ItÂ’s been a while, but I finally got my office up and running so IÂ’ve fired up some of my PCÂ’s for folding. Some of them are dead for some reason since they were in storage for about a year and a half.

Anyway, IÂ’ve been doing a lot of research on using the console version for folding since itÂ’s faster with the use of flags (IÂ’ve know this but never had the time to look at it) . Now that I have a place for all my folding rigs, I purchased an inexpensive P4 3.0 w/HT and 1 gig ram. I also know that with all the dual and quad cores out for some time now, IÂ’ve purchased a dinosaur, but I just wanted to get a cheap entry point.

From the research IÂ’ve done so far, I know that the SMP client is designed for quad core machines (4 physical or quad core) and also runs pretty well on the core 2 duo. But how about running the SMP client on a single core with HT?

Stanford says itÂ’s not designed for that, but IÂ’ve seen on some other folding forums that the SMP client runs much faster with one instance running on a single core w/HT as opposed to running two instances of the basic windows console client simultaneously.

IÂ’d love to hear form those of you that have had some experience with this.

Try it and see! In my dealing with the smp client, I would say no though. It doesnt work well with under 2mb of cache. My amd dual cores would not run it at all. They had 512kb cache per core. My 5200+ on the other hand does run it just fine thought, it has 1mb per core.

It's really a matter of choice . . . I can't remember the exact difference but I believe it boils down to how the Hyperthreading effects the final results.

IF I recall correctly, Hyperthreading causes you to fold faster, but it skews the results a bit . . . So, if you really care about the science, don't use HT. If you want the points, then by all means, use HT.

d

Quote: Originally Posted by corruptjoker Try it and see!

That's what I'd be doing if I had it, but it's still in shipping so I was just looking to get a head start before it got here . Anyway, thanks for the info both of you .

I think we need a Sweeeet Guide for setting up a SMP F@H on a PC.

I tried running the SMP on my athalon 64 ( no dual core ) and it won't work, it has to be at least some kind of dual or more core. I put on my pentium D that somebody said was crap but I moved from 180th place to 67th place with it working 1900 points or so every other day while my single cores add little 700 point or so scores every once in awhile.

Quote: Originally Posted by THRASHER2 I think we need a Sweeeet Guide for setting up a SMP F@H on a PC.

Well, it's been a while since this post, but I finally got my multicore lappy this last weekend.

I'll work on getting a setup written up and posted. If time allows, it should be up by this weekend.

d

Quote: Originally Posted by drougnor Well, it's been a while since this post, but I finally got my multicore lappy this last weekend. I'll work on getting a setup written up and posted. If time allows, it should be up by this weekend. d

No offense, but I thought the SMP Client was pretty basic.

Password your user account that you wish to run F@H on
Download Client
Install client to said designated folder
Run Install.bat
Load your credientials for your account
Load your password for your account
Load your password for your account again
press enter when you see this message twice

run "fah.exe"
set your username to "nucrash1"
set your team name to "35275"
DO NOT Install as a service
Do download WUs >5MB
Check no to Advanced Options and watch your client work through very quickly.

If the client borks, delete the client, uninstall the client, reboot, and repeat all of the above.

Man, I WISH it were that simple . . . my lappy decided that it absolutely HATES the SMP client . . .

Will have to work on it again this weekend.

Dual Core be just a bit more tricky.

If you have Hyperthreading, you can trick the SMP client into folding.

I have had nothing but troubles on Dual Core systems. Don't get me wrong, they fold uber fast, but the SMP is more stumped than a 2 year old at McDonalds trying to decide between Hamburger or Chicken Nuggets.

Quote: Originally Posted by nucrash run "fah.exe" set your username to "nucrash1" set your team name to "35275" DO NOT Install as a service Do download WUs >5MB Check no to Advanced Options and watch your client work through very quickly. If the client borks, delete the client, uninstall the client, reboot, and repeat all of the above.

Hmm, seems to be a problem there, the user name should obviously be 4x0n and the team number 596

Running the smp client as a service can be done, it's not supported but it's possible. There are instructions available on the web about how to set it up. I have my dual core fx-60 running smp and it's set as a service. Starts with windows and runs in the background without a cmd prompt window.

I do have to mention and warn anybody that wants to try smp as a service. If you shut down your machine, most likely you will lose any current progress you have made. Mine for whatever reason 50% of the time corrupts the current WU file on a restart and it erases the current WU. This only seems to happen when you are running smp as a service because windows shuts down the files in the wrong order and the client has a fit.

I haven't really found it to be a problem as I only restart the computer once every other month or so. The point benefit from smp, if you can run it, really outweighs losing 1 WU every other month. This one computer can turn in a WU every 1-1.5 days worth 1500-1700 points.