PS3 Owners Can Do Good This Weekend with Folding@Home Project

March 21, 2007
GamePolitics has previously touted Stanford University's Folding at Home project, which uses the distributed processing power of home computers for massive, off-hours number crunching in critical healthcare research projects.

Now, PlayStation 3 owners can contribute by offering up some of their CPU time to help cure diseases like cancer, Parkinson's and ALS.

A message posted on the official PlayStation 3 Forum explains how to participate in this weekend's "Sunday Night Foldathon."

Comments

Submitted by PS3 Game Geek » First Ever PS3 Protein Fold-A-Thon (not verified) on Thu, 03/22/2007 - 14:54.
[...] PS3 Owners Can Do Good This Weekend with Folding@Home Project [Game Politics] [...]

Submitted by First Ever PS3 Protein Fold-A-Thon » PS3 Game Players (not verified) on Thu, 03/22/2007 - 14:55.
[...] PS3 Owners Can Do Good This Weekend with Folding@Home Project [Game Politics] [...]

Submitted by TheRandomVillain (not verified) on Thu, 03/22/2007 - 09:33.
hmm something useful for the PS3 until Final Fantasy 13 comes out.

Submitted by PS3 owner (not verified) on Sat, 04/14/2007 - 14:48.
I've been using this since it launched on my PS3 and I also started using it on my PC. This being on the PS3 is a great thing, PR stunt or not. My PS3 can go through work units over 50x faster than my PC and if you look up their official site they actually show that the PS3 is already the most powerful unit they've ever used. Since the PS3 was put on F@H they have been able to officially state that the F@H project is getting more work done at a faster rate than any supercomputer in the world. It think that's awsome.

Submitted by xzero87 (not verified) on Thu, 03/22/2007 - 03:07.
...I will admit though, for running this program, the PS3 probably *is* superior in terms of cost versus performance.

Submitted by xzero87 (not verified) on Thu, 03/22/2007 - 02:34.
@Joe

Not saying it's a bad thing; just that Sony acts like this makes them special when just about every personal computer in the world is capable of running this software. But I'm biased, I'm annoyed at the company because they just raised my Everquest subscription fee again. :P

I started running it myself earlier; figured it's a good way to put all those spare parts to use (I now have three boxes running it-- my main box as a screensaver, a dual pentium overdrive running it dedicated, and a pentium 3 I built out of spare parts running it dedicated as well).

Submitted by Joe Bourrie (not verified) on Thu, 03/22/2007 - 00:49.
Good lord, people. Three out of the first seven posters (not counting mutiple posts per person) are talking as if this is a bad thing. Of course it gives Sony PR, but your talking as if it's useless just because it can "also" be done on a computer.

Now PS3 owners can contribute via both their PC and their PS3, but even more so Sony has found a use for the PS3 beyond just games, and have given more publicity to the Folding @ Home project. PR or no, this is a good thing.

Props to Sony. It's too bad I can't justify wasting $600 or I'd be joining in. Oh well, at least I have three computers on F@H.

Submitted by Shockz (not verified) on Wed, 03/21/2007 - 21:51.
Why can't it run SETI@home yet? Granted, Folding is more beneficial to humanity in general...but still!

Submitted by Mnementh2230 (not verified) on Wed, 03/21/2007 - 16:28.
This is awesome. Distributed computing is one of those things I studied in college. The fact that it can/will be running on people's game consoles is even cooler!

Submitted by Jabrwock on Wed, 03/21/2007 - 16:08.
@JQuilty

That's the beauty of distributed processing though. The base machines' power don't matter, because they can spread the work out over many systems.
-- If your wiimote goes snicker-snack, check your wrist-strap...

Submitted by JQuilty (not verified) on Wed, 03/21/2007 - 14:17.
@ xzero87 - I agree. Even if all the PS3's out there did this, would it make that much of a difference? It seems to me it'd be better if they got a bunch of high-end computers and ran the reasearch/calculations on Slackware or FreeBSD.

Then again, what do I know?

Submitted by GoodRobotUs (not verified) on Wed, 03/21/2007 - 10:51.
SETI, sorry, typo.

Submitted by GoodRobotUs (not verified) on Wed, 03/21/2007 - 10:50.
I used to help out with the SETA program which was similar to this.

Submitted by Jabrwock on Wed, 03/21/2007 - 10:37.
Yeah it's a PR stunt, but at least the results go to a good cause...

I run Folding@Home as my screensaver, so when my computer isn't busy doing other things, it's contributing.
-- If your wiimote goes snicker-snack, check your wrist-strap...

Submitted by University Update (not verified) on Wed, 03/21/2007 - 10:18.
PS3 Owners Can Do Good This Weekend with Folding@Home Project...

...

Submitted by Weatherlight (not verified) on Wed, 03/21/2007 - 10:19.
Hardcore "PR stunt", Folding@Home works on just about any computer. Not to mention modded versions of Xbox and PS2, I dont know about the 360 but I would assume yes. Its a really cool project but this is just another way to make it sound like they are doing something special.

Submitted by xzero87 (not verified) on Wed, 03/21/2007 - 09:51.
I hate to sound cynical, but this just SCREAMS "PR stunt."

Submitted by MaskedPixelante (not verified) on Wed, 03/21/2007 - 09:10.
sadly, finding a cure for cancer is not enough reason for me to get one.

Submitted by John (not verified) on Wed, 03/21/2007 - 08:17.
Meh, Ill Dl it, not like I am using the PS3 to do anything else

Submitted by PlayRadioMen (not verified) on Mon, 09/03/2007 - 03:27.
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