PC gaming has often enjoyed the luxury of having the latest technologies at its' disposal. Now, times are changing, and those same innovations are becoming relevant to other areas of computing. ATI Stream Technology and Nvidia CUDA are both software developments created by their respective companies to help take the load off of the CPU for processing, or to increase the amount of processing that a single PC can perform, using the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) as a secondary CPU to perform calculations.
A popular usage for this type of technology is folding@home, a globally distributed program that is used to solve some of the health problems in society today. Folding@home uses mathematical calculations to discover ways that biological proteins combine, correctly and incorrectly, to see how this affects the human body. Incorrectly folded proteins have been linked to many diseases, such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and multiple forms of Cancer. (Information gleaned from linked sites, image from folding@home.)
I have never been interested in PC games and really never saw the attraction to it but I realize that a lot of work, technology, art and science have always gone into PC games. I'm glad that all of it has not only provided a lot of fun for many people over the years and will continue to, but now the same technology can be used for medical research and solving some of the biggest health challenges of society. Thanks for this post!
ReplyDeleteFor a long time CPU has been carrying the load for processing. Its great news that GPU or Folding@home will aid globally in this process, this break through opens the door to explore into much broader dimensions of life today. It also provides the opportunities for CPU and GPU to be use in greater fields of problem solving. Head ways have been made in the fields of science and health already. The formulation of many distribution programs using secondary CPU performances comes as a major step forward for the common good of society.
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