From http://folding.stanford.edu :

Sure ! Here are some videos which shows how a protein may fold, starting from a string :

 

Not at all. You can continue to watch youtube videos for example, the program will halt itself instantaneously, you won't notice anything. It takes about 10% of your main processor to feed your graphic card, or less (you can easily change that, even if it's not really required).

You will maybe want to pause the program if you're a gamer, but it's probably not even needed (at least we didn't experienced any problem).

Download cpu-z and run it (it's free software) http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html (cpu-z will give you the exact model).

If you want to know a little bit more about your graphic card, download gpu-z http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/SysInfo/GPU-Z/. Gpu-z can show you the load of the graphic engine.

Everything is on the website of the project: http://folding.stanford.edu

First you must check that you have a graphic card listed there: , that is:

• ATI Radeon HD 2xxx/3xxx/4xxx/5xxx and ATI FireGL Vx6xx (check  http://folding.stanford.edu/English/FAQ-ATI2#ntoc39 for latest info).
• nVidia GPU supporting CUDA : http://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-gpus

Then download the High Performance client from there: http://folding.stanford.edu/English/DownloadWinOther

Finally install the program, and run it. It will create a little icon in the task bar:  you can click right on it and go to configure menu item.

Details here : http://folding.stanford.edu/English/Guide

The log file should look like this (you can scroll down):

# Windows GPU Systray Edition ################################################# ############################################################################### Folding@Home Client Version 6.41r2 http://folding.stanford.edu ############################################################################### ############################################################################### Launch directory: C:\Users\admin\AppData\Roaming\Folding@home-gpu [00:36:35] - Ask before connecting: No [00:36:35] - User name: Stephane (Team 209493) [00:36:35] - User ID: 2321056242D71D19 [00:36:35] - Machine ID: 2 [00:36:35] [00:36:35] Gpu type=1 species=4. [00:36:35] Loaded queue successfully. [00:36:35] Initialization complete [00:36:35] [00:36:35] + Processing work unit [00:36:35] Core required: FahCore_11.exe [00:36:35] Core found. [00:36:35] Working on queue slot 05 [October 12 00:36:35 UTC] [00:36:35] + Working ... [00:36:36] [00:36:36] *------------------------------* [00:36:36] Folding@Home GPU Core - Beta [00:36:36] Version 1.24 (Mon Feb 9 11:00:12 PST 2009) [00:36:36] [00:36:36] Compiler : Microsoft (R) 32-bit C/C++ Optimizing Compiler Version 14.00.50727.762 for 80x86 [00:36:36] Build host: amoeba [00:36:36] Board Type: AMD [00:36:36] Core : [00:36:36] Preparing to commence simulation [00:36:36] - Ensuring status. Please wait. [00:36:46] - Looking at optimizations... [00:36:46] - Working with standard loops on this execution. [00:36:46] - Previous termination of core was improper. [00:36:46] - Files status OK [00:36:46] - Expanded 98757 -> 492188 (decompressed 498.3 percent) [00:36:46] Called DecompressByteArray: compressed_data_size=98757 data_size=492188, decompressed_data_size=492188 diff=0 [00:36:46] - Digital signature verified [00:36:46] [00:36:46] Project: 5734 (Run 1, Clone 542, Gen 753) [00:36:46] [00:36:46] Entering M.D. [00:36:53] Will resume from checkpoint file [00:36:53] Tpr hash work/wudata_05.tpr: 2870567357 3610573528 2118074702 3512568709 4263202226 [00:36:55] Working on Protein [00:36:55] Client config found, loading data. [00:36:55] Starting GUI Server [00:36:58] Resuming from checkpoint [00:36:58] fcCheckPointResume: retreived and current tpr file hash: [00:36:58] 0 2870567357 2870567357 [00:36:58] 1 3610573528 3610573528 [00:36:58] 2 2118074702 2118074702 [00:36:58] 3 3512568709 3512568709 [00:36:58] 4 4263202226 4263202226 [00:36:58] Verified work/wudata_05.log [00:36:58] Verified work/wudata_05.edr [00:36:58] Verified work/wudata_05.xtc [00:36:58] Completed 2% [00:41:07] Completed 3% [00:45:53] Completed 4% [00:50:29] Completed 5% [00:55:00] Completed 6% [00:59:52] Completed 7% [01:04:35] Completed 8% [01:09:08] Completed 9% [01:13:23] Completed 10% [01:17:38] Completed 11% [01:22:18] Completed 12% [01:26:55] Completed 13% [01:31:04] Completed 14% [01:35:25] Completed 15% [01:39:57] Completed 16% [01:44:01] Completed 17% [01:47:45] Completed 18% [01:51:59] Completed 19% [01:55:59] Completed 20% [01:59:33] Completed 21% [02:02:59] Completed 22% [02:07:10] Completed 23% [02:11:36] Completed 24% [02:16:06] Completed 25% [02:20:14] Completed 26% [02:24:21] Completed 27% [02:28:20] Completed 28% [02:32:48] Completed 29% [02:37:02] Completed 30% [02:41:27] Completed 31% ...

The client run well on the Catalyst version 11.5 (but not 11.6 to 11.9). Driver packaging version 8.85.

None. Your computer will download a little data file and make the graphic card compute. During the first year of Folding@Home project, it was even built-in the Google Bar!

You can find our team statistics at this address: http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=teampage&teamnum=209493

These statistics have been achieved by a single ATI Saphire Radeon HD5750 Vapor X card (~ $120) installed on a personal desktop computer with 2 monitors connected.