FAQ for Folding@Home with BOINC

BOINC is a platform for distributed computing developed by a team led by David Anderson, who also heads the SETI@Home effort. With his help and encouragement, we have worked to make running Folding@Home convenient for people running BOINC.

For those running BOINC - General
For those running BOINC - Technical
For existing FAH participants


Note: Only Linux and Windows (2000,XP) supported currently


For those running BOINC - General

1. What does Folding@Home do?
   In brief, Folding@Home is a global distributed computing project that tackles important biophysical challenges. Though it differs in its aim, the character of the project (clients around the world, friendly teams, etc.) is quite similar to SETI@Home. See our home page for more detail and results published over the past few years.
   
   
2. Is running Folding@Home in BOINC just like running SETI in BOINC?
   Almost. Our backend is different from other BOINC projects due to the specific nature of the simulations we run (for example, we generate new simulation work units as trajectories are returned, in order to extend those trajectories). These differences are largely invisible from the client's point of view.
   
   
3. How do I run multiple projects through BOINC, like a FAH + SETI combination?
   You need to sign up separately for each project you want to run. Each project gives you a project-specific account key which you can use to attach your client to it.
   
   
4. Does FAH export its statistics?
   FAH statistics have long been published by 3rd party sites but we don't yet export BOINC statistics in XML. We plan to have this implemented soon.

1. Why is the expected time shown in the BOINC GUI so big for my Folding unit? Will it take that long?
   This is due to the fact that units associated with different Folding@Home projects (different proteins, for example) take different amounts of time, and we necessarily have to give the maximum possible value. Generally, you can expect units to take a few days each. For the technically curious that are familiar with BOINC, our scheduling server does not have information on running times that it can send to the BOINC application.
   
   
2. Why didn't the client behavior change after I logged into my account and changed my preferences?
   The client checks for updated preferences when it requests work, or when you issue the update command. In some cases, you must exit and restart BOINC for the changes to be reflected properly.
   
   
3. My BOINC client seems to have stopped after an error in processing a unit or other unexpected event. What can I do to get it started again?
   There are a number of things you can try, assuming the client doesn't inform you that the server is down. Doing a reset will clear all current work and download a fresh Folding@Home application. In cases where some critical files were inadvertently deleted, it might be necessary to detach from the project, and reattach.
   
   
4. Why do I have a corrupted display window, or blurry graphics?
   Make sure that you have the latest video drivers for your system. Try turning off hardware acceleration or features like anti-aliasing on your graphics adapter.
   
   
5. How does suspending the project or task work?
   BOINC can suspend execution of Folding@Home, at the project and task levels. A suspend might come from a GUI command, or occur because of a preference you have set (restricting work to a certain time of day, for instance). The precise behavior on suspend is determined by the "Leave applications in memory when suspended preference". If this is set to "No", the Folding@Home application and computational core are shut down. Otherwise they remain in a suspended state in memory.
   
   
6. I completed some work units, but my recent average credit is still shown as zero.
   Credit assignment in Folding@Home is handled differently from other BOINC-based projects, so this field is currently unused.
   
   
7. On my Linux machine, BOINC crashes when it tries to run the downloaded Folding@Home application.
   This is an issue we're still working on, related to differences in libraries on certain Linux distributions.
   
   
8. My BOINC client indicates the status of a work unit as "ready to report", but according to the Folding@Home stats I've already been credited for it.
   This is a known issue. At times, there might be a lag between FAH granting you credit and the BOINC client updating the status of the work unit.

1. As a participant of Folding@Home, is there anything I need to do?
   No. For the participants of Folding@Home, nothing new need be done. You can go on running your existing client without any change (just welcome new participants!).
   
   
2. Will development of Folding@Home stop?
   No. We will continue developing the FAH client, making new features available in BOINC if applicable. The FAH BOINC client is just an additional client for FAH, much like the Google Compute FAH client.
   
   
3. Why make Folding@Home work in BOINC?
   Folding@Home is quite powerful and has been able to tackle important, hitherto unsolved, problems. Through Abhay Sukumaran and other team members' efforts making FAH available to BOINC donors, we hopefully make it easier for them to contribute if they wish and hopefully increase the scale of problems we can tackle.
   
   
4. Could my uname be taken by someone for a BOINC account? Can I make a BOINC account with it?
   No, people cannot claim your uname for a BOINC Folding account; as we have no means of verifying identities, one can't create a BOINC account with their own uname either. In Folding, we have never had any restriction against more than one person using a given uname but in BOINC, name/team combinations are unique. Since there is no clear cut way of deciding which person should get to claim a given unique BOINC FAH name, existing Folding@Home names are off limits for now. Anybody can join anyone's team, however.

_________________