Im new to folding and I have some questions

Red787

I just got into folding today and I have a few questions. I have been reading the FAQ's at Stanford as well as looking all over the forums here for info but I am still a little confused since I am new. I think some of the terminology is what's getting me too. I currently have the console version running right now. It seems to be working fine. I have an Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 with 3 gigs of RAM. How many others can I run on here? Can I run two consoles and a graphical client on this machine? If so how do I do it so it works right. I read something about making sure the consoles are in separate folders but how do I assign them different machine id's, or do I even need to? Would it be better just to run one console and one client? I also have another PC with a P4 2.8Ghz with HT and 2 gigs of RAM. What can I run on there? On any computer all I have to do is install the programs and make sure they are running right? I don't have to do anything else, when it comes to reporting and getting new cores it does everything automatically, right? Is there anything in advanced settings that I can do to get the optimum amount of points and cores completed? Thank you very much for any help you all can give me on this.

SPIKE09

Different machine ids is under the advanced options , with a machine of that power it would be well worth checking out the SMP client as it will garner more points and advance the project much faster.

spike
PS welcome to the team:D

Qeldroma

Red787, you have an impressive piece of hardware in the X6800 and, like Spike said, I’d go with the SMP client on that machine.

Here is a link to help with SMP clients

I would recommend that you run two clients on the 2.8GHz HT machine. You do this by downloading two FAH clients into their own separate directories. When you install each, be sure to go into Advanced Options when you do the set up and make sure you set the Machine IDs to different numbers (like 1 and 2). You should turn out a few more work units this way. Also, do not be tempted to run an SMP client on this machine as it will likely not finish in time.

And thanks for kickin' in with us

QCH

Spike is correct... If you grab the console version (HERE) and put it a directory (c:\program files\F@H\CPU1 or something) and then make a shortcut of the FAH504-Console.exe. Edit the properties of the short cut. At the end of the "Target" line, add this " -configonly" to the end. That allows you to edit the properties of FAH.

So... the Target should look like this...

"C:\Program Files\F@H\CPU1\FAH504-Console.exe" -configonly

Assuming you put everything in c:\program files\F@H\CPU1.

When you double click the shortcut, it asks you several questions, one of which is "change advanced options". Select "Y" and then a whole bunch of new questions begin scrolling by. The last questions.... Machine ID (1-8). Select 2. That marks the console version as the second CPU. That's it...

Red787

Thanks, now I'm tracking on what to do next but do I use two Clients or two Consoles for my X6800? Qeldroma you said clients and QCH2002 said consoles. I'm still not sure which one is better except for the fact that one is "no nonsense". Thanks

SPIKE09

it is correctly known as the "console client" and you want the 5.04 beta version if you are running windows.

Red787

Spike thanks for the info but this is what they have now for download. Should I use 2 of the Windows 2000/XP/Vista SMP client console version 5.91 beta down at the bottom? Thanks.

Qeldroma

Red787 wrote:

Should I use 2 of the Windows 2000/XP/Vista SMP client console version 5.91 beta ... ?

No. One will do as it will assign the work unit to both cores for you. And yes, the client at the bottom is the one.

Red787

Thanks again everyone

SPIKE09

[Stanford head on] only run the SMP client on machines with multiple real cores, do not run two instances of the console on HT PC's as it slows down both results and science[ / Stanford head off]
My personal advice would be SMP console client on the quad and single instance of the 5.04 beta console client on the P4.

Red787

Ok so I will run two instances on my dual core but there is no 5.04 beta console client. Do you mean the "No Nonsense" text-only console? With that on my P4 can I run a Graphical Client as well? I was reading somewhere that you can. Thanks

Qeldroma

My bad- I left it out . Spike is correct (good catch)- you want the 5.04 version of the client on the 2.8GHz HT machine. However, I run that very machine with 2 5.04 clients without an issue and it does produce more than a single client.

Qeldroma

Red787 wrote:

Ok so I will run two instances on my dual core but there is no 5.04 beta console client. Do you mean the "No Nonsense" text-only console? With that on my P4 can I run a Graphical Client as well? I was reading somewhere that you can. Thanks

I think you need to understand that ALL of the FAH programs are termed "client". A "Console" version uses a DOS screen interface and a "GUI" version uses a graphical window interface to use the client.

What we are trying to say is that the SMP (version 5.91) client will do well on the X6800 whereas the 5.04 will do well on the 2.8GHz HT. They are two seperate client types.

Again, apologies.

Red787

lol, ok I finally got it. Sorry guys I didn't realize that all they are all termed client. I thought since only some were labeled that the others were not. I should have realized they were all clients based off their purpose but I have it all figured out now. I'm going to run the SMP 5.91 Beta on the X6800 and I will run two 5.04 clients on the P4 since Qeldroma has done it with no problems. Thanks again to everyone for the info and dealing with me and my newb questions

EDIT: Also since I have 5.04 currently running on my X6800 should I wait until its done with this core sequence before I change over to 5.91, or will it continue where it left off?

Qeldroma

Actually, I think you know that the dumb question is the one that isn't asked- and your questions were good and to the point.

Thanks for helping us out, Red787 (and putting up with my unclear answer )

Qeldroma

Red787 wrote:

EDIT: Also since I have 5.04 currently running on my X6800 should I wait until its done with this core sequence before I change over to 5.91, or will it continue where it left off?

You should be able to shut down and add the -oneunit flag to the command line and restart. The client should shut down when finished. you can then uninstall the old client.

SPIKE09

You could also sneakernet the 2 instances of folding from the quad core to the P4 by copying them to a memory stick, and rerunning them with the -config flag. to do this once you have moved them create ashortcut to the fah.exe paste the shortcut to the desktop right click and add space -config on the shortcut target something like this .
"C:\Documents and Settings\Spike\My Documents\folding-2\FAH504-Console.exe" -local -config

Red787

SPIKE09 wrote:

You could also sneakernet the 2 instances of folding from the quad core to the P4 by copying them to a memory stick, and rerunning them with the -config flag. to do this once you have moved them create ashortcut to the fah.exe paste the shortcut to the desktop right click and add space -config on the shortcut target something like this .
"C:\Documents and Settings\Spike\My Documents\folding-2\FAH504-Console.exe" -local -config

Thanks for the extra info