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Render unit

J

jonessoda

Golden Member
I was given advice on using a computer for both 3d modeling and graphic design and gaming today. This advice was mainly centered around having a render unit attached to the main computer, the render unit consisting of a mobo, RAM, a processor, and a vid card, and receiving feed from the main CPU, allowing the render to run in the background while you do other things, or allowing you to use a specialty graphics card for graphics and gaming cards for gaming.

So, my question is, does anybody here know how, if it is in fact possible, to do this with a Windows XP computer (I'm not running linux, so that's out)?
 
Interesting, but i have never heard of such a think. not that that means anything, lol. Seems like it would be difficult to get the amount of bandwidth you would need....how would you connect the two systems?
 
Are you more or less trying to figure out how to set up a server rendering farm?
One master processor that dishes out work to "slave" renderers?

Because Windows is out if you have anymore than 2 nodes with Windows Enterprise server for clustering.

Linux is probably what you will need. Sorry.

If I am on the wrong track, sorry.
 
Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
Are you more or less trying to figure out how to set up a server rendering farm?
One master processor that dishes out work to "slave" renderers?

Because Windows is out if you have anymore than 2 nodes with Windows Enterprise server for clustering.

Linux is probably what you will need. Sorry.

If I am on the wrong track, sorry.
Click to expand...

I don't know how it works either, but I doubt you need a special advanced superl33t server edition of Windows to do it. What's preventing the software from simply issuing a command over ethernet to the other PC?
 
Originally posted by: xtknight
Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
Are you more or less trying to figure out how to set up a server rendering farm?
One master processor that dishes out work to "slave" renderers?

Because Windows is out if you have anymore than 2 nodes with Windows Enterprise server for clustering.

Linux is probably what you will need. Sorry.

If I am on the wrong track, sorry.
Click to expand...

I don't know how it works either, but I doubt you need a special advanced superl33t server edition of Windows to do it. What's preventing the software from simply issuing a command over ethernet to the other PC?
Click to expand...

That is called clustering. And on a windows platform, the only OS that supports clustering is Windows 2000 Server Enterprise Edition and Windows 2003 Server Enterprise Edition.
Dont even get me started on DataCenter, LOL.

 
If you are talking about software rendering, then I believe a good way to do it would be to buy a daul core CPU (I prefer AMD), and then you can use one core for working while the other games (edit, I meant renders in the background - obviously a freudian slip) in the background.

I would stick with an Nvidia video card (probably 6800GT or 7800GT depending on budget) because I have had much better luck with NV drivers and professional programs (Although, I am a CAD user, so different programs may behave differently). Also, I would not bother with a Quadro card and would stick with one of the gaming cards mentioned above. I'd go with 2 GB of RAM (2X 1GB sticks for dual channel performance and future expandability if required).

I think that would be by far the easiest and most flexible way to set up the system, but I picture the rendering as being a side project and therefore not as critical, which is why I wouldn't bother with trying to set up a different machine.

-D'oh!
 
Wait... Maya's unrendered output is a code file in .txt or similar format, right? So, what about setting up a 3-unit Linux render farm which you feed the data into that open-source version of Pixar's renderer (blue something?) and get the outputted file in .avi, .jpg, whatever? Would that work? How?
 
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