Hi everyone,
I have been researching online citizen science projects including Foldit for my doctoral research (some of you kindly took part in my research in 2012). A colleague is interested in access to these projects in lesser developed parts of the world and was wondering what would be required in terms of internet connection, speed etc… to actually play Foldit.
Any insight into this would be appreciated. I guess we're interested in how accessible projects like Foldit are around the world.
Many thanks,
Vickie Curtis
Minimum specs would be good, don't think we have that.
As far as I know, speed isn't much of an issue, but as for a stable connection:
http://foldit.wikia.com/wiki/Foldit_Status
http://foldit.wikia.com/wiki/How_to_play_offline
For the computer, the more powerful the better. As-is, it can't run very well on Vista from experience (tested with ~2g ram, and older graphics card, and unstable internet though that shouldn't make a difference), but other than that I can't say for sure.
One issue with respect to 'how accessible projects like Foldit are around the world' is language.
Currently, Foldit includes the option to select a language other than English and a number of translations are available (fold.it/portal/client_translation_list). Some of these are incomplete, other translations are as up-to-date as the current template (date stamped '2013-04-29 14:51-0700') allows. However, none of these 'completed' translations actually facilitates access to the game by non-English speakers because of errors in the translation template (.pot file) which mean that available translations are not loaded (fold.it/portal/node/997691). To date this issue remains unresolved.
