Folding Forum

I am an instructor at a Technology Center. My students all participate in the folding project through the GPU's on their workstations. This year we are moving from stand alone client machines, to an active directory environment. It is our domain internal to our department. No other people except the students use the machines. Our new clients will have RTX 2060 GPU's. There are a total of 57 of these machines coming in.

My question is this. Is there a way for me to run the folding on the clients while they are connected to the domain. Sort of like a background account hidden from view, that runs the FAH client. regardless of what user is logged into that particular machine.

We are Folding@MNTC and have been doing this for over 5 years. Our position is number 118 on the team list.

Any suggestions are much appreciated. I am not a server 16 expert, just looking for some assistance.


Thank you all!

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Windows is the problem. Microsoft has decreed that the GPU always belongs exclusively to the user that is using it for the Windows desktop so the answer is probably no. This dictated our choice to use hideconsole. It also means that GPU folding stops if the owner of the GPU logs off.

Both Linux and MacOS permit background use of the GPU since the GPU device actually belongs to OS, not a user (i.e.- to the X-console task). Any userid can submit work to that device.

On Windows, background folding is limited to tasks running on the CPU.

If you find an alternative method to run GPU folding as a Windows background task. let us know.

I wonder if there's an option in running all PCs on a 'master' (or main user) account, and let each terminal have limited access to a sort of virtual OS, like they used back in the days of cybercafés?

Yes, as long as you don't plan on using a GPU.