Folding Forum

My Notebook computer is Compaq Presario B2800, the GPU was unsupported Mobility Radeon X600SE, Intel Pentium M 1.86Ghz, 2G memory. I have a question about if my GPU doesn't supported, is that mean I never possible to start the FAHViewer to view the graphical protein folding. I tried to install the ATI legacy driver, but unsuccessful due to my poor technical skill. Should I give up to try to start the FAHViewer? I'm using GNU/Linux CentOS 6.9 32-bit system.

Does someone know the solution of this problems??????

Unsupported GPU means that you won't be able to run computation on it. You can still fold on the CPU and use the viewer.

As a general rule, Laptop GPUs are designed to save battery life, not do computing. Then, too, if the GPU were to compute continuously, the management of the heat produced would be difficult. The GPU is fine for making updates to the video on the screen, which is a low-impact activity.

Folding on your CPU will produce less work AND less heat but will still run the battery down quite rapidly unless it's plugged in.

GPUs older than about 10 years ago (like yours) had shaders that could only do one thing (they had pixel shaders, vertex shaders, and testure shaders, etc.) They were fine at graphics, but could not be re-purposed for F@H.
Early General Purpose shaders could be used by F@H, but were slow and cumbersome, I used to be able to fold on a ATI HD2600 XT from 11 years ago. It has not been capable of helping for about 8 years. My Nvidia GT105 lasted longer but again quit being useful when F@H retired core_11 about 5 years ago.

This chart sows your x600 as never doing computing, where it shows my HD2600 as using an old computing interface called stream. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radeon#API_Overview

I think F@H has now retired all GPU processing prior to core_21. CPU processing runs on either core_a4 or the newer core_a7. Both run on any CPU newer than a Pentium III, but core_a7 is much faster on CPUs from 2013 and newer. (Haswell and newer)

Your Pentium M is supported, but aging. Do not be surprised if (in the future) F@H no longer supports it.