The Windows SMP client is a pretty important new client for us for two reasons. First, multi-core CPUs are becoming more and more common, and second, Windows clients are the most common in FAH by far. The SMP client appears to be working quite well on linux and OSX, and this is due to the fact that these machines are unix-based, and so multicore libraries (eg MPI) are much more robust on these platforms. The issues we've been seeing on Windows can be directly attributed to MPI issues. We're the first distributed computing platform to roll out MPI calculations (typically reserved for supercomputers), so we are dealing with some major growing pains issues there.
To help fix this, Peter Kasson has been working hard on a new approach to improve the Windows SMP core stability. The trick was to use an improved MPI library. So far, it looks like it is indeed a significant improvement, but we're still testing it to be sure. If the Windows SMP core is not working well for you, we hope that the new fixes will help.
For now, if the SMP client isn't working well for you, one can always run multiple regular Windows clients and still make major contributions to FAH (and lots of extra points than a single client!). You can see more info on our Windows console FAQ.
Finally, we're working to reintegrate and revamp our Windows clients in general. We've revamped the graphics, made it much more stable (and better looking), and we've set up a single client to serve as both regular and SMP clients (with GPU functionality on the way). We're excited about these new developments and donors will be seeing these advances in the next few weeks, if all goes well in our beta tests.
Nice job sounds like with the new client there should be less problems and more productivity with WUs.
I especially like the idea of having a single client to server as both regular and SMP in case there is a problem they can just switch the client back to regular from SMP and vice versa.
Will there be an option to have a box to check if you want to turn on or turn off having F@H starting up when your computer starts up? I know there is another way to do that but it seems more like a hassle especially since I never do it that way anyways. It seems much easier to just have a option for it in the config menu.
Posted by: Baowoulf | March 08, 2008 at 04:06 PM
Great! Thanks for this information, it is encouraging. I have learned to live with the SMP bugs for the most part, but they have reduced my folding output somewhat.
Agreed that the integration of single-core and SMP clients is a great development.
Posted by: Stephen Dewey | March 08, 2008 at 09:02 PM
Hmm, does this mean that there will be only one client in the future, that can potentially use both SMP and GPU for huge amounts of calculations? That would be amazing, because currently there is a tradeoff between doing SMP and GPU folding, and being able to do both would rock.
Posted by: Ibrahim | March 08, 2008 at 11:30 PM
whatever helps push Folding@Home into the mainstream is good. More people need to be participating in this great project!
Posted by: smASHer88 | March 09, 2008 at 08:35 AM
A single universal client means that to run on both SMP and GPU hardware, you would download the same fah client one time. However, you would need to install it twice, once to run fah.exe -gpu and a 2nd time to run fah.exe -smp.
Posted by: 7im | March 09, 2008 at 08:38 PM
I don't know much about the MPI libraries or what licence they are issued under, but I'm wondering if your work with improved MPI library will be available to other distributed computing projects who wish to take advantage of multicore architectures?
Posted by: S | March 11, 2008 at 02:34 AM
If all it does is fix the MPI issue where work stalls after network changes (a brief drop in wireless connection, for example) I'll be happy.
Posted by: Clint Oakley | March 19, 2008 at 07:17 AM
It will be nice to see a new MPI lib that plays nicer with the WinSMP client.
I hope this makes an appearance very very soon.
Posted by: Mitsimonsta | March 21, 2008 at 05:27 PM
It appears that there is now a formally announced Folding@Home prize (up to $150 for first place). http://imminst.org/announcing-foldinghome-prize
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