Cure@PS3 project

It is new to me anyway (not the folding bit, but the PS3 bit). Very awesome! Great idea.

Whoah. I just watched the 6mb avi, looks awesome! I'm definitely going to put my PS3 to work on this, it's pretty to look at and apparently also interactive. My wife will love it!
 
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Is the protein folding that F@H does heavily reliant on Double Precision calculations? If so it may not achieve that high performance on the PS3l.
 
Wow, didn't expect we see the official support for folding by Sony, and this early. And it's with nice 3D molecule rendering by RSX? Really cool.
 
I want to take this opportunity to invite all the PS3 B3Ders to join us on team 32377 (That's B3Ds official team) when the new rig shows up (and between gaming runs, of course). Love to have you! :D

And when you do, drop by and say Hi: http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=33

Yes, you've just been spammed. . . but at least it was *official* spam in a good cause! ;) I promise not to make it a habit. :smile:
 
I'm guessing this will be running on the linux client of the PS3?
Thats pretty cool though, I used to fold a while back, but only for a short while. I never really understood it personally, but I suppose it's for a good cause.
 
Forget about Geo, team PSINext will be where it's at for PS3 folding action. :cool:

Seriously though, this is cool. A lot of us have always suspected that PS3 would get co-opted into SETI, Folding, etc... but to see seemingly official support come along so early in the process is really encouraging.

I don't know what the state of things is for Cell in industry outside of gaming right now in general, but to read a lot of the papers coming out lately, at least in academic circles there is clearly a lot of excitement for the chip.
 
dodo3 said:
What exactly is this "SETI" and "Folding"? I don't really understand.
Click to expand...

SETI
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SETI@home

Folding@Home
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folding@home

I'm sure someone can explain it better than me, but basically you install a folding client on your computer, and the program will use bits of your cpu power (very small margins i imagine) to calculate simulations to cure diseases. There are several sites who compete for the most "folding points" if you will. Again I'm kinda rusty on the whole thing, I'm sure Geo or xbdestroya could do a much better job explaining.
 
dodo3 said:
What exactly is this "SETI" and "Folding"? I don't really understand.
Click to expand...

SETI is a distributed computing app that searches for extraterrestial life.

'Folding' is protein folding, and it has many scientific and ultimately medical uses.

The idea behind both (Folding came later, and frankly is the more practical of the two) is that we have a world where millions of PCs sit idle, connected by the Internet. If the idle cycles of CPUs can be harnessed to work on 'packets' sent to them from central servers, work that would otherwise require banks of supercomputers can be accomplished relatively quickly and inexpensively by an army of volunteers.

Anyway... so that's the idea behind distributed computing. It's not just limited to the above two either - they're just the best known.
 
xbdestroya said:
The idea behind both (Folding came later, and frankly is the more practical of the two) is that we have a world where millions of PCs sit idle, connected by the Internet. If the idle cycles of CPUs can be harnessed to work on 'packets' sent to them from central servers, work that would otherwise require banks of supercomputers can be accomplished relatively quickly and inexpensively by an army of vaolunteers.
Click to expand...

On the other hand, imagine the money, pollution, and fossil fuel saved if only we put those machines into low-power sleep, or turned them off instead of leaving them on and connected to the Internet, or worse, burning cycles at full power. ;)
 
Bohdy said:
Is the protein folding that F@H does heavily reliant on Double Precision calculations? If so it may not achieve that high performance on the PS3l.
Click to expand...

No, apparently it's partly single precision, partly double.

Don't forget though that even with double precision, the PS3 isn't exactly slow compared to other machines. It's just that the Cell could be a lot faster still for Double Precision.

Great, indeed, that SCEA decided to contribute on this. I looked at the forums, and the first of july, people were still pessimistic about the feasibilty of a PS3 version.
 
aaaaa00 said:
On the other hand, imagine the money and fossil fuel saved if only we put those machines into low-power sleep, or turned them off instead of leaving them on and connected to the Internet, or worse, burning cycles at full power. ;)
Click to expand...

LOL, well that's true. ;)

(and in that vein, PS3 will be the ultimate power-efficient home folding client!)

But truthfully I myself don't fold on the PC since I'm actually of the undervolting/power efficiency/quiet variety. Folding is all max utilization all the time - though it takes last priority over anything else you're doing - as aaaaa00 indicates.

I do plan on using my PS3 to fold though, just because I do believe in the cause and think Cell will rock at it... and because using a console for it is just awesome. But it's of course not for everyone.
 
Arwin said:
Don't forget though that even with double precision, the PS3 isn't exactly slow compared to other machines. It's just that the Cell could be a lot faster still for Double Precision.
Click to expand...

And not even that - Cell is actually fast for double-precision! (relative) Certainly much better than whatever A64's and Intel chips are normally running in Folding PCs in any event...

I look forward to the future improved DP revisions of Cell, but the fact that PS3's will be able to contribute to the computing 'scene' (and outdo much more expensive machines) will be an awesome draw for those that take pleasure in contributing to distributed computing.
 
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xbdestroya said:
Forget about Geo, team PSINext will be where it's at for PS3 folding action. :cool:

Seriously though, this is cool. A lot of us have always suspected that PS3 would get co-opted into SETI, Folding, etc... but to see seemingly official support come along so early in the process is really encouraging.

I don't know what the state of things is for Cell in industry outside of gaming right now in general, but to read a lot of the papers coming out lately, at least in academic circles there is clearly a lot of excitement for the chip.
Click to expand...

Hey now! That's *unofficial* spamming! Don't make me pick up my rod of office! ;)

It seems pretty obvious there's no way they got this far without Sony and NV being intimately involved, and probably even doing most of the work. Which, hey, good on them.
 
geo said:
It seems pretty obvious there's no way they got this far without Sony and NV being intimately involved, and probably even doing most of the work. Which, hey, good on them.
Click to expand...

I'll say this also - the fact that *this* is one of the first non-gaming apps to be revealed for the PS3 gives me hope that Sony is indeed commited to providing users with a robust OS experience completely independent of the 'console' side of things and coupled with practical and novel apps.
 
xbdestroya said:
I'll say this also - the fact that *this* is one of the first non-gaming apps to be revealed for the PS3 gives me hope that Sony is indeed commited to providing users with a robust OS experience completely independent of the 'console' side of things and coupled with practical and novel apps.
Click to expand...


Hey Xbd is it true that "folding" proteins (or whatever you guys are talking about) can cure diseases?
 
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