[独立平台] [生命科学类] Folding@Home

vmzy

Wed Jun 30, 2010 4:02 pm
bigadv has been temporarily turned off for linux due to problems with the linux A3 core on bigadv work units
bigadv has been enabled for windows. Depending on the work unit availability, machines requesting bigadv may roll over to normal -advmethods.
大意：
暂时关闭bigadv linux（windows内核继续，linux将改发普通smp任务）。

vmzy

July 04, 2010
ATI WU shortage
There has been an ATI WU shortage over the last few days.  We have been working on it during the week, but there have been some unusual circumstances involved this time which has delayed a complete fix.  We have made a temporary fix early Sunday (1AM pacific time) which should help some donors, but are continuing to monitor the situation and expect that a more complete fix will come next week.
大意：
ATI断粮几天了，预计下周恢复。

vmzy

Mon Jul 12, 2010 7:50 pm
deadline benchmarking standards for SMP work units
We're setting new benchmarking standards for deadlines on non-bigadv SMP work units.
On all new projects, the preferred deadline will be 6x the time to completion on our Core i5 benchmark machine.
On all new projects, the final deadline will be 10x the time to completion on our Core i5 benchmark machine.

We are also extending the preferred deadline on projects 6701-6702 to 4.9 days to fit the new model. The final deadline will remain at 6 days so that we don't switch the k-factor midstream and potentially affect points values on running work units.

Bigadv work units will continue to have tighter deadlines. These are specifically designed for fast completion; all of our projects do valuable science, and we appreciate the contribution of all the machines that people use to contribute. Certain kinds of projects benefit require certain architectures, but participation in any of the FAH work unit categories is helpful to the project.

Thanks for participating in Folding@Home!

As a quick clarification: the "retroactive" deadline change on 6701-2 means that we are not changing deadlines at this time for other running projects. Deadlines are determined at work unit issue; this change applies only to 6701 & 6702 work units issued from this time forward.
大意：
改变普通smp（非bigadv）任务的期限算法。
从现在起新项目的推荐完成时间为，我们的Core i5标准机算完任务所需时间的6倍。过期时间为10倍。
另外新发放的6701-6702任务的推荐完成时间调整为4.9天，过期时间不变，仍为6天。积分及奖励积分策略不变。
由于bigadv任务的特殊性（我们确实很需要它的结果尽快返回），所以期限算法不变，计算时间要求依然很紧。

vmzy

July 13, 2010
GPU3 open beta test continuing well
I wanted to post an update on our GPU3 beta test.  It is going well, so we have put the GPU3 client on our high performance client download page. This new client is required for all Fermi hardware, but also allows pre-Fermi NVIDIA GPUs to access the new GPU3 cores.  These cores are labeled core15 (which has already been extensively tested and is in production right now) as well as a new core16 which will be appearing in testing in the coming weeks.

We are also working to finish our OpenCL port for ATI GPUs to support GPU3 on ATI, but there are still performance issues for OpenCL on both NVIDIA and ATI which are holding back this release.  You can see more information about the key software behind the GPU3 cores at the OpenMM project website. If you're curious, there is openCL code there for NVIDIA and ATI and we invite the open source OpenCL community to check out this code and see how they can help if interested (note the code is released under an LGPL license).
大意：
GPU3公测一切顺利，我们现在把它加到官方下载页面里了（目前仅支持n卡）。core16已经开始内测了。
我们还在加紧开发ATI版的GPU3，不过由于性能问题（A、N都有此问题），我们暂时还没法发布。另外openCL代码开源（LGPL协议）了，感兴趣的可以一起来优化代码。
译者注：难道GPU3时代ATI性能依然杯具。
等gpu3的性能优化结束，估计gpu2就该下岗了。不过现在天热，性能慢点优化也无所谓，呵呵。

vmzy

Jul 15, 2010 11:47 pm
There is some kind of generalized connection problem at Stanford. It's acknowledged in this topic but seems to apply to most (all?) servers. More information when we know something.
大意：
斯坦福出现网络故障。检修中……

vmzy

July 28, 2010
SMP2 preview client (v 6.30)
I've talked about our work with our second generation SMP client (dubbed SMP2).  The goals were to make it work much more simply and easier for donors, namely by getting rid of the need for MPI libraries.  This is no small feat and the bulk of the credit goes to the Gromacs developers who pushed on this.
We have a SMP2 preview client (v6.30) on our High Performance Client Download Page (scroll to the bottom of the page) as well as updated SMP guide and FAQ.  We're still calling this a beta client while we test SMP2.  However, this technology is already part of our new v7 client and our plan is for SMP2 to be a standard part of FAH when the v7 client rolls out of beta testing.  On a side note, the v7 is currently doing well in QA and I hope we'll have an open beta test of it soon, eg in the next few months if not sooner.
大意：
发布SMP2预览版客户端（6.30）
感谢Gromacs开发人员的不懈努力。我已经把发布SMP2预览版客户端（6.30）放到官方下载页面了，并且我们相应的更新了安装指南和常见问题解答内容。
这个客户端的所有功能已经包含在v7客户端里了。另外v7内测很顺利，如果不出意外将于几个月后开始公测。

译者注：现在smp2客户端和标准单核版已经非常相似了。安装起来非常方便。只要把任务类型改为big，然后再加上smp参数就可以开工了。以前的各种限制（比如安装mpi，要求设账户密码，无法设为service……）都没有了。大家先小白一下。我2周内就把所有单核机器升到双核，所有双核机器从wcg转回fah。

vmzy

Tue Aug 17, 2010 12:29 am
Announcing release: standalone memory tester for ATI+NV GPUs

We've just released MemtestCL, a dedicated memory tester for OpenCL-capable GPUs in the same vein as MemtestG80 for CUDA-capable GPUs. In particular, this means that owners of ATI OpenCL-capable GPUs (the Radeon 4000 and up) can test their GPU memory as well. Binaries for Windows and 64-bit Linux are available, as is (LGPL-licensed) source code for those of you interested in doing additional development work (for example, GUI frontends).

Note that you must have an OpenCL-capable driver and runtime installed on your machine for this to work. For Nvidia, this means a 195 driver or newer; for ATI, you need the Cat 9.12 or newer video drivers, AS WELL AS installing the ATI Stream SDK (http://developer.amd.com/gpu/atistreamsdk/) - for some reason the OpenCL runtime does not come with the video driver. Incidentally, by installing the Stream SDK, you can use MemtestCL to test your CPU memory too.

Source and binaries are available at https://simtk.org/home/memtest. Binaries may also be found (without the SimTK mandatory registration) on the official FAH utilities page: http://folding.stanford.edu/English/DownloadUtils
大意：
发布ATI+NV GPUs MemtestCL稳定性测试程序
目前有windows版和64位 Linux版。
NV GPUs必须安装195或更新的驱动。
ATI GPUs必须是Radeon 4XXX及以上的显卡，驱动最低得是9.12，并且要安装ATI Stream SDK（A卡的opencl驱动不在催化剂里）。顺带提一句A卡也可以测CPU内存。

vmzy

August 17, 2010
More SMP server power coming on line in the near future
We are a bit tight on SMP servers at the moment, as we are waiting for a new big server to come back on line.  Our admins have been working on this problem and think they have found the issue with the raid on that machine (after consulting the hardware manufacturer, they're upgrading the firmware of the drives).  We don't have an ETA on this, but I'm hoping it will be relatively soon.

After the new machine comes on line, we should have a lot more SMP power.  Moreover, we have other servers waiting in the wings and our plan is to bring several servers on line for SMP in the coming weeks with new WUs and SMP projects (although note that it takes a while for new projects to go through our QA process).

All of this is in anticipation of the v7 client maturing and going into open beta in a few months.  V7 should make it a lot easier to run SMP.  However, it's also important to note that the v6.30 client (already released and on our high performance client download page) already makes SMP pretty easy to run.
大意：
计划增加SMP服务器
一台新SMP服务器已经就位，不过raid出了问题，我们已经联系厂商了，他们准备升级硬盘固件（译者注：囧，难道是希捷的固件门产品）。希望这台服务器能尽快上线。
接下来几周内还有新SMP服务器要增加，我们还会增加新的任务和项目（新项目要先内测，所以上线速度不会很快）。
这一切都是为了几月后的v7客户端所做的准备，v7运行smp非常简便。注：现在v6.30客户端算smp也相当方便。

vmzy

Tue Aug 31, 2010 2:04 am
We have one physical server (vsp07) down and this one hosts many IPs (vsp07*, vsp17*, vsp22*). We've notified the sysadmins and they are working on it.
大意：
挂了一台物理服务器，其上的虚拟服务器也都挂了。

August 30, 2010
Two new key results
We have two papers (one that just came out in PNAS and one that's about to come out in Physical Review Letters -- papers #74 and #75 on our papers list) that we're particularly excited about.  They represent some key results that we've learned by examining multiple results from Folding@home.  The resulting picture of how proteins fold is fairly different from the prevailing view, so it will be interesting to see what experiments tell us about the specific predictions made within.  We're excited to see where this goes!
大意：
发表2篇关键论文。计算模拟结果和现有的理论结果有不同，下面就看实验结果如何了。

vmzy

October 01, 2010
Folding@home 10th anniversary
It’s with great pleasure that I announce that today is Folding@home’s official tenth anniversary.  It’s been an amazing 10 years, especially in terms of what we’ve collectively been able to do, and my team and I are grateful for all the contributions by millions of people that has made this possible.  If you’re curious to see what we’ve done so far, please check out our Results section or Diseases FAQ.  In particular, we're very excited about recent work on protein folding, which could radically reshape how people think about folding (leading to recent awards).
Behind the scenes, we’ve been planning some 10 year celebration activities, including a new client, better client software feedback of what’s going on, some new client surprises through new collaborations, new backend software, and enhanced science via new cores.   We’re also pushing to support more hardware, such as new support for OpenCL on ATI hardware (an ATI OpenMM/OpenCL core16 is in internal testing, although it requires the v7 client).
One key big picture goal for this year is our push to try to make FAH much easier, interesting, and fun to use by donors.  With a new server backend soon to be in place, we should be ready to scale to much higher levels and we’re excited about what we can do with the combination of a new client that’s easier to run, much more stable backend, and new science in cores A3, A4, 15, and 16.
Finally, amongst some of the surprises are new initiatives that I hope will change how people think about distributed computing.  That’s clearly a lot to hope for, but that’s our goal.  Sorry for being so coy about this now, but I wanted to let people know there’s a lot going on behind the scenes and we’ll be talking about this more as we announce these initiatives throughout the year.

大意：
今天是FAH十周年纪念日。
接下来我们计划发布v7客户端，不过v7需要服务端进行同步升级，所以我们暂时还不能发布。ATI OpenMM/OpenCL core16在进行内测，它会在v7后发布，因为它只能在v7下运行。

vmzy

by VijayPande » Tue Oct 26, 2010 11:06 pm
Joe found a protomol issue with the Windows systray client that has been causing problems for people. This problem is fixed in v7, but not in v6. So, to keep this issue from donors, we will keep protomol away from Windows systray clients in 2 stages:
1) now: Linux only
2) shortly (~Wed): Linux + Windows (not systray). We need to make AS changes to handle this specific restrict.
大意：
protomol（b4内核）与Windows图形版v6客户端有冲突。我们计划暂时对AS做出如下调整。
1、现在：只给Linux分配任务
2、等周末升级了AS代码，会再给Windows命令行版客户端发任务。

vmzy

November 22, 2010
2 new results from FAH
Two new papers from FAH have just come out, both from the lab of FAH affiliate Eric Sorin.  For more information, check out papers #76 and #77 on our results page.
大意：
新发表了2篇论文（76&77号）

vmzy

December 08, 2010
server room maintenance: December 16, 2010
One of our main server rooms will be undergoing maintenance on December 16, 2010.  This will mean some of the FAH servers will be off line on that day.  It looks like most of the key FAH infrastructure will be up, but there will likely be WU shortages on that day since a large fraction of machines will be down.

We are working to optimize what we can by distributing jobs to servers in other server rooms, but we wanted to give donors a heads up in advance so they know this is coming.
大意：
12月16日，有一个机房要进行维护，届时任务可能会紧缺，请大家做好准备。