staff blogs

distributed.net staff keep (relatively) up-to-date logs of their activities in .plan files. These were traditionally available via finger, but we've put them on the web for easier consumption.

2007-09-18

decio [18-Sep-2007 @ 08:06]

Filed under: clients — decio @ 08:06 +00:00

:: 18-Sep-2007 08:06 GMT (Tuesday) ::

Just a quick heads-up for the PlayStation 3 client users: we just posted
a release candidate version of the client, which means no expiration date
this time! If no issues are reported, it will be rereleased as an official
client in a few days. For now, you can download it off the pre-release
web page at http://distributed.net/download/prerelease.php

2007-08-20

decio [20-Aug-2007 @ 16:37]

Filed under: clients — decio @ 16:37 +00:00

:: 20-Aug-2007 16:37 GMT (Monday) ::

Dear friends,

A few hours ago, the beta Playstation 3 clients expired. We apologize for
not releasing an update earlier; we’re making up for it by including in
this new version optimized OGR cores for the SPE co-processors in the
PlayStation 3, achieving a rate of 35.5 Mnodes/s for each SPE, for a total
node rate (including the PPE core) of 230+ Mnodes/s. We also fixed a bug
which caused one of the crunchers to silently stop running until the
client is restarted, so expect to see improved keyrates for RC5-72 as
well.

We’d like to mention that during the past two weeks of beta testing the
PlayStation 3 has been climbing steadily in our statistics, and currently
stands as the 4th largest CPU architecture in RC5-72, as measured by daily
contribution

and 8th overall
.

The pre-release client is available for download from our web site at
. Once again, we have
set an expiration date of 2 weeks for this beta, after which we plan to
ship an official version if all goes well.

We thank you for your continuing support. Moo!

2007-08-07

decio [07-Aug-2007 @ 08:54]

Filed under: clients — decio @ 08:54 +00:00

:: 07-Aug-2007 08:54 GMT (Tuesday) ::

Dear friends,

The PlayStation 3 is here. Perhaps you know somebody running Folding@Home
on theirs? We couldn’t sit idle. Our crack team of programmers has ported
dnetc to the PlayStation 3 platform, complete with optimized RC5-72
assembly code for record-breaking speed.

We really mean it: we have measured the PlayStation 3 processing RC5-72
work units at close to 170 Mkeys/sec, easily making this the fastest
hardware platform our client has been ported to. This is more than 22
times faster than a computer with a Pentium 4 processor running at the
same clock speed as the PS3’s Cell processor. Although OGR is enabled on
this build, work on optimized OGR cores is in progress; expect a
suboptimal rate of about 17 Mnodes/sec if you choose to run OGR.

You are welcome to download this pre-release client from our web site at
http://www.distributed.net/download/prerelease.php. Please note that this
client expires in 2 weeks, when we plan to release a new version including
optimized OGR cores.

We thank you for your continuing support. Moo!