Site improvements and 64-bit software for Windows

[marcoagpinto]

Hello!

Last night I knew about Folding@Home through a post of a friend on Facebook.

I have visited the official site and noticed that it lacks a lot of information.

For example, it doesn't explain well that it will use the power of the users computers around the world to generate the data while they are not busy doing stuff and that they can turn off the tool when they need the full power of the machine.

Also, the site isn't very descriptive in things like RAM, CPU power, bandwidth etc. used by the software (technical requirements/information).

I was wondering if there could also be a 64-bit version for Windows since most users now have Windows 10 64-bit.

This is just my two-cents.

Thank you for your time!

[Joe_H]

I was wondering if there could also be a 64-bit version for Windows since most users now have Windows 10 64-bit.

I will let others address the points you made about the website, I happen to agree with many of those. I do know they were in discussions with some developers to do a major revamp of the site before this current rush to concentrate on COVID-19 related work.

As for 64-bit on Windows, the FAHClient and some other parts are 32-bit because that is all that is needed. They don't do the actual calculations and don't need the extra resources using 64-bits would provide. For example, FAHClient handles downloading and uploading of work and downloading of folding cores when needed. It also does the starting and stopping of work. Overall it does not use much CPU time or other resources.

The actual work is done in FAHCore_nn processes, where nn is the core top - A7, 21, or 22 currently. Those are 64-bit software applications to use the increased address space and other resources available with 64-bit software.

[davidcoton]

There is an extensive FAQ section which should answer your questions.
The cores are available in 64-bit, indeed 32-bit support is now limited IIRC the front end is still 32-bit, just because there is no benefit from 64-bit and it is easier to support one version than two.