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PS3 Client for Folding@Home Debuts, ATI GPU Version Soon

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the fwip-fwip-fwip dept.

eliot1785 writes "Stanford's Folding@Home project is reporting that Sony debuted a Folding@Home client for the PlayStation 3 today in Germany. Researchers hope to use the power of the PS3's Cell processor to greatly expand the number of FLOPS of which their network is capable. F@H also announced today that they will release a client capable of running on ATI graphics processors. With these two new developments, F@H hopes to raise the total power of their distributed computing network to 1-10 petaflops. At the upper end of that target, the network would be faster than any current supercomputer, at least in terms of FLOPS." Reader TommyBear points out a collection of papers showing scientific advances made by the F@H researchers.

2 of 177 comments (clear)

  1. Give Me! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    x86 continues to get left in the computational dust.

    I have a friend who is a very senior engineer at NVidia who has talked about how sick and tired they are of having the boat anchor that is x86 tied to their hardware. And that they would love to just cut out Intel and just run Windows/Linux right on their hardware. Microsoft obviously felt the same way when they dumped Intel and switch to PowerPC with the 360.

    The PS3 is supposed to completely support keyboard and mouse, have a full version of Linux sitting on the harddrive, and support homebrew development. If you can download and install normal Linux apps...a graphics programmer dream come true. Even cooler are the plans of Sony coming out with higher end PS3 models with more RAM or Cell chips. A Linux box with a couple gigs of RAM and dual or quad Cells, oh baby.

    1. Re:Give Me! by elrous0 · · Score: 4, Interesting
      If you think for a second that Sony is going to "open up" the PS3 and just let you put whatever homebrew software you want on it, considering their record with the PSP, you're living in a dream world. Sony are control FREAKS. Their media-producing divisions are so scared at even the HINT that the system could be used for pirated games/media that they would rather take a financial loss than risk conceding even the slightest BIT of control of their system to homebrew coders.

      If you want to see the kind of "Linux" you'll get on the PS3, look no further than the "Linux" they gave us on the PS2.

      -Eric

      --
      SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.