[Nitestick]

You may have heard of Folding@Home before, you may have seen the userbars or you may not have a clue what I'm talking about. Whatever the case, Tech-Forums has a Folding@Home team and we would like you to join. Our team number is 12864.

What is Folding@Home?
Folding@Home is a project conducted by Stanford University. It's purpose is to investigate the folding and misfolding of proteins. While it may sound insignificant, this work is actually very important. The behaviour of proteins can cause diseases such as cancer, so studying them can provide valuble information towards prevention and cures.

Stanford's project revolves around computer generated simulations and analysis. Performing the simulations requires an incredible amount of computational power................

This is where you come in.

The "Folding@Home Client" fetches small pieces of work from the F@H server, your computer will perform this small simulation and then send all the resulting data back to Stanford. The great thing about the client is it will only use "idle" computer time. In other words it will only use computer power that is not being used by you so you practically won't even notice a difference, you can help out without any detriment to your computing experience.

What do you need?
To run Folding@Home all you need is a working internet connection and either a computer (running a windows 98 or higher/Mac OSX/Linux) or a PS3. PS3s work great for Folding so if you have one please consider running the PS3 client. You can also fold using certain ATI graphics cards.

Are there any benefits for running Folding@Home?
Aside from the satisfaction of having played a small part in research that may well cure a multitude of diseases, there are a few perks. For your dedication you can have your name added to our milestone list. You also get a break on your signature restrictions with F@H team members being allowed to break the image restriction by having a F@H stats signature and a milestone userbar.

You can find more information at Stanford's website here
The client can be downloaded from this page.
Our team page is here.
And our milestone list is here.

For setting up an ATI card, see Ethereal_Dragon's guide.

Please don't forget that our team number for Tech-Forums is 12864!

Thanks,
Nitestick