Network Rendering ... Best ways?

[Jago_0108]

I guess this is the right forum to ask this.

 

Hi everybody I made a "cluster" oh 10 Hewlett Packard CPU's, each one has Pentium III, 733 Mhz Processor and 256 MB in RAM, the question is what can I do, or how to make all the machines to work for the same Render or Animation at the same time so I can improve my rendering times? Any suggestions? Do I have to install the software in each machine?

[radioVOY]

well, a fast intro on network rendering could be that you must install the software (if its max) and backburner on all the machines, have a pc for storage (files, maps,matlibs, secuences) and one or any for work (workstation), conect all the machines thru a network switch (the best is with a giga of transfer and a gig network cards on each machine).

 

but before we go further, check on this: p3 733mhz 256mb its very low for rendering frames even if you split the frames on the 10 pcs, i got my own small "cluster" with 3 pcs dual xeon 2.0 and 2.4 ghz with a gig of ram each, a dual xeon mp with a gig of ram for storage with 4 scsi 36gb and my workstation has two opteron 275 dual core with 6gig of ram, when i have a huge animation to render i split the rendering 50% to the "cluster" and 50% to my workstation and sometimes my workstation ends before the "cluster" (its a dual core system i know but for the price id paid for the "cluster i easily could buy another dual core system - i didnt know about the performance at that time).

 

what i mind with all this: is better 1 or 2 pcs fast than 10pcs slow.

may be if you sell the p3 you can afford a good decent system that renders almost at the speed of then pcs but with minimum space and set up work (think on the time to set up all the machines once you need to render something).

 

best regards paisano.