this is the most badass laugh ever

Not anymore, now that there are actual games to play on the system.

it actually runs sonys R&D, saves them a bunch of cash. ;D

i find it strange. and i dont like the thought of leaving my PS3 on all day without me being dare. Just incase something happens to it lol

i am going to star using it more though i need to take a leaf out of CGI's book because everytime i see hi his on it. Well his on it more then he plays games lol

The big thing is that the PS3 is severely outdone by folding@home run on a video card in terms of work output per unit and is used by perhaps one half of one percent of PS3 owners. Essentially it's a small contributor to a project that has not provided any major advancements yet.

When Folding@home was first introduced on the PS3 (or was it there from the beginning, I can't remeber?), it was a huge contributer to the calculations in the project, compared to the PC CPUs that had run it before. However a few things have happened; firstly not to many people use it on their playstations any more, and secondly as ChichiriMuyo said, PC video cards are now far, far more efficient in doing theses types of calculations. The PS3s strengths is in the numbers though, as not to many people run folding@home on their video cards, the PS3 still has the ability to make huge contributions due to its installbase of many millions. Check the folding@home webpage for more information on the project.

The main problem of FAH for PS3 is that you have to dedicate your console to it (yes since Life with Playstation you can listen to music), while with the PC client it just runs on the background. I personally just run it on my PCs.

While it was a very nice thought to include with the PS3 OS, it does essentially boil down to having to leave your console running when you're not actively using it.

As many have pointed out, there really isn't any tangible benefit on an individual level other than an increased Folding score and a contribution "certificate." It's basically out of altruism that anyone should be contributing to the project in the first place.

The two big drawbacks of running Folding during inactive run time is the electricity cost, which while reduced with later models is still not entirely negligible, and also the fact that running Folding basically puts your console into peak load mode, meaning it's generating a lot of heat and effectively burning the wick of your console in the process.

I did about six months of non-stop run time, cranking out a significant number of work units while I was at work and sleeping, which while nice, was probably the key contributing factor to my 60GB PS3 dying last year, simply from the thousands of hours of run time at peak load it had on it.