The announcement was made over Twitter as part of a collaboration with the PC Master Race gaming community, which asks gamers everywhere to download the application Folding@home, a distributed computing project for disease research. The app simulates computational drug design and protein folding, among other aspects of molecular dynamics. However, what makes it so unique – as well as one of the world's fastest computer programs – is its usage of idle processing resources. Essentially, downloading this app onto your computer will allow its spare processing power to be used for the app's tasks and programs.The app has been around since 2000, and over the years has resulted in the publication of well over 220 scientific research papers by the app's operators, Stanford University's Pande Laboratory. However, several new projects are now available on the app for "simulating potentially druggable protein targets from SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) and the related SARS-CoV virus (for which more structural data is available)," Gamesradar reported.These projects could lead to a better understanding of the virus, as well as lead toward possible treatments, and users can choose which project their data goes to.Gaming PCs tend to be very good at working through several large tasks at once due to their powerful processing power.Users don't need to do anything for the most part, with the software doing all the work in providing processing power, though they can see the progression of the research in real time. In addition, users can turn the application off whenever they wish – like to use their gaming PC for its intended use.The app can be downloaded here.A full AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the team currently operating Folding@home will take place on March 19 on the PC Master Race subreddit.PC Gamers, let’s put those GPUs to work. Join us and our friends at @OfficialPCMR in supporting folding@home and donating unused GPU computing power to fight against COVID-19! Learn more → https://t.co/EQE4u7xTZT pic.twitter.com/uO0ZCq8PEv
— NVIDIA GeForce (@NVIDIAGeForce) March 13, 2020
Nvidia calls on PC gamers to contribute to the fight against coronavirus
Gamers everywhere to download the application Folding@home, a distributed computing project for disease research that will use idle processing power to speed up computations.
