...I haven't even loaded the core_78 yet since it hasn't been needed.
And vice versa on the p4 rigs ...all I did was add the -advmethods flag to the same setup and viola!!! gromacs.
I hope to see you getting more steady points there mudd!!! Sure you'll be headed to the beach real soon too.
KingFish
You see the part that I bolded? I'm not using this for a commercial use; this is done strictly for personal use and I believe that this exempts my alteraltions in the registry to the team number that I want my points credited to. People can use their own judgement as to whether they are violating Google's Terms of Use, but that is the way I interpret it. As far as the username is concerned, you don't even have to go into the registry to change that; it can be done straight from the Google toolbar.
I look at the Google toolbar as another way for people to set up the client much like setting it up as a service, but easier to start and stop. You can control starting and stopping directly from an IE window instead of having to go to services to stop the client. Since Google sends out almost all Tinker work, this obviously wouldn't be the way to set up an Intel machine as Tinker is less efficient than Gromacs on Intels, especially on P4 machines, but is highly efficient on AMD machines. It also isn't preferrentially dumping Gromacs work either as it's just taking what Google's assignment servers dish out, which happen to be mostly Tinker work units. In the future, it might not be advantageous to run AMD machines with the Google toolbar, but at this moment it is.
BTW, I haven't implemented this on any machines at my house yet as I had this brainstorm yesterday on the rig; I won't be home to implement it for 1-2 more weeks.
I don't see how it would be cheating.... if you changed it and then started distributing the GoogleCompute client as a legitmate one with the altered info than yes, but, if you are running the thing on your own computer you should be able to do whatever you want with it.