Richard McCarthy Posted November 11, 2004 Share Posted November 11, 2004 http://www.anandtech.com/linux/showdoc.aspx?i=2271 Haha, what do you guys think? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
opus13 Posted November 11, 2004 Share Posted November 11, 2004 good idea in theory... but then again, a celeron 733 is... just a celeron 733. if there were sockets in there to updgrade to a pIII 1ghz, then that really becomes an intriguing Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted November 11, 2004 Share Posted November 11, 2004 good idea in theory... The Xbox is about US$200? For about US$400 you can buy 'refurbished' HP machines from some of the 'warehouse' places--these are in the 2 - 3 Ghz range with XP-home and at least 256, usually 512 of RAM. While they are not GREAT computers, $2000 will get you four or five of them (depending on how fast you buy) and a monitor for the 'master' machine. You can get them delivered tomorrow, too. That's a cheap farm, and a lot easier than mod-ing 6 - 10 X-boxes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted November 11, 2004 Share Posted November 11, 2004 while i didn't read the article, just skimmed it, the speed tests looked less than impressive. the time spent in setting it up is not worht the results. if you are a tech buff looking to improve your linux skills, have at it. imo, if you re 3d, and just want a rendering farm, stick with ernests suggestion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
upshot Posted November 11, 2004 Share Posted November 11, 2004 interesting... I just built a 'presentation box' to attach to the projector in our board-room and I did start thinking about a render farm based on it: ASUS terminator barebones A7VT (comes with floppy and 52x cdrom) $103 CPU AMD|SEMPRON 1.5GHZ $54 DDRAM 256MB PC2700 $37 HD 40GB|MAXTOR $47 Correct me if I'm wrong but that system would outperform the xbox for about the same price and no 'rigging' required.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted November 11, 2004 Share Posted November 11, 2004 I built my render farm last year using 2.6ghz P4s. Each node cost about $700CDN at the time. Not as cheap as an Xbox, but a hell of a lot faster and no modding involved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luckytohaveher Posted November 12, 2004 Share Posted November 12, 2004 I was thinking about this a couple of years ago when modding first came out. It is an interesting concept; however, the bottom-line is always the bottom-line. Is it worth it to go the modding route, work with unsupported and rigged hardware? The total cost of owner ship is attractive if price is your only metric. Once you figure time, moore's law decay, support issues with the new release and the next, I think a cheap off the shelf beige box solution will be more advantage. Going with Gigabit Ethernet for example can gain 30% or more per node for what $20 more? That being said, it is great to see someone trying to really look at it, study it, and determine from a real-world perspective what the outcome is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted November 13, 2004 Share Posted November 13, 2004 I agree totally Ted. It was an interesting read - I just dont think its worth the effort. A more interesting problem for me, is how to ditch windows from my render nodes. I would much rather be running a distro of linux, unfortunately Cinema Net Render is Mac/Windows only. A techy friend of mine is currently exploring running it on linux with WINE. I'm curious to see if it works and if so what the perfomance hit is. I really wish the software makers would release their render clients in a linux version. It simply doesnt make sense to have Windows on a computer that starts (without a monitor and keyboard) and simply renders frames. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luckytohaveher Posted November 13, 2004 Share Posted November 13, 2004 This is the same reason I went with the Renderdrive technology for a while. It is a question of time vs. cost vs. quality vs. dependability. I think anyone who is intellectually honest must agree that there are 15 ways to peel this rendering banana. I know everyone has angst for the wintel solution from purely a cost and conceptual standpoint. Linux is a great solution; however, there is little incentive for the shrinkwrapped box software providers to really support the non-licensed stuff. They simply can't get over the late 80s and 90s model where they got a combined $7K per box revenue stream via the hardware, O/S, and Autodesk recycled and repackaged product of the moment. You see, Linux scares them to DEATH!!! If the hardware is $400, the O/S is free, then maybe we will all figure out that the raytracing algorthyms in 3DS Studio 1.0 where 80% the same as the code we continue to buy today. Between then and now, with 10 upgrades at $500 each, that is $5K in expenditure will minimal and marginal real gain in value. Yes I know there are a bunch of cool new 'features' -- 80% of which aren't used by the CGArchitect community. Maybe if I was making Disney's Pinoccio 17 or something. That being said, based on twenty years of experience, total cost, and ease of use, I am sticking with the beige wintel model simply because I get paid for the product, not the platform. And yes, I know it ain't purfecked. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted November 14, 2004 Share Posted November 14, 2004 Ted, great post. You really spell it out. With Lightscape I haven't had to worry about a 'farm', but now that I will be going to Cinema, I just have to face facts--its going to take six computers to equal what LS can do with on. Maybe eight. So I will soon enough simply buy the extra boxes and continue to worry more about my product than how it gets done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
upshot Posted November 15, 2004 Share Posted November 15, 2004 I want to build a linux farm too!! If anyone finds some info on building a max slave in linux please let me know! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quizzy Posted November 15, 2004 Share Posted November 15, 2004 good luck on finding info on that upshot.... max running on linux?? maybe in about 50 years or so... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted November 15, 2004 Share Posted November 15, 2004 I want to build a linux farm too!! If anyone finds some info on building a max slave in linux please let me know! Remember--the cheap pre-fab boxes from HP come with an OS--it is XP-Home, but it is viable as a slave. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dann_stubbs Posted November 21, 2004 Share Posted November 21, 2004 With Lightscape I haven't had to worry about a 'farm', but now that I will be going to Cinema, I just have to face facts--its going to take six computers to equal what LS can do with on. Maybe eight. So I will soon enough simply buy the extra boxes and continue to worry more about my product than how it gets done. http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=166434&highlight=linux From R9 on there is a commandline switch in CINEMA to get highest possible compatibility with wine. Simply start it with wine cinema4dpathandexecutable wine i've not tried it myself yet since i have not upgraded to R9 yet... but for those interested in C4D on linux/wine this may be helpful. dann Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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