EggXpert Folding@Home Team

Eggxpert — Sat, 19 May 2007 20:00:23 GMT

The Eggxpert Folding @ Home team FAQ

This post is to give some more information to people who may want to join in and helpout a great cause!
A special thank you to justeric78 for making this post & rez410 for creating our account.

Folding@Home is a project run by Stanford University you can find the homepage here: http://folding.stanford.edu/

When I first started doing this I was afraid it would take up all the processing power of my machine and would make it hard to use. I found however after using it for over a week now that it is set to such a low priority that you will never know it's running. I have been gaming, browing, and emailing etc and have not had any ill effects. The project is ligitimate and obviously does not have any viruses or spyware in the download package. You can find answers to almost any of your questions here at there forum:

Fodling@Home Forum

The Eggxpert team number is 70567

When you first startup the program it will ask for your username and the team number. You can use whatever you like as a username however I would check the site first to make sure the name hasnt been used. You can do a search for that here:

Team Stats Page

This project can be fun as well because it ranks the teams and individuals by how much work they have done. You can see our teams score here:

Team Eggxpert Scores

Finally you can check how many work units we have completed as a team here:

Team Eggxpert Work Units Completed

If you have any questions about the program or need help please feel free to PM me.

The link to download there many different clients are here:

Client Download Page

Make sure you read all there FAQs and install instructions!! Happy folding folks lets do some good out there!!

F@H and tips and tricks

GmsCool — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 23:47:40 GMT

I decided to put together a bit for anyone asking "how to" for a few advanced folding things.

Windows GPU2 client installation guide

Installation for a multi-GPU system

Here is some specific requirements to follow for the multi-GPU setup to work :

The current multi-GPU installation guide requires some knowledge of the Windows system, if you are having issues, you can ask for help.
If you are running multiple GPU cards with SLI or Crossfire, you need to unlink the cards by disabling SLI or Crossfire in the driver control panel. Also, you need to extend the desktop for the client to recognize the cards.
When Windows ask to look for a driver hit CANCEL. If you let Windows install the driver automatically, there is a big risk of having sub-par performances or client issues.
If you run Windows Vista, you need to have each GPU connected to a monitor (a KVM can also work but not all models of KVM will provide a signal when it's not switched as current monitor) or a VGA dummy plug.

Before you start doing the installation, make sure to grab the latest CUDA driver and the latest client. You can find the links in the Requirements section. Also, the following guide is based on the GPU Systray client installation so if you didn't install the client yet, follow the Systray instructions first before following the instructions below.

Note: First of all, make sure the GPU2 client didn't copy the shortcut in the startup folder during installation because we don't want it to start automatically. The current client doesn't do it but previous clients did, hence the warning. The shortcut is usually found in ''Start -> Programs -> Startup".

Note: If you are following this multi-GPU guide to upgrade from a single-GPU setup, make sure that the second copy doesn't include the work folder and queue.dat from the original one or you will duplicate the work unit. To ensure it's ok, delete the work folder and queue.dat in the new folder after you copied from the original folder.

Next, open up Windows Explorer and find the directory where the installer created a folder under your user name. Below is the path of the folder depending on the OS :

XP : C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\

Vista: C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\

Note: This folder is usually hidden so you may need to type the whole path in the address bar or to enable the option to view all files and folders.

Once you’ve located the directory, copy the folder called Folding@Home-gpu and paste into the same location. Rename the new copy by cutting the “Copy of” off and adding a 2 (or more for extra cards) after the directory name. You will need to repeat the same steps if you have 3 or more GPU you want to use. Here is what it should look :

Now, go in the C:\Program Files\Folding@Home\Folding@Home-gpu folder (with Vista, it's in the x86 folder). You should find the client executable here so make a new shortcut of the client (right-click on the executable icon then select Create Shortcut). After creating the shortcut, move the shortcut to the desktop then rename with a short name like GPU1. Don't copy more than one shortcut since you will do it after doing some modifications :

Right-click on the first shortcut then select Properties. It should bring up the following screen:

Now, replace the Start in: path with the path of the data file which is stored in either those places (replace [username] with your Windows user name) :

XP : C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\Folding@Home-gpu

Vista: C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\Folding@Home-gpu

Make sure there are quotes at the start and end of the Start in: path.

Add the -gpu 0 flag at the end of the Target: path, after the quotes (make sure there is a space between the quote and the flag). It should look like this in the Target: field:

"C:\Program Files\Folding@home\Folding@home-gpu\Folding@home.exe" -gpu 0

Once you are done, the properties should look like this for the first client. Click on Ok to close the panel afterwards :

Target: "C:\Program Files\Folding@home\Folding@home-gpu\Folding@home.exe" -gpu 0

Start in: "C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\Folding@Home-gpu" (XP/2003) or "C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\Folding@Home-gpu" (Vista)

Now that you are done editing the shortcut, it's time to create more for the other GPU cards. Copy the first shortcut and paste as many copies (based on how many GPU cards you want to run) you need on the desktop. Rename each shortcut copy with a simple yet distinct names (to help identify which client) like GPU2, GPU3, etc. When you are done, right-click on each new shortcut and select Properties to edit the properties. This time, since you did most of the configuration above, all you need to do is to point the Start in: path to each data folder that you created and put -gpu 1 flag (or higher for subsequent cards). After you are done, you should have something like that :

Target: "C:\Program Files\Folding@home\Folding@home-gpu\Folding@home.exe" -gpu 1

Start in: "C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\Folding@Home-gpu2" (XP/2003) or "C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\Folding@Home-gpu2" (Vista)

When you are done editing each shortcut, click on the first shortcut and configure your client as demonstrated in the Systray installation guide above. The key things to make sure you do are :

On the Connection tab :

Click yes to accept WUs larger than 10 megabytes.

On the Advanced tab :

Check the Core Priority for Slightly Higher
Click do not lock cores to specific CPU
Make sure the Machine ID is different then any CPU or GPU client you have running. Note: default is 2.

Now hit accept and repeat the step above for each shortcut and make sure you pick a unique machine ID for each client. When you are done, all that remain to do is to click every shortcut to start the clients and monitor them closely to make sure they run fine (it's often tricky due to a possible driver version conflict).

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Configuring the SMP client as a service

Warning: If you want to run the SMP client as a service, be aware this is currently unsupported by the developers. A bad configuration can cause the client to have issues and lose work units.

Note: The guide is validated with Windows Vista. A lot of people have a problem starting the service under XP so follow the steps at your own risks.

In addition to this guide, there is also a very detailed guide available on the Folding Forum which is a bit outdated but still valid.

The first step is to start the client in configuration mode with the -configonly flag. When you are in the Advanced options section, find this entry :

 Launch automatically, install as a service in this directory (yes/no) [no]?

Enter yes to confirm the service installation. Continue (edit the options if needed) until you reach this line :

 Additional client parameters []?

Since the client will be running as a service, the additional flags must be entered here to make it work in SMP mode. In our case, enter -smp -verbosity 9 -d "C:\FAH" then finish the configuration. The essential piece is the -d "[client path]" where [client path] is the folder where you installed the client (don't forget the quotes). This tell Windows to use the specific path since by default, it will use C:\Windows\System32 as the working folder which cause the client to stop with a 1067 error.

At this stade, don't start the service yet because it must be edited to run with the proper parameters and permissions. For this, open the Services MMC by clicking on the start menu then type services.msc in the Run... box (XP) or the search field (Vista). When the Services console is started, find the newly added F@H service, which should be called Folding@Home-CPU-[1] :

If you didn't see, restart the client in configuration mode again and double-check that the service is being installed. Now, double-click on it and it will bring the Properties window. Click on the Log On tab to get this :

Select the This Account button then enter the same account you used to configure the MPICH client above. To make sure the account name is correct, it's suggested to click on the Browse button and find the account. Even if the password fields seems populated, delete them and enter the corresponding password.

When you are done, you can either start the service yourself (suggested) by clicking on the first tab then click on the Start button or by rebooting. Check if it is started correctly and if not, double-check the account details.

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How do I add flags using a shortcut to the console client?

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NOTE: These instructions assume that the FAH client is not running as a service.

1. If you currently do not have a shortcut to the console client, one can easily be created several ways.

Right click the console executable.
Select Create Shortcut from the pop-up menu.

This will add a shortcut to the console client in the current dir.

Or you can:

Right click on the console executable.
Click Copy.
Go to where you want to place the shortcut to the console client.
Right Click on a blank area.
Selecet Paste Shortcut.

This will paste a shortcut to the console client where you want it.

2. To add a flag (or switch) to your console client:

Right click on the console shortcut.
Select Properties.
Go to the end of the line in the Target: box.
Add a space
Add the desired switch (including the leading hyphen.)
If you are adding more than one switch, be sure to use a space between each switch.
Click Apply.
Close the window.

NOTE: If the Target happens to be enclosed in quotation marks, the space, the hyphen, and the desired switches must be OUTSIDE of (AFTER) the right hand quotation mark.

Visual Examples:

Repeat this process for each client you are running.

FAH will now use the switch(s) every time you start the console using this shortcut.

Or, you can place the shortcut in your startup folder, if you want the client to load every time you log on.

To make it load everytime any user logs on, you need to place the shortcut in to the ALL USERS -> Startup folder.

Or just use the consoles clients built in Windows NT/2000/XP service option.

Adding flags when run as a service is a bit more complicated and can be found in this article.

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How to update SMP console client using "drop-in Binary" files.

It's not a huge task, but there are no instructions that I can find anywhere so I'm typing some up. Download the latest SMP binary file and save it were you can easily find it. Now open the folder for your F@H console client, Find the Executable file ( EG: Folding@Home-win32-x86) and delete it, then replace the file you just deleted with the "binary drop in" you just downloaded. Next you will have to open the work folder, and delete every file in it, that will force it to download instead of trying to use the old files, and closing. Now creat a shortcut to the new binary file, and add the -smp tag as instructed in the arcticle above. And you should be up and running after that ... with the update.

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Anything else you guys can think of adding, or elaborate on further would be helpful. Most of these articles are from stanford, but the last one is off of Wiki. And hpw to add the drop in binairy is my own write up.