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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.

14 of 177 comments (clear)

  1. Diebold by Halo1 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Imagine what would happen if they could also harness Diebold's flops...

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  2. 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 DrXym · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Exactly. IBM have been using Linux as the development platform for the Cell processor so it's not as far fetched as it sounds. Sony could have Linux running on the PS3 from the get go. It remains to be seen if they do though or what it looks like... It would be awesome if it did. At that point the PS3 *is* a computer (not just for tax dodging purposes), as well as a kick ass console, media jukebox. When you think of it from that perspective, the price really isn't unreasonable, especially compared to the Mac Mini (for example).

    2. Re:Give Me! by MobyDisk · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Huh?

      1) a video card does not contain a general purpose processor and is not capable of running an operating system. It contains a GPU, which is very fast for certain subsets of mathematical calculations, but that is all. It can't effectively branch, doesn't offer memory protection, etc. There are the biggest parts of a modern general-purpose CPU

      2) Video cards are not tied to x86: A video card communicates with a bus like PCI or AGP. The system could be running an PowerPC chip, or a cell chip, or an x86 chip. nVidia has cards that run on all three of these environments.

      3) You talk about the cell processor and the PS3, but that doesn't have anything to do with x86 being left behind. The cell processors are a massively parallel processor designed for running video games and computational problems. It will probably be inefficient (per watt and per cycle) to run a normal desktop OS on it. Not that it isn't possible, but that isn't what it is for.

      4) You point out how x86 must be bad because Microsoft switched to PowerPC for the 360. So why did Apple switch to x86 from PowerPC, and suddenly everything is faster and lower power?

    3. 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

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  3. Re:Hehe, PS3 cures cancer.. by GundamFan · · Score: 4, Funny

    Naw... the PS3 is already panned for having too many features... if it cures cancer people are just going to throw up there hands in frustration and go buy a Wii.

    All kidding aside... if you had a PS3 would you run this in down time?

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  4. Re:This makes less sense than ever! by dreamchaser · · Score: 3, Insightful

    For projects like F@H, which are doing important research that might help cure disease, perhaps the government should offer tax credits based on how many units one puts out? It *does* cost money, which is precisely why SETI pioneered the idea. Low funding levels coupled with the need for supercomputing like capabilities. In essence *any* distributed computing project distributes not only the computational work, but the expense as well.

  5. Re:This makes less sense than ever! by GundamFan · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Yeah only this isn't SETI@home... read a little bit... $300 donated to cancer research is a little less "silly" don't you think?

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    I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.
    Mark Twain
  6. 100+ Million PS3s - Staggering To Think About by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    The Broadband Engine in the PS3 has roughly 210 Gflops of power at 3.2Ghz. That is around an order of magnitude more than most people's current Intel desktop PCs. Although that isn't really the full story since it is the memory architecture that makes Cell chips so much more powerful than Intel chips, but that is a whole other, very cool, subject. If even a small percentage of the 100+ million PS3s Sony will sell over the next five years are added to computation pool, the results will be staggering.

  7. Re:This makes less sense than ever! by mwvdlee · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That's why you should run it in during winter; saves (somewhat) on the heating bill.

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  8. Re:This makes less sense than ever! by datafr0g · · Score: 5, Funny

    Not as silly as if the $300 donated to cancer research was caused by the $300 worth of coal that you burnt in order to pay for the $300 donated to cancer research to prevent cancer caused by the $300 worth of coal that you burnt in order to pay for the $300 donated to cancer research caused by the $300 worth of coal that you burnt in order to pay for the $300 donated to cancer research caused by the $300 worth of coal that you burnt in order to pay for the $300 donated to cancer research caused by the $300 worth of coal that you burnt in order to pay for the $300 donated to cancer research.

    I HATE SILLY LOOPS

    :)

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  9. Re:been there by ZachPruckowski · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This isn't a planted story by Sony *at all*.

    I found out yesterday that someone I knew last year died of liver cancer over the summer. She was 19. I think it's safe to say that there are plenty of people out there who don't give a flying fuck if Sony gets good press about this. If it brings us a cure to cancer a year, a day, an hour sooner, it's a damn fine thing. I just hope most PS3 owners find out about it, and maybe we can cure cancer. If a company makes an extra million or two in the process, good for them.

  10. Re:This makes less sense than ever! by fain0v · · Score: 4, Insightful

    As a person that does research on proteins, having better algorithms for protein folding would be a god send. . You have no idea how much time and effort is wasted on designing and expressing protein constructs that have no chance of folding properly. What we currently use for design (Tango, FoldIndex, PONDR, DisEMBL) is still inadequate. $300 may sound like a lot of money, but it is nothing compared to the cost of research.

  11. A cure for cancer lost! by gatkinso · · Score: 3, Funny

    when little Jonny's monther made him turn off his game and come upstairs for dinner.

    Oh well.

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