Friday 03/05/02
Another new protein has arrived, this one is called PolyQ50 and its Project 504. Its value is 1.9 points with a seven day deadline. Its seems good value for the time spent crunching it. It returns better points per hour when compared to a A protein and returns twice the value of a bba5 type protein.
| Protein | Points | Total Time | PPH |
| PolyQ50 | 1.9 | 11816 secs | 0.578 |
| Ag29aNat | 5.0 | 53857 secs | 0.334 |
| bba5_build_ext | 0.6 | 7421 secs | 0.291 |
Times based on a XP@1600Mhz
The Windows version of the 700 series proteins are now running.
We're now running the 700 project series on Windows -
we've tested
it here in the lab, but it's possible there might be some errors
out in "the real world", so please let me know . . .
But they had a small hiccup with the new core that is downloaded with the new 700 WU's. the new core_65 caused the frame time to increase by 50% compared to the old core. Apparently this was caused by the new compiler they used. All is fixed now and a new updated core was released as soon as it was noticed.
Yes, we noticed this right before y'all did, and spent
last night
and today figuring it out. It turns out the difference is
the Fortran compiler (the inner, scientific part is in Fortran). The
previous core was compiled with the Intel Fortran 4.5 compiler, and
the newer one with the Intel Fortran 5.0 compiler. It turns out that
Intel 5.0 is about 50% slower on Athlons and 10-20% slower for
Pentium
II-III architectures than the Intel 4.5 is (didn't test Pentium
4's).
So we have gone back to the Fortran 4.5, and the revised core is
posted on the web site. Autodownload of the core is controlled by
the
work unit type, so the revised new core won't automatically update
at
this point - you would have to quite, delete the old Core_65.exe,
and
then when FAH starts, it will download the new core. A lot of
functionality was added, but nothing was touched in the code of that
the non-700 series WU's does, so it really is all the compiler. We
tested the Intel 6.0 compiler today, too - faster than 5.0, not as
fast as 4.5.
Hope that clears things up. Let us know if there are still slowdowns
with the 'new' new core . . .
As most of you know I have been planning a big surprise for sometime now and on Wednesday night the surprise was revealed in the forums, after a bit of teasing and frenzied activity from the folding community (I have never seen such activity in the DC forum like that and it was great fun. I think we filled three pages in that thread in about 30 minutes). For those that don't visit the forums much I can tell you now that the surprise is a Giveaway competition. It has been in planning for quite a few weeks now and is still at least two weeks away from starting. All prize donations have been confirmed with the Giveaway sponsors and we are just waiting for delivery of the goods before we get under way.
This Giveaway is designed to reward the dedicated members of this folding team for getting us where we are today and to also encourage new members to join and participate in a most worthwhile cause and help speed along the process of find cures for some of the worlds most serious diseases.
The Giveaway will run for about eight weeks with weekly prize draws and a grand prize of a "folding box". Basically a complete computer minus monitor, it will have a CDROM, keyboard, wheel mouse and even a mouse mat.
All you have to do is produce 5 points a week to be eligible for the weekly prize draw. To be eligible for the grand prize you must have remained active from the time you entered the competition to the time of the grand prize draw. eg: If you started in week one then you have to remain active for the entire eight weeks and if you entered in week 4 you have to stay active for the remaining time as well.
I will keep a list of members that are eligible to enter the draw and it will be updated daily. All eligible members will be automatically entered into the draw but if for some reason you don't want to be in it let me know by email or forum PM. If a prize is unclaimed after two weeks it will be redrawn from the members eligible for that week.
If you belong to a team such as Whirlpool or GameDude for example then each team member who wants be in the giveaway they will have to nominate themselves as being a member of that team and then that team must produce 5 points per nominated person.
When a member becomes eligible for entry into the Giveaway that person will be given a number like this 11316. I will be using a sequence number generator for each persons number and the last 4 digits will range from 0001 to 2000. Also I will add a number at the front which will signify the week of the Giveaway, 11316, 20456, 30099 etc. I will generate at the beginning of the each week of the Giveaway a complete list of numbers from 0001 to 2000 and save it and issue each number as members become eligible. All the numbers a member collects for each week they produce 5 points (providing they have been active every week) from time of entry will be entered into the final draw for the grand prize. so it pays to start folding at the beginning so you maximise your chances. Each week a winner will be selected from that weeks eligible members using that weeks numbers and the winning number will be selected by this random number generator.
The draw will be open to all members, even the overseas members. But getting the prize to those overseas members may be a problem unless they would like to contribute to the shipping costs, which of course depends on the value of the prize won. I am prepared to absorb local postage costs.
Details of the prize list and participating sponsors will be release soon when everything is finalised. When that has happened there will be one weeks notice so the word can be spread to give maximum coverage of our Giveaway among other groups and folding affiliates. Also to allow new members to join and participate from the beginning of the Giveaway.
Another thought that I had was to give the people already folding and active before the giveaway was announced last Wednesday night an extra bonus number in the grand prize draw. As a reward for dedicated service to the team.
That should be enough to confuse you for now.
