PNY F@H Contest - Free Prizes

[swiftyy]

That is a strange contest. I signed up for it yesterday in the am and a little after noon, I recieved an email with a license for 3DMark. Well, whatever, thanks for the program. IT is a premium edition of 3DMark.

It is strange that it is supposed to be a random draw everyday for the 3DMark license and yet EVERY single person I have spoken to who registered got a key!
Am I correct in saying the 3DMark is only compatible with Vista?

Ya Vantage only works on Vista since it's a DX10 program.

Also guys, the F@H contest has started, you can register for it at:

http://portal.xlr8gaming.net/?page=folding

[toTOW]

How often are the charts updated ?

[MtM]

How often are the charts updated ?

Seems never, as their still empty :S

[toTOW]

It's finally been updated ... but I think the numbers showed look strange ...

The #1 has a nice Linux SMP farm : http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/mai ... rnettworks

[Eveofwar]

It's finally been updated ... but I think the numbers showed look strange ...

The #1 has a nice Linux SMP farm : http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/mai ... rnettworks

Congrats to him and his new video card, don't see a close runner up anytime soon

[toTOW]

I thought this contest might be a good idea, but now I'm skeptical ...

With such a huge farm, he's probably folding at his work, which is, IMHO, totally unfair. No one will be able to compete with him ...

[Eveofwar]

I thought this contest might be a good idea, but now I'm skeptical ...

With such a huge farm, he's probably folding at his work, which is, IMHO, totally unfair. No one will be able to compete with him ...

Ya, same thoughts in my mind...then I saw him hit 1,000,000+ on the first day and I'm basically just in it for the random prizes now.

[MtM]

Idk, I know more people who either own buisnisses or have high positions in one and use their office for allot of their production. I know, it's not fair for me or you or most others, but the where no rules about 'maximum clients' or limits on which grade hw.

If you would impose those, a contest would result in people running such high overclocks and trying to cherry pick wu's all the time.

Maybe a contest should be done in devisions with sub categories, and not with one big price but with allot of small one's. Give a price for the fastest gtx, the fastest 9600gt ( I'll enter and I know you will to toTow as I recall some numbers from the nvidia ppd thread ) and for every card. The price shouldn't be a new gpu, but how about a contest where a winner get's a custom user title for a month or so on the forums here? Or, I remember from my HWA days with vbulleting we had ribbons and awards one could 'purchase' in a store with credit one got when making posts where other people gave you positive rep for. Compare it with xbox live thropies or something. I know this forum is supposed to stay abit scientific, but I actually don't see those two sides as excluding eachother.

A good donor knows when to have fun and when to be serieus, I know it can work if allot of people want it to work. Competition is a good thing, and being able to compete against people is the whole idea about the statistics anyway. Take it one step beyond, and you'll have the ability to make it even more fun!

[jcraig949]

PNY is having some trouble with the scoring but they're looking into it and there's a mention on their forum of future contests as well.

Regarding the farms, this is why they threw in the random prizes as well. It's all for a good cause so kudos to PNY for investing the resources to use their brand to promote folding.

[MtM]

PNY is having some trouble with the scoring but they're looking into it and there's a mention on their forum of future contests as well.

Regarding the farms, this is why they threw in the random prizes as well. It's all for a good cause so kudos to PNY for investing the resources to use their brand to promote folding.

Promoting f@h is always good, I'm just afraid the objections noted above give the wrong impressions. F@h isn't aimed at farmers, it's aimed at everyone, and someone with limited resources who is able to produce allot of points with them should not have to be in it for random prices only imho. More categories, more 'first prices'.

[kelliegang]

For a third party theres no possible way to determine how many gpus/cpus are being folded with by one donor right? And even still nefarious types can rig it so that the count gets all goofed up?
Therefore anything but random prizes seems pointless to me or in fact impossible to balance... you want to encourage new people to fold, not cheaters and not pre-existing megafolders to find new ways of folding [although that helps too I suppose] but encouraging a couple hundred new people is surely more beneficial due to further word of mouth, network marketing.

I'm thinking of running a couple raffles for WoW folders and am considering how it would be best to set it up.. I'm thinking probably whoever folds the most work units gets one of the prizes and then everyone who folds at least 5 work units in the month gets a chance at the other prize, anyone with suggestions please feel free to PM me


By the by... if there ever is any kind of ranking/reward system set up I think it'd be most appropriate to have a referral tracking ability, many of us don't have the best computers and if we could afford to upgrade would probably just donate the $$$ instead... but spreading the word is pretty important with a mere 300 thousand active contributors.

[MtM]

Yeah that's true since reinstalls will increase the total client numbers on the official stats

Referrals ranking is a nice idea

[dimilunatic]

As for Europe, bypassing import taxes is pretty easy, nowadays, imho. If you slap a big "gift" label on the packet - which is what it truely is, a gift - most of the time, you avoid taxes. Not that I'm trying to prompt anyone do that, but hey, solutions are available!

[toTOW]

I'm also wondering if there is a way to check if one's registration to the contest has been taken into account (that's a good question for all people who won't appear in the charts) ...

[Eveofwar]

I'm also wondering if there is a way to check if one's registration to the contest has been taken into account (that's a good question for all people who won't appear in the charts) ...

You can check it by logging in @ http://portal.xlr8gaming.net/, login is at the top right.

Then under "Contest Registration" it should say "Folding@Home" and have your name to the right (should be your F@H name)