Folding Forum

Hello,
I took a break from folding for a while (simply letting it run in the background on version 7.4.4).

My question is - are there any command line flags I can change the client e.g. I read something about advanced work units? I've been mainly letting it run on the GPU (and I honestly forget how I got that set up a year or so ago) and I'd like to change to my processor as well for a little while.

The issue is simple - 3 years after I initially started using the client, advanced control is still 100% inaccessible to a screen reader and doesn't allow me to change anything.

What options are available to me for changing, if any, and are there any in particular to take note of? I read through the entire FAQ (or at least the topics I found relevant to my interests) and despite a few promising topics regarding looking at install instructions to actually view the flags or how to input them, I found nothing. It is past midnight, so maybe this was a bad time to look at documentation (though I actually can't find the documentation itself?)

Sorry if this is a rambling post. While I'm on that subject - how popular is folding via CPU vs. folding via GPU and is CPU folding really worth it?

One of the reasons I stopped was mainly feeling so completely left behind by all of the multi GPU folders. I'm finally kind of on par GPU wise (from a Radeon 6450 to an rx570, at least). I'm running a Ryzen 7 1800X. Optimally, how many PPD should I be getting with both folding? I'm averaging right around 120000or so PPD with the GPU alone and, again, am not sure how to add the CPU as an additional folding slot.

How does idle folding work again? Is it set to when your display goes to sleep? I'm used to World community grid and boinc - being able to set how many minutes your machine is idle before it kicks in. I've been letting FaH run in the background without paying much attention, but I noticed today when I right clicked and ran the web view that my amount of total points was (and still is) loading rather than displaying.

Any help for some or all of these is very much appreciated and again, I'm sort of thinking out loud here so perhaps tomorrow I'll edit this post so it at least looks a little more structured.

thank you.

I've never used a screen-reader, and so I can't really suggest if there's any way to accomplish what you want to do. The telnet interface does allow you to display the status of the client and also would allow you to set anything you want while FAHClient is running and it should be accessible -- though it can be excessively verbose. Using telnet or a similar text screen program, connect to telnet 127.0.0.1 36330. You may need to bypass some firewall settings.

The settings are in (parameter value) pairs.

e.g. There is a parameter "client-type" which can be set to "advanced" The setting can be made for each slot or, using a different way of setting it, can be set globally.

GPU folding is very popular since there are a very wide variety of GPUs and in general, they do a lot more calculations per second or day but CPU folding is still useful, scientifically.

The idle setting works sort of like a screen-saver. When you move the mouse or type a key, processing by that slot stops. After there has been no input for an adjustable period of time, FAH resumes processing from the previous checkpoint. (There are two types of screen sleep plus a system sleep. FAH cannot be processed when the system is sleeping (hibernating) but the both the CPUs and the GPUs can compute when there is no video output.

This setting, like "advanced" can be set for each slot or globally. It's primary use is for the GPU because GPU folding can delay the video updates enough that the system seems to lag. CPU folding is managed by priority and interrupts, so you don't need to suspend anything to get a prompt response by the computer.

You'll actually be using the API that's designed to communicate between varous programs and FAHClient, so it' structured for use by computers, but you can learn it with a little preactice.

Joe_H wrote:There already is an API provided for third party applications to use, details on it are here - https://fah-web.stanford.edu/projects/F ... eInterface. This is on the old support pages, so you may get a warning of an expired certificate when you go to the site, if you accept it you should be able to navigate to there. It has not been updated since around version 7.2.

Properly implemented, passwords are required to interface over the provided port. It is intended for use on your local network.