phaxmohdem
Golden Member
alrighty, get out your thinking caps. I've got a project on my hands. I am a fairly avid 3D adnimator and I use Lightwave 7.0 to do my dirty work (Using Screamernet II) I have a poor mans render farm I am building right now
http://69.242.135.143/misc/neo2.jpg
And I am currently using my web-server as the command computer during rendering to dish out the frames to the different computers in the "cluster" for rendering. My web-server is nothing special, Dually PPro 200 1MB with 512MB ram, but it works very well for rendering. HOWEVER I would like to not centralize the task of divying up frames to my web-server since, I cannot update web pages without risking crashing the Screamernet program.
I recently made a terrific find, and picked up a neoware Capio 800 unit
http://69.242.135.143/misc/neo1.jpg
This unit has 256MB RAM and Windows XP Embedded. IT runs on a Geode XS1 Processor at 300 MHz and puts out virtually no heat, and is extremely energy efficient. IT has 2 USB 1.1 ports up front and some sort of smart card reader. 10/100 ethernet port, parallel port, sound, VGA, 2 - PS2 ports are in the back. Now I would like to use this as my control computer for lightwave rendering on my little cluster but I have a couple issues I need help with.
First off I can't log in as administrator in this unit as I do not have the password. Does anybody know how to clear the password off Win XP Embedded edition? Also as this unit does not have a hard drive, I need suggestions on some storage space to install the lightwave software required for Screamernet to run (About 80MB or so). I was thinking possible getting a 128MB thumb drive, or making a RAMdisk partition... Is this possible?
I'm wanting to mount this little guy next to my 4 port KVM ontop of the 3 render boxes to have a self contained render farm. Any suggestions for my quest are appreciated, and help on the problems at hand. Thanks guys, this Anand crowd rawks.
http://69.242.135.143/misc/neo2.jpg
And I am currently using my web-server as the command computer during rendering to dish out the frames to the different computers in the "cluster" for rendering. My web-server is nothing special, Dually PPro 200 1MB with 512MB ram, but it works very well for rendering. HOWEVER I would like to not centralize the task of divying up frames to my web-server since, I cannot update web pages without risking crashing the Screamernet program.
I recently made a terrific find, and picked up a neoware Capio 800 unit
http://69.242.135.143/misc/neo1.jpg
This unit has 256MB RAM and Windows XP Embedded. IT runs on a Geode XS1 Processor at 300 MHz and puts out virtually no heat, and is extremely energy efficient. IT has 2 USB 1.1 ports up front and some sort of smart card reader. 10/100 ethernet port, parallel port, sound, VGA, 2 - PS2 ports are in the back. Now I would like to use this as my control computer for lightwave rendering on my little cluster but I have a couple issues I need help with.
First off I can't log in as administrator in this unit as I do not have the password. Does anybody know how to clear the password off Win XP Embedded edition? Also as this unit does not have a hard drive, I need suggestions on some storage space to install the lightwave software required for Screamernet to run (About 80MB or so). I was thinking possible getting a 128MB thumb drive, or making a RAMdisk partition... Is this possible?
I'm wanting to mount this little guy next to my 4 port KVM ontop of the 3 render boxes to have a self contained render farm. Any suggestions for my quest are appreciated, and help on the problems at hand. Thanks guys, this Anand crowd rawks.
