Got a graphics card? Put it to work fighting the coronavirus

[mongeese]

The big picture: If you’ve got some spare GPU horsepower now is the time to put it to good use; by simulating molecular dynamics you can contribute to a dataset that could help researchers find a cure to the coronavirus.

The Pande Lab at Stanford University has been running distributed compute network Folding@home for nearly twenty years for disease research using the idle processing resources of home personal computers. Today the lab has put it its network to work to better understand coronavirus.

Folding@home combines the power of thousands of individual home systems and treats each of them as a node in a supercomputer. Each node simulates molecular dynamics like “protein folding” and “computational drug design.” In the end, all the results are combined into a dataset of interactions that are made available to researchers. According to Wikipedia, Folding@home is one of the world's fastest computing systems, with a speed of approximately 98.7petaFLOPS as of March 2020.

I personally signed up to fold this morning and my system just finished computing one “work unit.” Despite a detailed explanation, I understood nothing about what my computer was just doing apart from that the simulation involved exactly 62,227 atoms. Folding@home project's reputation precedes it, so while I may not know how this is beneficial in the fight against coronavirus, listed on their website is a list of academic publications using data from the network’s research into cancer, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and other conditions, and a list of very grateful researchers.

PC Gamers, let’s put those GPUs to work.

Join us and our friends at @OfficialPCMR in supporting folding@home and donating unused GPU computing power to fight against COVID-19!

Learn more → https://t.co/EQE4u7xTZT pic.twitter.com/uO0ZCq8PEv

— NVIDIA GeForce (@NVIDIAGeForce) March 13, 2020

Do note, folding is not for every system. It’s pretty intensive. There are three performance tiers, though as far as I can tell “medium” and “full” do the same thing: both pin my hexacore processor at 100% utilization and my RTX graphics card at about 40%. The “light” setting reduces the processor’s load to about 40% and seems to alternate between using the processor and graphics card. Memory and storage utilization are setting agnostic and very low, and the process is offline once a small initial file is downloaded.

There are no issues with system slowdown, however. The program can be set to turn on automatically when the system is idle and pause upon user activity. Although, even at “full” power my system hasn’t slowed down at all while writing this article; folding is designed to be an adaptable workload that scales down utilization as other applications require it. And of course, you can just turn it off through a simple browser interface.

I’m going to continue to run the software in the hope that it makes a difference. If you’d like to do so as well, you can download it here.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/84398-got-graphics-card-put-work-fighting-coronavirus.html

 

[Bullwinkle M]

Nvidia's Message is clear: YOU, should buy our cards and donate them for research...
and we will use our graphics cards to make money streaming games

WIN / WIN

 

[treetops]

Edit: It's working.

 

[Angga B]

So many cursings out there
Let us just light the candle, cmon

 

[Babbel13]

I downloaded it for Windows 10 and started running. Coronavirus is not listed in the disease pull down box. Also, I have a Ryzen 5 2600X CPU and a RX 580 GPU but the program is only using the CPU. This seems at odds with the article.

 

[cliffordcooley]

Before promoting Folding@Home. Maybe you could present a few examples of what Folding has learned over the last 20 years.

Being a part of Folding@home a few years back for over a year, I didn't hear of any advancements. I see nothing here to persuade anyone in joining the project. Especially if they know first hand how taxing it is on their system, and the excessive heat produced in the process.

 

[penn919]

I downloaded it for Windows 10 and started running. Coronavirus is not listed in the disease pull down box. Also, I have a Ryzen 5 2600X CPU and a RX 580 GPU but the program is only using the CPU. This seems at odds with the article.

I read somewhere ( I forgot where) that you're supposed to select "Any disease" and start folding. I tried, but it auto-selected some other random disease. My GPU isn't even being used. Only the CPU.

 

[Julio Franco]

Before promoting Folding@Home. Maybe you could present a few examples of what Folding has learned over the last 20 years.

Maybe you could read the article first, comment later.

 

[cliffordcooley]

If I remember correctly. There are two different clients. There are clients for GPU and clients for CPU.

Maybe you could read the article first, comment later.

In other words go somewhere else. Got it! Loud and clear!

 

[ckm88]

Absolutely not.

 

[texasrattler]

Nvidia is just trying to help. They are a business afterall so will they try to make money, sure but they are at least willing/trying to do something. Better than doing nothing at all.

Lets not get caught up if it can run your computer or not. a user can read the article n determine if their computer can handle it. plus a user can and should do research before using any service/program. kinda how you know if its for you or your computer.

 

[neeyik]

In other words go somewhere else. Got it! Loud and clear!

No, just note this part in the news article:

Folding@home project's reputation precedes it, so while I may not know how this is beneficial in the fight against coronavirus, listed on their website is a list of academic publications using data from the network’s research into cancer, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and other conditions, and a list of very grateful researchers.

 

[Covid2020]

No, just note this part in the news article:

He asked for known advancements, not a list of orgs and people's attempts.
Try and do are very different. And with 20 years, there should be numerous known advancements, no? So they would be worth a mention no?

 

[cliffordcooley]

Call me biased after I came to a conclusion. I wasting my CPU/GPU cycles for over a year. My mind might can be swayed, but I see nothing here to do so. I started the project thinking that at some point it would all make sense. I was wrong.

No, just note this part in the news article:

You're calling that an example. Explaining something to someone with only one word. And if the one word is not enough give them a link to go **** themselves. Sorry I've already been down that road.

I'm asking for one example (just one) of Folding research making its way to a patients bed. Not some generalized blanket statement "research into". Not some links leading nowhere other than years of research that no one understands.

Perhaps what I'm asking is impossible, because there are no real world usage cases.

patient recovers due to Folding at Home - Bing

Intelligent search from Bing makes it easier to quickly find what you’re looking for and rewards you.

www.bing.com

I'm not the only one asking

https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/r93i6

 

[Tuxie]

It would be better if it worked. My GPU work queue is stuck on "Status: Download, ETA: Unknown" since I installed it yesterday.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

For everyone asking "WHERE IS CORONAVIRUS"

Just leave your client on the default "all diseases". Coronavirus slots are being prioritized over other diseases, but you will not always score a coronavirus work unit.

Call me biased after I came to a conclusion. I wasting my CPU/GPU cycles for over a year. My mind might can be swayed, but I see nothing here to do so. I started the project thinking that at some point it would all make sense. I was wrong.
You're calling that an example. Explaining something to someone with only one word. And if the one word is not enough give them a link to go **** themselves. Sorry I've already been down that road.

I'm asking for one example (just one) of Folding research making its way to a patients bed. Not some generalized blanket statement "research into". Not some links leading nowhere other than years of research that no one understands.

Perhaps what I'm asking is impossible, because there are no real world usage cases.

patient recovers due to Folding at Home - Bing

Intelligent search from Bing makes it easier to quickly find what you’re looking for and rewards you.

www.bing.com

I'm not the only one asking

https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/r93i6

The VERY FIRST RESPONSE in your source says :

"Unequivocally, yes.

I do drug discovery. One important part is knowing the molecular target, which requires precise knowledge of structural elements of complex proteins.

Some of these are solved by x-ray crystallography, but Folding@Home has solved several knotty problems for proteins that are not amenable to this approach.

Bottom line is that we are actively designing drugs based on the solutions of that program, and that's only the aspect that pertains to my particular research."

 

[Theinsanegamer]

I read somewhere ( I forgot where) that you're supposed to select "Any disease" and start folding. I tried, but it auto-selected some other random disease. My GPU isn't even being used. Only the CPU.

This is a bug with folding at home that is easy to fix. If the system doesnt see your dGPU, assuming it isnt a decade+ old, just add the GPU manually under configure --> slots. Leave the defaults as is. Sometimes it doesnt add the slot automatically.

It would be better if it worked. My GPU work queue is stuck on "Status: Download, ETA: Unknown" since I installed it yesterday.

There is a lot of demand for WUs in the last few days, so much demand that Stanford's server crashed trying to dish them out. give it time, it will pull a WU sooner or later.

 

[QuantumPhysics]

This would be a great use for all your useless Bitcoin miners LOL

 

[theruck]

And maybe you are just counting password hashes for someone

 

[assbutt94]

COVID-19 is not SPECIFICALLY listed when using this software.

Selecting "Any Disease" under the "I support research fighting" will occasionally pull COVID-19 workloads from the server as they become available.

COVID-19 workloads are being given priority. You may still get some for other diseases.

I just got two COVID-19 workloads (one just finished)
https://apps.foldingathome.org/project?p=11751
https://apps.foldingathome.org/project?p=14328

 

[assbutt94]

Also keep in mind, im pretty sure this project is run by volunteers and undergraduates. These people are donating time running the servers, organising work loads, running forums and providing support.

They are receiving a massive in flux of people using their software to the point their servers are having problems keeping up.

Have a little patience.
Assignments are taking a little while to be assigned from servers currently.

It's for a good cause, and takes little of our effort. Lets try contribute to this.

 

[psycros]

I did SETI@home for ages then folded proteins on and off for a few years. With the medical processing I never could find anything describing what programs were actually benefiting. That tells me that we're probably lending cycles to Big Pharma, but I hope I'm wrong. While I'm all for better drugs no matter where they come from I think a lot of people would be very upset if it turned out they were providing free computing power for massive multi-billion dollar companies.

 

[treetops]

My GPU uses about 2-3 60 watt light bulbs worth of power. 90%+ GPU usage. Full. Gonna do some over clocking and look at temps like a nerd.

 

[brucek]

To me, each published scholarly article is an advancement, even if the article was just ruling out a wrong answer vs. finding the right one. That's most of what science is -- hundreds or thousands of little steps that will never make a popular headline for every one whizz-bang eureka "We cured cancer!" moment.

 

[godrilla]

Yes I volunteer to use my free subscription to Geforce experience to help out. Who is with me on this one?