FAH Beta Testers Needed. Inquire Inside!

[S_Wilson]

FAH needs you! No, really, Fah needs beta testers and you could be one. I think most here understand the concept of what beta and beta testing is so I will not go into much explanation about that.

To the best of my knowledge, this is the flow of work units from Pande Group:

1. Internal Testing - Alpha stage (Pande Group only)
2. Beta Testing - Released to Beta Testers
3. -Advmethods - Wider Beta Testing, Stage 2 Beta I suppose
4. General Release - General community recieves these units

If you become a beta tester you may have crashes, lost production and there is no guarantee what you will fold as it could be a Gromac, tinker or even a Gnome unit, whatever the needs of the Pande Group are at the time. It will require time and attention to your rigs and you will need to provide feedback and possible workarounds for what you encounter. From time to time you will need to provide your logs and other information.

If you are interested in becoming a FAH Beta Tester than read this post at the folding community forum.

Also here is an excerpt from a post by pythagoras, one of the site admins at folding community forums and the one I contacted to join the group:

There is a a way to read the beta testers forum

Become a member of the beta testers group. Test out new cores and WU's report findings in the forum and more importantly be prepared to lose points and have problems on a more regular basis than using the -advmethods flag.

-advmethods is away to test on a wider basis than the beta team can when we have pretested as much as possible and have ironed out a lot of the problems it goes to -advmethods.

If you wish to take part please send me a PM with system specs you would be prepared to beta test with.

And this is to anyone else up for the job

Regards

John.

Once admitted you will be able to read and post in the "Beta Testers Forum" of the folding community forums.

Good luck to all and thanks for reading.

On a side note, since the Gromacs have never made it beyond -advmethods and did not crash our machines, I wonder if they were not producing valid data for Pande Group? Good points but not if they don't return valid data.

[muddocktor]

On a side note, since the Gromacs have never made it beyond -advmethods and did not crash our machines, I wonder if they were not producing valid data for Pande Group? Good points but not if they don't return valid data.

They are good points if running -advmethods is helping Pandegroup get Gromacs working correctly to return valid data, even if the earlier runs showed up as being defective somehow. Running -advmethods gives them a chance to get Gromacs out in controlled wide circulation and I know that at least some of the Gromacs work is doing simulations that have already been done with Tinker in order to check the validity of the data that Gromacs is returning.

[S_Wilson]

Originally posted by muddocktor


They are good points if running -advmethods is helping Pandegroup get Gromacs working correctly to return valid data, even if the earlier runs showed up as being defective somehow. Running -advmethods gives them a chance to get Gromacs out in controlled wide circulation and I know that at least some of the Gromacs work is doing simulations that have already been done with Tinker in order to check the validity of the data that Gromacs is returning.

It was just a thought and I know the purpose of -advmethods. At this point though, I do not enough about what is happening with the gromacs core and work units to know if valid data is or is not being returned. That was really a speculative question on my part to those of us who lose sight and chase the points.

The bulk of my original post is in response to leaked information I posted here. What I did originally was self serving instead of serving humanity. This has lead several, including myself, to join the fah beta testers so it is not all bad. It has actually reinvigerated my desire to fold.

[Allan]

I've joined the beta ranks as well. I hope we don't get too many corrupt units!

[S_Wilson]

Originally posted by Allan
I've joined the beta ranks as well. I hope we don't get too many corrupt units!

I saw your name on the list. That make three of us I believe. SteveI, you and myself.

An update to what I theorized before about the Gromacs. After a lot of reading through old threads in the Beta forum it appears as the big culprit has been instablity and primarily in the Athlon cpu's. Gromacs stress the cpu more and probably stresses the memory subsystem some also which does not help components on the edge. It appears, to best of my knowledge, that Stanford does not feel they are safe for general consumption at this time.

[Ebbe Bech]

I'm with you as well

[S_Wilson]

Originally posted by Ebbe Bech
I'm with you as well

Are you Aphex? from Aarhus?

[Allan]

Originally posted by S_Wilson


Are you Aphex? from Aarhus?

Bingo!
You must have looked carefully to notice that!

[S_Wilson]

Originally posted by Allan


Bingo!
You must have looked carefully to notice that!

Magnifying glass and everything.

I had looked for Ebbe several times but never saw his name. I did however see Aphex from the same town as you. Don't know how big your town is but thought it should be him.

[Allan]

Originally posted by S_Wilson


Magnifying glass and everything.

I had looked for Ebbe several times but never saw his name. I did however see Aphex from the same town as you. Don't know how big your town is but thought it should be him.

You thought right!

Aarhus is the second biggest city in Denmark (Copenhagen is the biggest), with a population of some 300,000 people or so. Not bad, considering the fact that there are no more than 5.5 million people in Denmark all together.

Its pronounced more like Orhus (like Oregon) than Arhus.

Ah, enough history for today! You can read on here if you like
http://www.aarhus-tourist.dk/engelsk/frameset.html

[S_Wilson]

Originally posted by Allan


You thought right!

Aarhus is the second biggest city in Denmark (Copenhagen is the biggest), with a population of some 300,000 people or so. Not bad, considering the fact that there are no more than 5.5 million people in Denmark all together.

Its pronounced more like Orhus (like Oregon) than Arhus.

Ah, enough history for today! You can read on here if you like
http://www.aarhus-tourist.dk/engelsk/frameset.html

Cool, learned something new today. Thanks Allan. I heard of Aarhus before or at least I think it is there, some people really into Viking/Norsemen history and replicating their boats.

[Ebbe Bech]

Originally posted by S_Wilson

Cool, learned something new today. Thanks Allan. I heard of Aarhus before or at least I think it is there, some people really into Viking/Norsemen history and replicating their boats.

Actually, vikings and wild Norsemen still roam the land at night

Originally posted by Allan
I've joined the beta ranks as well. I hope we don't get too many corrupt units!

:nervous:

I havent had a single corrupt unit. Only problem was getting assigned to a server once, but it only took five min or so. The P4 seems very stable.

[Allan]

Originally posted by Ebbe Bech

The P4 seems very stable.

Ah, you must have had expert help setting it up, eh?