As we approach one million PLAYSTATION 3 consoles participating in the Folding@Home program, we continue to improve the FAH client. With the new Firmware v2.1 we also prepared an updated version of FAH, which can soon be automatically downloaded by clicking on the FAH icon. This updated version includes the following new features:
If you happen to be one of the people that wants to leave their machine running after they finished their late-night gaming session, but wish to shut it down after a limited period of time, we have a great tip for you:
- Go to Settings menu, select Automatic Shutdown and then After Current. You will see a little clock appearing on the top right hand corner of the screen. When this clock reaches zero, the machine will power off completely so you can sleep quietly through the night. In this option the machine will power off after sending the data back to Stanford University so your contribution to the project is maximized.
- You may also choose to shut down after a limited period of time (for example, 3 or 4 hours). To do that choose the Automatic Shutdown option and click on the “In 01h:00m” timer. You will now be able to change the timer settings. After rotating the timer to a new time, you should now see your selected timer appear at the top right corner of the screen. This timer will count all the way down to 0 and then power off the system.
- To disable active timer at any time, go to Settings, choose Automatic Shutdown and then Disable.
What’s a better Holiday addition to Folding than playing music? We’ve added a great feature in this version in the form of a background music player:
- To activate the music player select Music and then a channel. The channels are automatically populated with songs you have stored on your Hard Disk Drive! For holiday music I prefer to choose Dramatic (yeah!) and voila – music is playing.
- If you wish to skip to another track, just use a combination of X + left or right arrow. You can also change the channel by choosing X + up or down arrow. Happy listening!
- To stop music from playing, select Music again from the main menu and choose “disable.”
- Your music playback selection will be saved between consecutive runs of Folding@home.
We hope that these enhancements help improve your FAH experience. The response from PS3 owners really has been spectacular, and thanks to you, the most powerful distributed computer network in the world continues to grow.
This is a nice feature, thanks for the update :)
Finally auto shutdown i’ll be doing a ton more folding now. this is the one thing i’ve been waiting for. great job.
Wow, that’s awesome. It’ll give people a lot more incentive to fold now that they can do it while playing music. I’d definately have this running during a party etc. A good conversation piece. Good thinking guys ;)
How much juice does this bad boy will consume with music and all that running? but heck, the music feature just makes it more fun to fold!
Great!
The music thing is perfect!
I’ll try it right away.
really nice update to the F@H..
unfortunately my gf doesn’t allow me to have the ps3 on over the night, she’s scared of the electricity bills :)
Great news. I’ll definitely use the auto shutoff mode during the week when I’m at work.
The music thing is pretty cool, and so is the fold at designated length option. Lots of great updates this week.
That’s cool N all …..
BUT HOW ABOUT YOU’LL AT SONY GIVE US
WHAT WE REALLY WANT LIKE FOR EXAMPLE
iN GAME CHAT THROUGH THE PS BUTTON..
iN GAME MESSAGING ( PS BUTTON )….
i WOULD LIKE TO KEEP IN TOUCH WITH FRIENDS
ONLINE WHILE PLAYING ANY GAME THROUGH
iN GAME CHAT WITH ANY PS3 USER ON MY FRIENDS LIST
not-buying…try using your attention span to stick to the topic of the blog. This is about F@H not XMB accessibility.
Anyhow, thanks for the great update Noam.
Why is it that when we voice chat with someone on ps3
we have to sit in what looks like a mental institutions padded room.
we should be able to browse the net,
we should be able to play music,
we should be able to play trailers,
ALL WHILE STILL BEING ABLE TO CHAT ONLINE.
pLEASE SONY GIVE US THESE THINGS!!!!!!!!!
@11
Wrong topic. Go to the update thread. Good to see you guys are still improving F@H! I look forward to the update!
wow since you have this why the hell hasnt sony implemented in game music???
now i can fold while listening to music, nice :)
Wow background music was my #1 feature I was looking to be added. Nice job! Maybe giving access to the web broswer is next? =D
Nice. Now all I need is high speed internet.
Question: Does F@H also use the RSX processing power or just the CELL BE.
Really good update here!
not-buying-incognito, [DELETED] off! can somebody please ban this idiot here!
Very Nice :D
auto shutdown is one of the best updates that could have been done, sometimes i didnt use the F@H cause i didnt want to let my PS3 for too long, with this, i will probably help even more
when are they going to release this update i thought they already did
Nice, thanks, I’ll check that out as soon as I can. WHen I’m not physically present, the PS3 is folding. Poor thing never gets turned off. So those of you with worried gf’s, you can reasure them that it’s perfectly safe.
By the way, I’m getting formatting issues on this page, and have to highlight many passages to see them due to the taxt being the same colour as the background. Not the first time, so it’s something that needs fixing please.
awesome update! …everyone calm down, this shows music in game is not far off….. christmas present maybe?
i wrote that at 440 AM not 140 whats with that?
WOW!
Music while folding…good idea! in fact, a great idea!
and i love the auto power off function!!!
ONLY ONE COMMENT / CONCERN:
it would be cool to be able to access your streamed music while folding also, not just the music stored on the hard drive (in keeping with the all-in-one media center vibe)
but this is great news! My parents were over recently and they were really impressed by Folding at home, showing them that the Cell was so powerful and that all gaming systems aren’t just for one thing!
cheers!
The gratitude for assisting Sony in their contribution to Folding@home has been well received, but the true thanks should not only go out to the users but to Sony for putting this technology in our hands, so that we can better help the world at large, people who whine about folding@home and ps3 sucking too much power obviously haven’t conducted proper research, ever since I shut my ps2 off and replaced it with a ps3, my power bill has actually A- Gone down, B- Is nowhere near the price of Wal Marts power bill, where they have over 30-40 tv’s on at the tills and on the roof of every corner of the store… trying to sell crap to consumers with ads, all they care about is their own pocket not the planet at large.
Some people need to wake up and start supporting the betterment of humanity, like Sony does… because a cure for disease is much better than a rise in sales of easy bake ovens IMO.
The Congratulations should go out to Sony, and Stanford University, more than anything, way to lead the charge Ladies and Gentlemen.!
Note to all users not running folding@home, because you’re being anal expulsive, and selfish, wouldn’t the kicker be that later in life you die of a disease, or illness that folding unlocks the secrets to, the day after you die? 1,000,000 users out of 7,000,000 is an excellent turnout, but I’d like to think that more than 1/7 people care about the rest of humanity, get running your folding@home people! When I’m not gaming my system runs the F@H, my machine is on 24/7… has been since launch, has barely broken a sweat, runs games – movies – etc, without a hitch, just like the day I bought it… This machine was built for the long haul. Don’t be afraid to use it…
Awesome I am sure more people will use F@H now.
I’d been running the folding software on my PC for a fair while, and it’s lovely to have it going on my PS3 too.
Can I second #24’s request for streaming music? I’ve got lots of tunes on my PC so I stream everything via the PS3, nothing sits on the hard-drive. I use TVersity for my media sharing, so it would be great if this all worked together.
I’m getting a glitch of some sort now that I’ve downloaded the new v 1.3 folding@home application update, It seems to load the full application, because I have access to menus etc, I can hear the menus, and the bottom one is still quit the program, I tested it, but all I can see is the ‘Loading folding@home screen’ … so just in case I’ll be leaving my ps3 off tonight, until I’ve/you’ve clarified the issue if there is one. I need to catch a nap though, otherwise I’d try to figure it out now, I’ll check back here after 10 am.
In game music :)
Now if only all ps3 games had that feature..
Thanks for the update! The ps3 will be folding all day today.
Does your music have to be on your hard drive, or can it be networked? I save disc space by not putting any music, videos or pictures there. I love the idea behind this feature, but I’d prefer it didn’t have to rely on the hard drive.
@ #13, 25, and 29
Supposedly the update to Super Stardust HD also includes in game music/custom soundtracks. I believe MLB 08 does too and High Velocity Bowling as well.
All in due time my friends
I meant @22 not 25.
I was just thinking about this earlier this wee… In addition to playing music from the harddrive, what if F@H had additional sound tracks? perhaps nature soundtracks could be selecting such as a jungle sound track, an ocean soundtrack, sounds of cicada’s on a hot summer day, crickets in the eventing, or running water sounds near a stream of water?
Hi SONY
Two major things:
a)
When are you going once and for all leave the stupid thing of region coding? I have a japanese PS3, and first all Blu-Ray movies was region free, but now they have started to turn up region coded.
There cant be anything to gain of this system nowdays. Its a prehistoric relic this from the 1980´s.
Even more, how can u continue with region coding for DVD movies? Even you SONY sell region free DDV players nowdays.
b)
ANd why have you made the information bar even region specific… I dont want it in japanese, of course. If i am a eropean and live in japan and buying a a japanese ps3 iu of course want it in my language!!
You have the greates oppertunity to remove all incitmanet for pirate copies and mod chips, and you dont do that? Why…?
Merry Christmas SONY!
Auto-Shutdown is great. Any chance this feature could also be added to when downloads from the store finish?
Since I mostly play online, background downloading doesn’t usually do much for me so I like to let them download overnight, but I would feel more comfortable if my PS3 would shutdown when the downloads were done.
Nice additions! My suggestions:
A) Make it so that, while in F@H, the PS3 is willing to accept remote play–so we can leave our PS3s on F@H and access them via internet when we aren’t home, then re-leave them on F@H when we are done.
B) Make it so we can go through our actual song list in F@H for our music instead of based on style.
Other than that, a nice surprise and great XMAS gift–one that literally keeps giving!
Awesome, great update guys! :)
@37
That sounds like a great idea!
Has anyone got it to work? My system detects the update, downloads it, attempts to install, then tells me “Folding@home cannot be updated. Please try again”.
I’ve tried 4 times and got the same message each time.
This new update has me very excited. I can’t wait to download it this Friday night! I love Folding on my PS3. So any update to the client (especially one with music!) gets a thumbs-up from me!
Both options are wonderful!!
I have to admit that I just don’t like leaving it running all night.. so the automatic shut off will encourage me to do more folding!
The music option will also encourage me to do folding during the day when I want to listen to music and I can still be doing folding – brilliant!
Glad to see these changes!
I seen Sony has replaced the beverages at Stanford with their Multi Media kool-aid. What next; in app xmb, Messaging, Buddy lists, voice chat?
Fight the power! Stop the insanity! Don’t give in to the dark side! it’s a game platform, not a multi media center. I don’t need another multi media center, I’ve already got one. What I need is a game platform
Thank you Sony. I can have more than just noise going on while I work on curing cancer.
wow, the folding@home app is REALLY good at picking songs, lol. really enjoy the new update, I like these kinds of suprises…keep’em coming!
Sweet. I can listen to music AND contribute to a good cause.It’s a win-win situation for all PS3 users. Great update!
Really glad they added the automatic shutdown feature, and the music playback.
Now we need music playback in-game! :)
You guys finally persuaded me to join Folding@Home on my PlayStation 3. Good job!
You guys really took this at heart…
This additions are amazing!
I always thought about an auto shut down feature..
That was great on its own…
But background music now?
Thats sick!
I’ll for sure continue Folding :)