What FAH client to use

[fortres]

Hey guys. Sorry if this is an all too common question relating to 'what client should i download and install/use'... i am not new to FAH, have been folding since around mid last yr... i was using the old 5.03 or whatever it was that gives you the red cog wheel in the system tray?

Anyway so my hdd died and with it my fah software.. am thinking of reinstalling FAH on my laptop and a new desktop comp. Now the old versions of FAH 5.0x have disappeared off the download page. I was wondering is the new v6.23 the equivalent program to run and install now?

I do notice there is a forum here for beta 6.23, so is the 6.23 client stable(reasonably) like the old 5.0x? It's just that the old FAH software i was running on my old comp the OS was win xp. My laptop is vista (some business edition?) and the other desktop comp is a vista OS too.

I want to install the new v6.23 but i have grave fears that installing it will suddenly stuff something up/do pernament damage to these Vista systems... I have no time nor want to have a comp screw up ... I don't know if this is possible hence why I'm asking if i should install the 6.23 client? Or should i just obtain my old copy of the 5.0x? Because i have been using that for over a yr and the software worked flawlessly?

THanks for any advice on what client to install!

[mdk777]

V6.23 is now the standard and will not give you any worries with VISTA.

The beta clients /smp/gpu2 are the ones that give some concern.

For a "set and forget", the V6.23 single client is the way to go!

Best Of luck.

[codysluder]

There are some small changes between v5.03 and the v6 systray client and since you're talking about running it as a CPU client you shouldn't worry about instabilities. (i.e.- you will not be using the -gpu or the -smp flags.)

Differences:
> You'll be asked for a passkey but it's not required. You may want to get one now anyway, but you can just wait.
> If you depended on the v5.03 display to watch you protein or chart your progress, the new viewer may or may not be an improvement. (I don't use it.)
> Vista's default security settings may conflict with the default FAH installation settings. (Somebody else will need to guide you here if it hasn't been fixed yet.)
> I don't think the installer puts a shortcut in the startup folder and you'll probably want FAH to start automatically after a reboot. (Somebody else will need to guide you here.)

[jrweiss]

Use the v6.23 Console client and run it as a Service -- about as "set & forget" as you can get! With the command line switches set in the config now, you don't have to tweak the Registry to get a full log or big WUs...

[fortres]

Sorry for the slow replies guys.

So there aren't many changed between the v5.03 and the v6 systray clients? WIll the v6 still be an easy "leave and run" client whereby once in awhile i can call up the display to view the protein's process once in awhile? So there are no known common conflicts with any of the v6's with vista? Whether it be normal vista or the vista business edition as I am using now?

What's this passkey feature that has been introduced? And may i ask what you meant codysluder by "the new viewer may or may not be an improvement"?

And yeah i believe my vista default security settings are still set, i still get the annoying pop up box when some programs try doing certain things asking for permission to give access to the program, which is quite annoying since on my desktop I could leave things running and coudl come back to things which were done/finished. Now i come back to popup boxes waiting for authorisation :'(. and yeah so i will need someone as codysluder said to guide me through.

I think i may have an idea about getting the installer into the startup folder? For my v5.03 systray client i moved it to the start/programs/startup or something entry and copied and pasted the folding at home link from tehe start/programs/foldingathome parthway under start. Then i just added some flags for the "shortcut" path field like -forceasm and -verbosity9, can't remember what their for, anyone care to explain? And does it still work this way in getting the new v6's installers to work at startup?

Also does anyone know anything about FAH working off usb sticks? Is there some possible setup?That utilises your usb stick to run FAH on an idle computer?

[fortres]

btw my processor for this laptop (toshiba m200 Q00 model) is a t7250. Do i have dual cores? I was jsut wondering since i did read once something about using both cores to do two work units? Was meant to be more effective or something?

[John Naylor]

That is a dual core yes. If you want you can run two clients to make use of both cores

[jrweiss]

If you run 2 clients, it is better to run the Console client instead of the Systray client. Read the Wiki and installation guides for multiple clients.

The viewer on the v6.xx beta GPU clients has problems, and there are several recommendations out there to not bother trying to use it. While I personally don't see a lot of value in a pictorial "progress," I suppose there are some people who like to visualize the proteins...

If you want to occasionally check on the progress of the clients, one of the monitors like FahMon (my favorite) or FahProgress (smaller/simpler) in the 3rd party forum will allow you to track all clients on your LAN and/or VPN.

[fortres]

Can someone elaborate on the viewer problems with v6.xx ? Are GPU clients the ones that fold using the special graphics card? Or is GPU in reference to how your progress on the protein is graphically displayed when you double click the wheel in system tray?

I'm just wondering if these viewer problems iwth v6.xx are like after you click and try a few things on the viewer , or as in problems which will cause your computer to crash. If so i'll be installing it on the paros family computer so I wouldn't want it crashing/freezing up the computer on them... so in that case I wouldn't go graphical and i'd go the console client? If its just problems which require you to probe around abit in the system tray viewer(which other users will be unlikely to do) then I can live installing the system tray client.

THat said I guess i'm trying to weigh up if the systray client is worth installing, since I have no experience with the console/all text client, so I feel abit uncomfortable?

Nice to hear i'm dual core. I thought dual cores have in the task manager stats which show the load on each of the two processor cores, since I couldn't find any I assumed it was just one. If I don't put two cores to work will both just work more effectively on a single work unit? Or is one unit per core more effective?

[fortres]

p.s still wondering about the possibility of FAH working off your usb stick on a computer?

[John Naylor]

FAH will work off of a USB stick but it needs to be able to write to the registry to download a UserID from the assignment servers. This means that if you try to use the client somewhere where you don't have registry write access such as at work, the client will not work. This is one way the project staff enforce the EULA of only using F@H on machines you have permission to run it on, and cannot be circumvented.

[codysluder]

So there aren't many changed between the v5.03 and the v6 systray clients? WIll the v6 still be an easy "leave and run" client whereby once in awhile i can call up the display to view the protein's process once in awhile? So there are no known common conflicts with any of the v6's with vista? Whether it be normal vista or the vista business edition as I am using now?

The trouble-free nature of the CPU client is still essentially the same. For set it an forget it reliability, stay away from the high performance code (SMP or GPU) and avoid the viewer (in either v5 or v6). If you want to check on progress periodically, you can look at the end of FahLog.txt or you can use one of the 3rd party monitor tools.

What's this passkey feature that has been introduced?

It's currently unused. If somebody else decide to choose the same username that you have, the results all appear in the same account.. I expect that someday the passkey will allow you to separate the WUs you finished from the ones somebody else did. It may serve other purposes that I haven't figured out yet.

And may i ask what you meant codysluder by "the new viewer may or may not be an improvement"?

The old viewer showed a snapshot of your current protein from various directions. The new viewer can show real-time motions as they are computing. It takes a lot of processing power to do that so folding slows down significantly. Almost everybody has decided not to use it or to use it very rarely. Some people are still reporting bugs while others have no trouble. I'm sure that the bugs will be resolved reasonably soon, but you can't do anything about the processing load except buy faster hardware.

[jrweiss]

Can someone elaborate on the viewer problems with v6.xx ? Are GPU clients the ones that fold using the special graphics card? Or is GPU in reference to how your progress on the protein is graphically displayed when you double click the wheel in system tray?

I'm just wondering if these viewer problems iwth v6.xx are like after you click and try a few things on the viewer , or as in problems which will cause your computer to crash. If so i'll be installing it on the paros family computer so I wouldn't want it crashing/freezing up the computer on them... so in that case I wouldn't go graphical and i'd go the console client? If its just problems which require you to probe around abit in the system tray viewer(which other users will be unlikely to do) then I can live installing the system tray client.

THat said I guess i'm trying to weigh up if the systray client is worth installing, since I have no experience with the console/all text client, so I feel abit uncomfortable?

Nice to hear i'm dual core. I thought dual cores have in the task manager stats which show the load on each of the two processor cores, since I couldn't find any I assumed it was just one. If I don't put two cores to work will both just work more effectively on a single work unit? Or is one unit per core more effective?

"GPU clients" run on specific ATI or nVidia graphics cards.

Both the CPU and GPU clients now come in "Systray" and "Console" client versions. The "Systray" version is the one that leaves the "wheel" in the System Tray; the Console client can be minimized to the taskbar or run as a Service.

The Viewer is the utility that displays the pretty picture of the protein being Folded on the screen. If you use the Console client and delete the viewer.exe file (if tit is installed), you can't invoke it or its problems.

The v6.23 Console client is now very easy to use, especially with the Installation Guides and Wiki articles available. It will run with the default settings, so if you run it first time and don't change anything, it will run just fine. You can add your name and Team number if you like, and you can set it to run as a Service so it's out of the way.

For an unattended or remote computer (e.g., your parents' computer in another house), setting the CPU Console client to run as a Service is the best way. Add your name and team, use the Enter key to get to the question on advanced options and running as a Service, respond Yes, then restart the computer after the window closes.

You have to set the Task Manager to show the cores individually. Use the Performance tab, View | CPU History | One Graph per CPU. you can also toggole On the Show Kernel Times to show I/O and other processes not directly related to core app performance.

To use both cores, you have to install a second instance of the CPU client in a separate folder (e.g., C:\FaH\CPU1 and C:\FaH\CPU2). Configure the second one with a "Machine ID" of 2 instead of the default 1. You can run both instances as Services if you want. See the Wiki and Installation Guides for more details.

[MtM]

Don't restart, just go to taskman/services ( or start-run-services.msc ) and find the folding@home service's listed, and start them from there.