Distributed Folding GUI v0.6 for Windows

[Digital Parasite]

Hi everyone,

Another release of dfGUI. New in this release:

v0.6 (June 1, 2002):
- Added support to detect CPU speed on Win98 machines thanks to help from Bruce Blair.
- Fixed benchmark bug showing negative values if DF client was restarted without dfGUI noticing (ie: it did not refresh while cient was stopped) thanks to Bugergold for first reporting this.
- Added ability to add distinguishing text in Title Bar and tray in case multiple copies of dfGUI are running on the same machine.

You can get it from the usual spot:
http://gilchrist.ca/jeff/dfGUI/

Jeff.

[Paratima]

First time install! Runs fine on my Win2K boxen. On W98SE box, gets a fatal error "Failed to get data for 'CPU Clock Speed'.

[Digital Parasite]

Hi Partima,

Sorry about that, I forgot to catch an exception so if your machine didn't have the registry key that contained the CPU speed it would exit the program on you. This should now fixed in v0.61 which you can find on the web site:
http://gilchrist.ca/jeff/dfGUI/

Could you download this version and let me know if it works properly for you?

Everyone: If you have already downloaded v0.6 there is no need to upgrade unless you are experiencing a problem.

Jeff.

[Paratima]

Thanks! She's runnin' fine. :thumbs:

Which registry key? And what sets it?

[Burgergold]

First minute with 0,61: no negative number for the moment, if I saw something I'll post for it :)

[Digital Parasite]

The two registry keys I look for in Windows to determine CPU speed are:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\HARDWARE\DESCRIPTION\System\CentraProcessor\0\~MHz
and
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Scrunch\CPU Clock Speed

I'm not sure what sets it, my guess is Windows at some point maybe during install or startup, I don't really know. It seems to vary widely between installs some machines have the info, others do not.

If anyone knows of any other registry keys that show CPU speed, please let me know.

Jeff.

[Angus]

Jeff..

Just downloaded the new 0.61 version - works great.

Glad to be of help.


Bruce

[fimmi]

A suggestion for the next version:
Make a benchmark database, where people can send in their benchmark results with a "Submit Benchmark Results" button in dfGUI. It should be easy to implement, for example use a mySQL database.

It would be really interresting to se which cpus an OSes are the fastest

[Digital Parasite]

fimmi : There are people currently building some benchmark databases and I don't really want the headache of adding the code, building and maintaining the system, and trying to troubleshoot people's network problems when they can't get it to work.

It is an interesting idea but just not something I want to tackle. :cool:

Jeff.

[[DPC]Mobster]

Will I be calculating fewer residues using the gui?
It looks nice but if it means getting lower scores, I think I'll pass.

[Digital Parasite]

DPC Mobster : The dfGUI program uses almost no resources at all. Whatever your refresh rate it set at (say 30 seconds) every 30 seconds will read your progress.txt file, do some simple calculations to display your current progress and benchmark info, that's it. You moving your mouse around in Windows would take up more resources.

For more details check out this thread:
http://www.free-dc.org/forum/showthread.php3?s=&threadid=941

If you are still not comfortable leaving it running you can close dfGUI and it won't affect the DF client at all so you can use dfGUI to start the DF client hidden and then close dfGUI so it isn't using any resources. The DF client will continue running hidden in the background. Or you can just load it every so often to see what your current status is and close it when you are done.

Jeff.

[1fast6]

The dfGUI program uses almost no resources at all.


in answer to the question of resource utilization... it stays under 0.10% cpu utilization at all times... and then only when reading data... most often it is completely idle... this is as reported by taskinfo2000 on win98...

also, on winXPpro, task manager reports back 0.0% consistently on a dual system... nice job!