Well it seems all the PS3 owners that have been contributing to Stanford University's Folding process have officially been congratulated by the bigwigs at Sony and Stanford Uni.

Thanks to the power of the PS3's Cell Broadband Engine (Cell/B.E.), Stanford's research has progressed at a phenominal rate.

As a kind of "thank you", Sony are about to release an update to the Folding@Home software.

The update (due to be released from tomorrow) will include the following benefits:
1. an improvement in folding calculation speeds
2. increased visibility of user location on the globe and
3. the ability for users to create longer donor or team names.

Vijay Pande, Associate Professor of Chemistry at Stanford University and Folding@home program lead, had this to say, "The PS3 turnout has been amazing, greatly exceeding our expectations and allowing us to push our work dramatically forward. Thanks to PS3, we have performed simulations in the first few weeks that would normally take us more than a year to calculate. We are now gearing up for new simulations that will continue our current studies of Alzheimer's and other diseases."

Masayuki Chatani, Corporate Executive and CTO Computer, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. followed suit by saying, "We continue to be thrilled with the ongoing contributions of the PS3 user community in helping the Folding@home program study the causes of many different diseases that afflict our society. As we move forward, we are issuing a call to action for all PS3 owners around the world to download the Folding@home application and help this cause. These PS3 fans can also be part of history as the Folding@home distributed computing program inches closer to achieving a petaflop - a measure of computing power that has never before been reached."

PS3 users can download the new update version 1.1 by restarting the Folding@home application. New Folding@home users can join the program by simply clicking on the Folding@home icon within the Network menu of the XMB (XrossMediaBar) or can optionally set the application to run automatically whenever the PS3 is idle.

Starting with Folding@home, SCE will continue to support distributed computing projects in a wide variety of academic fields such as medical and social sciences and environmental studies through the use of PS3 and hopes to contribute to the advancement of science.

Jay
Site Squad

Good to hear that! Its good to see that people are doing more with their PS3 than just selfishly playing games, lol.

I'm glad that there is already going to be an update, I'm interested to see the result of that, as I have been folding constantly since this came out.

And you know... maybe this means the HOME beta will open up too. It'd be nice if they'd do it all at once.

Good to hear about the update- we'll get more units done now. Now if only we could get more members to join our team. Details in the PlayStation Discussions area of the forums, folks!

Hey, Lyndon, I believe you set up the AP team on Folding@home...

Can you set up the forum logo as our team logo on the Stanford website? Either that, or just put a cool ps3 logo there like the one here: http://maxygames.blogs.sapo.pt/arquivo/ps3_logo%20(2).gif

It'd just be nice to have something to look at other than a red X on that page. Please?

Im very excited to hear about Foldings Success! I don't have a pc, but how can I set it up for my laptop?

Just head to http://folding.stanford.edu and grab the version you want from the download area. During the install you will be prompted to put in a donor name and team number if joining a team. The team number for the squad i set up for the site is 54263 so put that number in.

MC- I looked around the folding site but could not find a place to insert a graphic for an established team. I know it has to be there someplace,though. I'll have more time to do a more detailed search tonight.

Here you go:

http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/changeteam.pl

I don't think I'm allowed to change it, I don't have the password.

I just joined the team. Im going to get a buddy of mine to join our team too. He never turns his computer off, so he'll be helping out a good bit.

Jason, they haven't updated anything as of yet. I guess they'll do it later tonight, because they are also going to be updating the Playstation store tonight with some new demos (Ninja Gaiden, and Virtua Tennis 3 I believe). I checked a little while ago, the folding screens are still the same.

Have you guys also set folding up on your home computers? I have tried and tried, but it just isn't working very good. It disappears into the background, and I cannot get to it to configure it, or see what its doing. I can't figure it out. I guess I'm gonna have to reinstall it again. The FAQs on stanford's website aren't helpful...

Shut down the Folding and restart it, MC- when you do it will let you download and install the update. The new version for the PS3 did come out yesterday as advertised.

Also, i did happen to find that link soon after that last post there (after a bit more detailed searching). I've used an Absolute Community graphic Jim has for the logo.

I added my own PC as well. It might not be much, but its a step in the right direction.

OK.

I just got the update. Doesn't seem to be any different at all though. I'm not sure that it changed anything.

The logo isn't showing up for me on the team site though. I just see a broken image link ( X )

The logo shows for me on the team site. I'm getting my first WU done. As of now I have 550/5000 frames done and its taking about 36 secs/frame. How fast does everybody else's go?

Folding goes a LOT faster on the PS3, Mike. Most of the work units went at about .05 seconds per frame (yes, 5 hundredth of a second each) before the jump to version 1.1 on the PS3, making for around 8 hours for a full work unit. After updating they now go at .034 seconds per frame, making a 500,000 work unit finish in a bit over 5 hours (the power of the Cell)! Most of the units on the PC will take several days to complete. Still, every bit helps!

Mike my PC is running between 32 and 36 seconds per frame and it is reasonably quick machine. Obviously no match for the PS3's but hey we are doing our bit for the cause too

Were Can I Check The Team Site

GRIM, here is the team page URL for Absolute Playstation:

Team Absolute PlayStation's Stats Page

Thanks Mcwhammer For The Team Page Url Ill Check It Out Soon As Im Done Here.

Linkified for easy finding. MC, does the logo show up for you now? I made a change to it.

Hey Lyndon,

Yeah, the logo is working right now. It looks good!

Thanks for fixing it.