dr_hillmann Posted March 22, 2010 Share Posted March 22, 2010 Hi, new to the forum here! Looking to assemble a render farm at work for generating an animation from 3dsmax or maya. looking to assemble a few computers (wont be buying any hard ware, this is purely for testing the farms performance and hopefully save the company a load of money on buying a standalone machine!) already have networking routing hardware etc probably be using maybe 4 machines of following spec (a few have more ram and newer graphics cards etc) Dell Precision 690/680 Intel Core 2 CPU 6400 @ 3.37gb Ram nVidea Quadro FX 550 (we have 2 machines with Quadro FX 1400) plenty of hard disc space available to the network need any other specs? where do i start assembling the PCs? Ive been reading about using ghost images to mirror the machines (have experience with Norton Ghost already) and have read about queue managers such as DrQueue and qube where to start please Kind Regards! Rob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrianKitts Posted March 22, 2010 Share Posted March 22, 2010 (edited) If you are using max, then the place to start is the 3dsmax Help guide for backburner. Edited March 22, 2010 by BrianKitts Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dr_hillmann Posted March 22, 2010 Author Share Posted March 22, 2010 we will be using 3ds max Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dr_hillmann Posted March 22, 2010 Author Share Posted March 22, 2010 also, out of interest, what would be roughly the equivalent standalone spec using 4 or the dells ive mentioned above? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R.S Posted March 22, 2010 Share Posted March 22, 2010 At best, 4 Core 2 Duo E6400's will give you 75% of the performance of a single i7 920. Practically speaking don't waist your time, just farm out the job or invest in a respectable workstation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dr_hillmann Posted March 22, 2010 Author Share Posted March 22, 2010 although wanted to give it a test seeing as i have workstations spare to use, and am waiting on a dedicated machine... 75% performance... but 100% cheaper than the £5k we have been quoted for a standalone machine... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R.S Posted March 22, 2010 Share Posted March 22, 2010 Time is money. Really your not saving your company but costing them money in lost productivity. The time you spend waiting for an animation to render is time you could have spent on rendering another project. Take a look at this farm, I don't have personal experience but I hear good things. http://www.rebusfarm.com/ Remember to forward the cost of rendering to your client, you should not have to eat that expense. FYI a i7920 rig is around £1.2-1.4K, you can get a dual xeon rig for £2.1-2.2K Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dr_hillmann Posted March 23, 2010 Author Share Posted March 23, 2010 forgot to mention, this is for a one off render job currently (animation is not something my company specializes in at all) and the £5k computer would soley be for this job and nothing up and coming Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now