Folding@Home observation/question

[Panama Red]

My Mystery_Folder points/wu ratio has hovered around the 300 mark since I first began the Folding project. I only see about 4 other team members with a ratio at or near 300. This makes me wonder if this is due to the type of processors we are using, the type of client we are running (graphical vs screen saver) or the settings we've chosen in the Configuration of our F@H Control Panel. Perhaps a discussion of this topic could reveal a way for others to increase their points per wu and increase the PC Mech team totals.

Just for the record, 5 of my machines are AMD XP processors ranging from 2200+ to 3000+, one 2600+ Sempron, one 2.4 P4 HT, one 1.4 P4, one 2.7 Cely, one PIII 850, one AMD 900, one PII 266, and a 2.6 Cely laptop. I run the Graphical Client on all machines and have checked the box in Connections to "Allow receipt...send assignments greater than 5Mb". On the PII and AMD 900 machine I have also checked the box to ignore deadlines.

[rspassey]

I don't even know if I'm getting any points, I have finished 2 cores in a few weeks but it claimes I havent finished any WUs and for that I rarely run F@H anymore...Is it just my problem, b/c it also says I have no points at the stanford website.

[digitalfreedom64]

I have no idea what my points/wu ratio is. I've got 2 2.4 P4 HT and a P4 1.7 laptop. Now the laptop and one desktop are running Linux so I have to use a console. Over the next 2 months though I'm gonna try to get 3 more machines running. Got a Sempron 64 coming next week and a couple of AXPs (2400+ and 2500+M) that need repairs. I may fiddle with my settings on my current machines to see if i can do better.

[bigandy]

I believe it's mainly due to the processors. I currently have a P4 1.8 and Athlon XP 2500+ (which I have just OC'd to a 2700+ in the last day). The P4 takes a long time to complete the larger WUs but that is understandable since that system is much older. The Athlon gets larger WUs and takes longer than I would like to complete, but still isn't too bad. But it seems that every so often the P4 will get a string of WUs under 25 points. Like on 9/10 I had 9 WUs for 45 points. But just a day before on 9/9 I had 3 for 474.

My current ratio (with 1010 WUs and 68931 points) is about 68.25 points per WU, nowhere near as good as yours. Hopefully when I get my laptop (Pentium M 1.73GHz) it will help to boost that number.

Ryan, did you put in our correct team number? Also, cores are much different than WUs. The cores are "molecular simulation programs" and the WUs are simulated proteins (packets of data that the program does work on). I know that doesn't really help solve your problem, but I thought I would clear that up.

[digitalfreedom64]

Lets see Mine is 296 WUs and 33590 which is about 113.47 point per WU. My 3 machines were down for a week when Katrina hit though so I fell a little behind. I woulda had a few more work units by now because all 3 machines run 24/7.

[Force Flow]

No idea here. I just set my clients up and let them do their thing.

[enhanced08]

one reason some have higher ratios than others is that slower machines take longer and give less points per WU while faster machines do WU that are worth more points quicker.
In my case I first started with a single 466mhz celeron so I had a lower ratio and now with adding more faster machines my ratio is comming back up. Its at 84 points per WU now.

Consider this, a few weeks back there were 600 point WUs out! I seem to remember people finishing these in about 18 hours or so. That would put you at 600+ ppd with a single machine!

BTW, ALL my machines run the text-only client and are set as a service. If the machine is less than 1Ghz it run on timeless WU, if not then its the standard ones.

EDIT: Ryan, if you need some help with that, start a thread or even send me a PM. You have a nice system that could rally pump out some WU!

[zelira]

I'm not sure how much of a difference the processor makes besides speeding things up. My P4 3.2ghz oc'ed to 3.78 is finished 7 jobs and 4 of them are 600 pts, which I would say is great. But the other three don't crack 100pts. It's like they didn't want to work me to death.

08/26/05 P1158 69
08/29/05 P1140 600
09/02/05 P1141 600
09/03/05 P1801 66
09/04/05 P1141 78
09/08/05 P1141 600
09/11/05 P1141 600

My other machines are P4 1.5ghz laptop, P4 3.2ghz, and a P4 1.8ghz. All these machines have received a 600pt project and projects that are less than 100pts. All my machines are checked to allow projects greater than 5mbs. I average 293, thanks to the 7 600pts jobs.

[allburnintegrated]

I'm doing deadlineless WUs with the 'greater than 5Mb' box unchecked. Should I change?

[enhanced08]

you have a gig of ram and a fast system, if you have some kind of high speed internet, or don't mind downloading a lot on dialup then you can allow 5mb WU's. I only have that checked on my system(see sig), well, till it died.