What difference Crunching VS Folding?
 

Hi.

I,m newbie to this and I would like to understand the difference between folding and crunching.

Also why is there a need for high end graphic card when you crunch? Usually I would only turn off the screen and no graphic needed. :P

Thanx for teaching me.

This should answer your question:

TPU

I just went to Google and searched "folding vs crunching". That was the first result.

Folding and Crunching are pretty much the same thing, they both produce results for disease research. They both can be run on cpu or gpu, or both. Main difference is with Crunching you can select which project you want to support, ie: HCC or Help Conquer Cancer which is what I crunch for. Folding results go for all types of research. High end graphics cards produce more work output, and usually out produce cpus. Both are worthy to contribute to, so just take your pick!

One involves food and the other would involve garments I'm guessing.

Folding is protiens and DNA types, crunching is mathematical numbers. Now GPU's and CPU's can be used for both.

Ok. It answers my question but I mean how can a software use the GPU to do this type of things if I just let the screen off? No video device opened then in my mind it supposed to don't use the gpu.

It uses the GPU just like the CPU, even with the screen off it still is working. I run BIONC all day at home with my screen turned off without any issue. I can even remote in with teamviewer to see its progress.

Ok. I did not know that. I'm really newbie in this so I will look for what built I have that could fit for this. Energy efficient and silent.

If you are going to crunch then a 6xxx-7xxx series AMD card would make good points
If you are going to fold then a 4xx-6xx series Nvidia card would make good points.

I don't have these cards so I will use what I have in stock. I only have older skt 478 cpu with agp cards. That's not powerful but it will be good to start and practice.

crunching: Bionc does not support anything older than 5xxx series cards so you would have to use your CPU and a P4 would yield around 1K PPD which is not really much at all anymore.

Folding: F@H uses 8xxx series and above Nvidia cards and is same on CPU as Bionic.

I will surely find another folding or crunching software then. I have all infos needed now so I will look for all the crap I have in my boxes. :)

There is one crunching and folding software and that is either bionc or F@H :(

Then I will not be able to help. That's sad. But thank you anyway guys I learned today at least. :)

well your P4 can still put out PPD and thats helping either way you look at it!

The most energy efficient and silent computer i have is an older Evo D51S with a 2.8 gigs skt 478 and an AGP 64megs card. Not a bomb but it sucks almost no electricity so the bill won't rise much.

The GPU typically doesn't shut off when the screen isn't being used. I'm trying to think of an analogy. Like.. a gas powered generator, I suppose? It doesn't use much gas if nothing's plugged in to it, but it has to use a little bit of gas to idle. When you put a load on it, the generator, it ramps up a bit to compensate, using more fuel. If you turn it off (sleep/suspend), it won't use any fuel, but it takes some work to start it up again.

Recent graphics cards have started adding a form of computing usually called "shaders", "stream units" or almost anything "physics". The types of calculations it can perform are limited, but the types of calculations it CAN do, it does EXTREMELY well (compared to the CPU). The analogy I like to use for this is Stephen Wiltshire. An autistic man who has the incredible ability to draw very complicated things from memory.

Both folding and crunching, if I'm not mistaken, rely on the OpenCL architecture (or at least OpenCL compatibility is a good indication). You will not be able to crunch/fold on anything below a Radeon HD 5000 series card or, I believe, a GeForce 8000 series card. Your Pentium 4 machine will most likely have an AGP port. I don't know of any AGP card that's supported by Folding@Home or BOINC.

Don't forget to read some of the threads over at TPU's Folding@Home section and World Community Grid section (a popular BOINC project).

There used to be support for the Radeon 2000 to 4000 series, but it was dropped for various reasons.

Don't be mistaken though. Your Pentium 4 can still contribute and provide useful data but you won't be awarded as many points as people with newer hardware.

I'm working on a performance per watt chart (for GPUs mostly) that should be appearing in the World Community Grid forums later today. Slow doesn't always mean efficient. Again with a car engine analogy, you'll get more power for less fuel out of a fuel injected engine than you will with a carbureted engine.

Hope this doesn't sound rude, it's just an inevitability if diseases are cured. Do you suppose after they figure out all the tougher diseases with these collaborative efforts, that there will be crunching/folding programs that the public can assist in finding answers to overpopulation?

Some believe societal patterns themselves can be calculated and even predicted to a degree with algorithms, such as talked about in TV shows like Numb3rs and Touch. What do you think? Are computers the answer to even our social problems?

There are many projects that utilize donated PC time from the public for distributed or grid computing projects.

Here's a sampling of some of them (there are many more projects out there):

http://boincstats.com/en/stats/projectStatsInfo

TPU, for example, has two Teams where members contribute to the Folding@Home project (folding) and the World Community Grid project (crunching). Working as a Team allows for a more concentrated/cooperative effort on these projects :)

In my opinion, disease are not automatically cured by normal research without some project like folding or crunching, it could be but there are many research area that can and will benefit from extra computational information.
example: there are some folding/crunching project focused to genetic research, the data from this will help accelerate other practical project by other normal research such as http://www.ted.com/talks/anthony_ata...an_kidney.html, how the hell we will print our replacement kidney complete with the blood vessel if we don't calculate the genetic factor. :D

As for our social problem, i believe almost every university in the world conducted social research each year and the number of the worldwide social research is always higher than Science research/experimental research, but only a tiny part of all those research take or use benefit of computational power of computer.

and there are so many of our social problem that will surely benefit from computational data, currently i work in the research institute that have a social research on how the world weather (in the next 90 years) will affect on people, specially on their livelihood, how human social interaction will adapt, what the effect of human overpopulation on human livelihood if the weather is added as a factor, etc..

and i can only imagine what a huge boost if our institute have access to the power of computational power provided by project like folding or crunching. the world weather and human social is a perfect example of how huge the complexities, the affecting variable and factor is so huge that it almost impossible to be calculate by normal traditional research project.

Are computer will be the answer of our social problem? It surely have a big potential to help or even solve some of our social problem, and the current folding/crunching project only the tip of the iceberg to demonstrate how the unused power of computing will benefit human live.

Crunching = BOINC (Berkley)
Folding = Folding@Home (Stanford)

Yeah I'm specifically talking about computers for overpopulation problems. Mauriek touched on that, but via more weather than disease control related discussion.

What I'm saying is I worry overpopulation will eventually creep up on us as bad or worse than the problem of pollution has. For so long we've had terminal diseases, but were they to vanish, the population would grow pretty quickly. It already grows at an exponential rate even WITH such diseases.

I know a lot of people talk smack about China for their law on childbirth control, but honestly, they're about the only country taking this problem seriously. Many people enjoy sci fi stories involving post apocalyptic, overpopulated future scenarios, but do they really know it could become a reality?

I guess for most, it's an attitude of, "it will never happen in my lifetime". Wouldn't it be ironic if future generations long after we're dead look back at us and curse us for ridding the world of terminal illnesses? Maybe we're just foolishly playing God with such aspirations. You look at every species on the planet, and nature's design seems to be one of survival of the fittest, not make everyone survive. Death is a vital part of life.

Ah i see what you mean..if we want to discuss specifically about overpopulation and the effect on that for the world and keep the discussion on the research platform, as far as i know there already few research funded by UN (ex:food security area) about that and few other research from big institute. None of the specific research are using distributed computing exclusively, however there are already some effort to integrate the data collected from distributed computing into other research, sharing some of the important data without causing patent/intellectual property violation.

If we talk about overpopulation, disease and other natural cause are not the only factor that should be included in the research, other factor such as food and water supply, weather, human social/behavioral trend, technology, etc.. also be the key factor before deciding that the eradication of all disease will lead to apocalyptic scenario.

Some of the point i remember from the research about population that Earth can sustain 2-3 times up to 5 time of current population if some of the condition are met, mainly condition about resource (food/water) on earth, and many research are almost based from the worst scenario possible.

As for connection between crunching for WCG and finding the solution of overpopulation and other social problem i think there are 2 project that will be provide useful data for researcher.
Computing for Clean Water
https://secure.worldcommunitygrid.or...cw/overview.do
The Clean Energy Project - Phase 2
https://secure.worldcommunitygrid.or...p2/overview.do

maybe the solution is still far away but small step must be taken before giant leap :)