Does Extra Ram Help A Dedicated Folding Machine?

Ben721 · May 23, 2003

I have my [email protected] celly going 24/7 and the only thing i have running is folding and EM3. I have 120mb of sd-ram, so I was wondering, if I bump that up to 256 or 512, will the frame time increase?

pip · May 23, 2003

it only helps if you do other stuff on it like if it's a server otherwise no

Tismedt · May 23, 2003

Really? So the 512 I have in one deadicated rig could be replaced by a 64mg stick and not effect folding times?

grv · May 23, 2003

Dropping that far may be a bit extreme

Gromacs like memory bandwidth (speed), but as long as you have an adequate supply in terms of quantity to support the OS and client (my core and client use about 8M at the moment), excess quantity doesn't matter.

dropadrop · May 23, 2003

As long as the operating system, and programs running don't use it all up, you won't notice a diferance in performance. Once physical ram runs out, it will start to use the swap file, and that will slow it down.

Ben721 · May 23, 2003

Alright good, then I won't add any more ram to it.

Once my 1.33 celly complete's a wu, I am going to reformat and put xp on the pc.

Tismedt · May 23, 2003

I have 2 x 64mg sticks I can put in there and pull the 512. that rig is running win98, tbred 1800 and a 8mg agp card on a k7s5apro and gets used for nothing else put folding. Then I can trade or sell the 512 to get needed parts to complete another folder.

BTW thanks for asking this question Ben this could help me out a bunch.

Rav · May 23, 2003

I have a PIII 500, and it gets the exact same Gromacs frame times with 128 that it did with 384, and it seems more stable. Its dedicated folder and runs Win 2000. 64 would probably be a bit too little with OS overhead. I have a 64 lying around though, maybe I'll try it out a little later.

-Rav

Tismedt · May 23, 2003

Let me know what you come up with Rav. I'll swap mine out tonight also and post back later in the weekend after it crunches a wu or 2.

Ben721 · May 23, 2003

Yeah I'd like to see the results, so I can buy some more or something like that.

Tomorrow night, once my celly completes a 53 pointer, I am going to install XP Pro.

emericanchaos · May 23, 2003

for a dedicated folding rig 128 should be enough. some things windows will goto paging for even if RAM is available. i have 512 and with folding, YIM and mozilla media player on top of folding and firewall i'm getting 309MB free. 512-309= 203MB used. and that's on my main rig.

Ben721 · May 23, 2003

Well depending on the results, I will make a decision wether or wether not to add ram.

It's just dedicated folding, and that's it.

Also how much does 256mb generic pc-133 go for, I only know ddr prices now.

Edward2 · May 23, 2003

If you don't mind mail-in rebates, OfficeMax has 128MB PC133 for $4.99 and 256MB PC133 for $19.99 (both after MIR).

JetMech · May 24, 2003

Ben721 said:
Well depending on the results, I will make a decision wether or wether not to add ram.

It's just dedicated folding, and that's it.

Also how much does 256mb generic pc-133 go for, I only know ddr prices now.

PC-133 is getting more expensive than DDR. You should be able to get it for about 50.00. Also that XP will want some ram. I would put 512 with XP. Especially if it is your main rig. Folding might end up in the swap file as suggested earlier.

Ben721 · May 24, 2003

Damn, I don't want to waste that much money on Sd-Ram. It's a dedicated machine, so I wonder if I should still put xp on, since xp requires more ram.

TeLoS · May 24, 2003

XP can run on 256 easy, but XP will just eat more if you add more, the more you have the more it'll use.... but 256 is enough to run XP and F@H....

Ben721 · May 24, 2003

It looks like I will need a cyber deal to get some cheap ram, because I looked at newegg and 256mb will cost atleast $30.

Tismedt · May 24, 2003

I havent bothered with XP on my folding rigs. Win98se seems to work just fine. I dont like the idea of running linux, then running the folding client with wine. It just seems like a waste. Is there any real gain from running linux/wine?

pip · May 24, 2003

Tismedt said:
Really? So the 512 I have in one deadicated rig could be replaced by a 64mg stick and not effect folding times?

more like 128 Folding generally takes 64 megs of ram and then the OS will take some if you use a barebones linux you could prolly cut that to 20 megs so you could have a great dedicated folder

Tismedt · May 24, 2003

Well I guess I need to see for myself. I do believe you guys but I want to test this anyway. I just pulled the 512 and put in a 64. It booted up fine and started folding. I'll check it in a few hrs to see what the times are.

Test rig is a k7s5apro, xp 1800 tbred advmethods flag 64mg pc100 sd sdram win98se.

Does Extra Ram Help A Dedicated Folding Machine?

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