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Aug 24 / Ozymandias

Folding@Home on the PS3

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A few folks wrote me to point out the distributed client announcement from Stanford and Sony that will allow PS3 users to donate unused CPU cycles to a good cause. To quote the FAQ:



Our goal is to apply this new technology to push Folding@Home into a new level of capabilities, applying our simulations to further study of protein folding and related diseases, including Alzheimer’s Disease, Huntington’s Disease, and certain forms of cancer. With these computational advances, coupled with new simulation methodologies to harness the new techniques, we will be able to address questions previously considered impossible to tackle computationally, and make even greater impacts on our knowledge of folding and folding related diseases.


A couple of people were interested in what I thought, and really, what can I say? It rocks – there’s no reason not to use spare CPU cycles for a good cause, and I think Sony really hit a homerun here. To be fair, it’s not a new idea. Seti@home has been doing this sort of thing for years, but this is the first time a console has been leveraged for this purpose. Have to give props to Sony for some original thinking there.


What’ll be really interesting to see is whether this is something you can run at all times (ie, as a background process), or whether there will be some sort of low-power state you can leave your PS3 in such that you can continually donate CPU cycles without burning up the house. These new boxes (PS3 and Xbox 360) do draw more power that previous generations, and I’m hoping there’s some thinking around the power consumption aspect.

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  • Andy Simpson

    With the PS3′s odd architecture, I can imagine for a while most games aren’t going to use every SPE all the time, so I guess during the off time could be used for this kinda computing, even while playing games.

  • nopants727

    Jeez.  Massively distributed parallel processing nightmare.  Great cause but I’m sure glad I’m not working on that dev team.

  • MadcapMagician

    Good point on the power consumption.  One would think that it would be possible to scale the power consumption based on the CPU load.  It seems to me as though this sort of app. would interfere with games/movies.  Since the 360 is supposed to be more than just a gaming console, though, there should be plenty of time during which this app. could run.  Here’s what I envision:

    1.  Firmware upgrade or whatever is necessary to allow lower power consumption based on CPU load.

    2.  Xbox Live download of BOINC (http://boinc.berkeley.edu/) or something similar to allow this to run.  BOINC itself scales how much processor it takes based on what else is going on on the machine, which would mean less development time for the Xbox team.  One upside to BOINC?  It is already designed to take advantage of multi-core systems.

    Someone send this to Major Nelson. :)

  • http://www.sober-productions.com Piranacon

    on the Joystiq comments on this subject, it’s a great idea and a very worthy cause. But as proved further down the comments page (In between the flames), gamers aren’t going to use their CPU’s to do this.

    Kudos to Sony for this.

    Kudos to everyone who is currently running the application, planning to, or actually uses their PS3 for this.

    But in the end (and sadly) a large chunk of their user base will never use it.

  • ExTester

    And I have to say that one thing that hasn’t been mentioned, and people that test software for consoles will understand what I mean on this one. Because I am sure everyone has come across this problem.

    When you have a console running 24/7 as it would be considered for this project, you beat up your console or bring it closer to the MTBF(mean time between failure) rate. And after having beta tested a couple of titles it became apparent that certain bugs would only be produced because the machines are really worn out. So you would have a lot of PS3 users with machines that will be buggy very soon. Not to mention that since the CELL processor has a spare SPU "just in case it goes bad", your most likely gonna have one of those SPU’s go bad rather quickly.

    But finally to the topic, I think it would be cool project, if they had their own dedicated hardware. I would not run my 360 24/7 just because of the wear and tear that it would introduce. Just think how fast this program will kill your precious PS3, especially since its brand new and will have some problems with it. And I am not singling out Sony on this one, its just a fact. Brand new hardware is buggy.  

  • imaginedbug

    Sony always claimed the PS3 was a computer with gaming abilities, and they’re showing they meant it. Software that previously only ran on computers will now run on computer-consoles (a.k.a. PS3).

    However, if you really want to make an impact, Sony’d do better shipping the correct software with all their VAIO and other computer products. Heck, Microsoft could do the same on Vista where you get to pick if you want to install certain good cause programs when you first run Vista.

  • http://www.tangledspider.net Tangled Spider

    I noticed this myself yesterday on the F@H website and couldn’t help but admire Sony a little. I’ve been running F@H for probably almost two years now but I’m finding it impossible to keep up with other folders (I’ve still not upgraded from my Athlon XP processor).

    I do have to agree with ExTester a couple of posts above me though. Even if it were possible to do this with the Xbox 360, I don’t think I would. Admittedly there are enough problems with people’s 360′s playing up on them and I don’t fancy overtaxing my own and giving it an early death. Of course, F@H is a noble cause but ultimately you are doing the equivalent of giving money to a charity by means of increased power consumption costs.

    I suppose this question is on topic – is there any large Xbox folding group out there to join? I’d rather put my Work-Units into a community I love rather than Engadget which I just read from time to time.

  • WiNG

    a good use for the ps3 now that they have lost the football games…

  • NIN_013

    Man, remember those good ol’ days when games systems played……games. Sigh.

  • http://what?=) harrison

    this is the most sarcastic compliment i’ve ever heard =)

    hahah…   background application =)

    leave it running all day?  lol.

    oz, it hurts me some people miss the joke here.

    way to waste your ps3′s extra processing power during games, and at the same time spend 700$ a year more on electricity =)

  • http://www.jinhochoi.com jc

    Is it really true that 3 interlinked PS3s can develope a nuclear weapon and 10 can solve the mysteries of the universe and 100 can establish a direct comm link with God??