@Cheese - You can fold from any PC. http://folding.stanford.edu/

@Nightwing - It works much like EZK explained. In my experiences, my rigs suffer no undue lag when it's in operation. That said, I don't have Folding running on my gaming rig. In an nutshell, there's a small client that downloads a folding 'task' and your machine chugs on it when it's otherwise idle (a variable you can control). When it's finished, it uploads the results to Stanford and asks for another job.

@thebird - AFAIK, there are boatloads of folks running it on Linux platforms.

There's a decent FAQ here: http://www.hardfolding.com/index.php?go=7

@ Tom

They can't ethically charge. Two reasons:

1. Folding @ home is a non profit research project.
2. It is your console, your internet connection, your time. They have no control over what you do with it.

If it was found out that they do charge the folding @ home project, they could be liable for a lawsuit, simply because they were not distributing that to the people not participating.

I'm sorry that's not going to make me buy a PS3.

@ Nightwing

I am more familiar with SETI @ home (but I still don't use either). SETI runs like a screen saver. When you are doing things on your computer, it is inactive. Once your computer goes into screensaver mode, SETI kicks in. As soon as you want to start working again, you click a buttton and it goes back to what you had open.

You can shut off your computer. SETI saved your progress and picked up where it left off next time it is run.

I imagine that Folding works the same.

@ Zippy

It can't accomplish anything, if no one is participating.

E. Zachary Knight
The same can be said about goverment :p

SETI @ Home and other similar projects increase the power drain exponentially.

Folding@home, like all the other @home apps are grid computing apps developed by Berkely University. Yes, it works fine on Linux too. Not suprising, considering it's from the people that brought us BSD Unix.

http://boinc.berkeley.edu/

They should not cause lag on your machine, because they basically replace your system idle process with something more useful. Although BOINC is more demanding than your typical idle, they explain power usage here:

http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/EnergyUsage

Almost free charity donations! . . . alot of people posting here earlier in the thread are missing the point, I think.

Leaving my PC on all day isn't something I'd want to do without buying a new cooling rig.

I own a Wii and it has a standby mode - I'm more interested in if they can port the technology over to that.

Not to start something but MS said they would look into it way back for the 360. However, this was before the whole RROD fiasco really kicked in. I don't think they want people using their system 24/7 because they couldn't keep up with the repairs if they did. I would never run it on a 360 because of how prone they are to breaking down.

I wonder if Folding is anything like Torrents. If so, my cable company Cox will probably sabotage it.

It also may not be wise to put it on the 360, as the few amount of PS3s running it have folded more than what is theoretically possible with all the PCs in the world.
Something with that Cell architecture allows it to fold proteins very effectively. If the 360 went against it and failed to perform better than the PS3, then it could look bad. Although, the 360 still has the better GPU.
It is pretty surprising the system can fold so well for things like that. Wouldn't surprise me if getting a few more hundred thousand users could indeed end up doing 10 years worth of research with current machines than without.

I'd register if I had a PS3, not my PC. It isn't as energy efficient as the PS3 when it goes into standby w/Folding.

@ EZK: Also, the 360 has major heating issues.

I think the bigger reason that they chose to bring the Folding@Home project to the PS3 is because of the processing power that the PS3 has. 8 Secondary processors (admittedly, one is disabled right now) means that there's lots of co-processing potential. I think it's neat that with as little support as the PS3 has, at the very least owning one will let you help out a good cause.

@Black Patriot

I think it uses centralized downloading servers. It isn't really connected to the net, so that might be why. I also don't think that a user can upload to Xbox live, only download.

@Dark Sovereign

I never said it was, but in all fairness the PS3 fans are getting the least love this generation. If they have anything, at least they have the most useful system for research purposes.

@ Laughing Man

So because there's no immediate, tangible benefit to you it's not worth your time?

It's sad that people think that way, especially with something that takes so little effort on their part.

i read a comment in here that said folding @ home and other such programs make your computer use up way more energy...?

i have read other places that state that it is mostly the HDD and monitor wich drain the most power from a computer... also that modern hard drives are built less rugged than the pioneers and that are better left running all the time anyways wich is why these programs seem like a good idea, as long as its not really put to criminal use wich it may be, if its not open source?

but id like to stick to my point. or question rather, i didnt see anyone else comment about it so i felt i should say something...
take an imac for example the intel ones aparently dont use very much power most of wich is probably for the screen backlights, HDD and some for peripherals wich may draw power from USB ports. i could be way wrong about all this. good luck