Folding@home Points FAQ

Table of Contents

Introduction

Much of what drives distributed computing is the sense of collegiate competition to compute the most for the project. One way to quantitatively assess this is through the points that Folding@home (FAH) keeps track of (in our statistics or Stats pages). Here we detail the nature of how our points are determined and why that method is used. There are lots of methods one could use, but we've found that over time (and with extensive discussions with FAH donors) that our current method is a reasonable compromise, given all the complexity of awarding points for FAH work units (WUs).

When will my points, user name, or team # appear in the Folding Statistics?

When you first start to fold, your user name will not appear in the statistics until your FAH client has completed its first work unit. And because the stats pages are updated every few hours, your stats may not appear immediately. Please be patient. If you created a new team, it will appear right away.

How do you decide how much credit a work unit is worth? (CPU Client)

Points are determined by the performance of a each contributor's folding hardware (CPU, GPU, etc.) relative to a reference benchmark machine. Before sending out any work units from a new Project #, we benchmark one or or more work units from that Project on a dedicated 2.8 GHz Pentium 4 computer with SSE2 disabled. (more specifically, as reported by /proc/cpuinfo on linux: vendor_id : GenuineIntel, cpu family : 15, model : 2, model name : Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.80GHz, stepping : 9, cpu MHz : 2806.438, cache size : 512 KB). This machine runs linux, so all WUs are benchmarked with the linux core.
Note: Currently the linux and Windows fah_cores run at exactly the same speed (same code base), so this does not impact points performance.

We plug the results of this benchmark test into the following formula:

Points = 110 * (DaysPerWU)

where DaysPerWU is the number of days it took to complete the work unit. This equation was chosen to match the points on Gromacs WUs from the previous point system. The upshot is that Tinker WUs will be worth more than before we set up the new point system (i.e. before April 2004, which previously ran on a Celeron 500 MHz CPU (which did not have SSE2, so it was disabled above to maintain similar points performance before and after the benchmark upgrade)). The benchmarking and points for each client are detailed on the FAQ page specific to that client. Direct links provided:
CPU Benchmark Information
GPU Benchmark Information
PS3 Benchmark Information
SMP Benchmark Information

Why use benchmarking to set the point values?

The original concept for benchmarking is very simple; give equal pay for equal work. Everyone who completes the same task will get the same reward. Fair and equitable! For example, everyone who completed a work unit in Project 2653 would earn the same amount of total points for that WU. This reference benchmark system of assigning points to projects works very well with consideration for the large variations in work unit size and complexity, and the nearly infinite combinations of computer hardware contributors use to process work units.

Please note that the very concept of a reference machine will mean that some WU performance will vary from the performance on your machine. Even between P4s, there are significant differences in architectures over the years. Moreover, variations between FAH WUs can also lead to small differences in benchmarking points.

Our goal is consistency within a given definition of a reference machine setup (described above for the CPU client). However, differences in memory speed, CPU cache size or speed, and even the typical data drift from one generation of a work unit to the next will all influence points performance up or down slightly. These and other variations will never allow any point system to perfectly reflect what you get on your machine. But the typical contributor will receive points within a very small deviation relative to the benchmark.

Why are some projects given significantly more points than others?

Certain projects require substantially more computer resources than others, either in terms of more disk space, more network transfer, or more RAM used. By default, these work units are given out to clients that opt in to request them. To reward those contributors for donating resources beyond the typical client, we currently give bonus points for these larger work units.

How much higher are the bonus points?

Currently the bonus points are a 50% increase over the standard benchmark point determination (described above). Please note that this value is subject to change at any time, and may be increased or decreased to better align points with specific scientific goals.

How do I configure my client to get bonus point WUs?

Please see our Configuration FAQ for these details.

Is there any risk of taking on bonus point work units?

These work units are larger and more experimental. For example, they often involve new cores, such as the SHARPEN core. Thus, one should not run big work unit clients on non-dedicated machines. The bonus points are a reward for contributing more resources to FAH, and so you should not be surprised if these work units impact system performance and use the full resources of the computer.

For More Information, Please See:

• FAH FAQ
• Console configuration documentation for information about console switches
• GUI documentation for Windows or Macintosh
• Folding Support Forum

Last Updated on June 06, 2009, at 12:39 PM by