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Using a second computer as a video card

I

inkbrush

Member
Hey everyone,
Thought I wuld suggest a very speculative idea. By the way, I am still learning and do not know much about computers, so forgive my ignorance. Looking at how expensive high-end video cards are and how inexpensive older models of cpu's are, I started wondering if you can build a second computer with some inexpensive components and connect it to the main computer to function as a high-end video card. An old AMD Athlon XP processor, motherboard, and 256 MB memory could be bought for less than $150, I think.

Has anyone tried doing this? What are your thoughts on this? What kind of limitations - excluding space, of course - would restrict people from using a second computer as a video card?

 
Well - You've got to build a device that can transfer the data fast enough, you've got to build proprietary new i/o for this device. You've got to write a new OS (/driver) for the video card/computer...

It's just a mess.
 
Sure, the parts can be had, who's gonna write the drivers/software/tech support? You?

And how do you plan to get paid for your efforts?
 
First off, it's not possible.

Second, if a CPU could process graphics data faster than a video card, they wouldn't use video "GPUs"

A video card processor is a specialized unit dedicated to only doing one job, where as a CPU is designed to do almost any task. Typical "jack of all trades master of none"

A video card is a highly optimized, very parallel processor. Modern day video cards have much much higher memory bandwidth than CPUs. How many CPUs have a 256 bit bus to super high speed memory in large quantities (256-512MB)? None. Modern day video cards equal or exceed the number of transistors of modern CPUs.

Simply put, a video card is far far more powerful than a CPU, but only for its one task. Trying to make a video card out of a CPU would be extremely difficult (someone already mentioned driver support) and in the end the performance would be terrible.
 
Originally posted by: Varun


Simply put, a video card is far far more powerful than a CPU, but only for its one task. Trying to make a video card out of a CPU would be extremely difficult (someone already mentioned driver support) and in the end the performance would be terrible.
Click to expand...

Similarly making a CPU out of a GPU would not be possible.

The best possible way to get good graphics for $150 is to buy a $150 graphics card.
 
Take example, 3DMark05. Look at the CPU tests, check your framerate. Then look at a GPU's framerate. Notice the GPU processes video data much, much faster?
 
Kensai - I assume a lot of that is due to issues with simple firmware/software - I mean, the CPU also has to deal with the HDD, the OS, all the background processes, etc, and isn't inherently designed to do that sort of rendering... I mean, there's no way that a video card can actually be more POWERFUL, is there?
 
Originally posted by: ruffilb
Kensai - I assume a lot of that is due to issues with simple firmware/software - I mean, the CPU also has to deal with the HDD, the OS, all the background processes, etc, and isn't inherently designed to do that sort of rendering... I mean, there's no way that a video card can actually be more POWERFUL, is there?
Click to expand...

Far more powerful, but only for its one task. You said it yourself - "and isn't inherently designed to do that sort of rendering"
 
Think of it as distributed computing, so it is possible. but it'd cost too much to do so. The software needed would cost a few hundred to a few hundred grand. The hardware to do so would cost a few hundred.

caveat, the GPUs are designed differently that CPUs. The old athlon you're talking about would be slower.
 
Originally posted by: Varun
First off, it's not possible.

Second, if a CPU could process graphics data faster than a video card, they wouldn't use video "GPUs"

A video card processor is a specialized unit dedicated to only doing one job, where as a CPU is designed to do almost any task. Typical "jack of all trades master of none"

A video card is a highly optimized, very parallel processor. Modern day video cards have much much higher memory bandwidth than CPUs. How many CPUs have a 256 bit bus to super high speed memory in large quantities (256-512MB)? None. Modern day video cards equal or exceed the number of transistors of modern CPUs.

Simply put, a video card is far far more powerful than a CPU, but only for its one task. Trying to make a video card out of a CPU would be extremely difficult (someone already mentioned driver support) and in the end the performance would be terrible.
Click to expand...

Trying to make a video card out of a general purpose processor would be easy. It was done in the past (see software renderers). However, one thing you would need for good performance would be a data interconnect link as fast (bandwidth AND delay) as an 4X AGP port (or PCIE 4x something), and as mentioned, the general purpose processors lack the performance needed for highly intensive video tasks.
 
Originally posted by: ruffilb
Kensai - I assume a lot of that is due to issues with simple firmware/software - I mean, the CPU also has to deal with the HDD, the OS, all the background processes, etc, and isn't inherently designed to do that sort of rendering... I mean, there's no way that a video card can actually be more POWERFUL, is there?
Click to expand...

A video card IS more powerful - but only for some tasks. A video card excels in taking "pixels" at one end, applying transformations (fixed or preprogrammed), and getting them out at the other end. A CPU has nowhere near that FPU power, its internal design is more optimized for non-linear task flow and has not enough memory bandwidth to read/write to its external memory all the data a GPU can process.
Have you heard about ideas of making the GPU some kind of "graphic calculation coprocessor"? Programs like 3D Studio could get 10 times the speed of software, CPU-based renderer using the hardware, GPU-based rendering on recent video cards.
 
Well Calin, comparing apples to oranges I see 😉

Any way, what you ask is out of this world as far as possibility goes.
 
I've thought - for years - about doing the same thing only for hard disk controllers, or other on-board functions.

Imagine using a PIII (nevermind the size for now) and 512M of PC133 RAM on a raid controller. A small CMOS to carry an OS for the PIII, and suddenly you've got a highly intelligent, inexpensive RAID controller built from highly obtainable, recycled parts. It'd probably need a power connection as well.

As for the OP, I can see many reasons why that wouldn't, given the power needed for pixel processing outweighs the current heft of CPUs, but the opposite is true for intelligent disk controlling - and maybe for other uses as well.
 
There is software that allows you to use 1 or more networked computers as video adapters, but it's not high performance and an additional computer to support just another monitor would cost more than buying another video card for the current computer in question.
 
Wow, thanks for all the responses. As I said before, I don't know much about computers. I just thought since the CPU is a general purpose processor, it could be modified to handle very specific tasks, i.e. graphic processing. I thought video cards were so expensive because they contain great amount of processing power in a relatively small space. My idea was that if we do not have space as a limitation, people could come up with a lot more economic solutions. I feel funny that the latest GPU's easily outprice most mainstream processors out there.
 
Yes, but the latest and greatest CPU easily outprices the latest and greatest GPU.
And space is not a limitation - if you put together the CPU and its RAM (this being almost everything needed for a video card), you end up with just as much area as a graphic card (give or take a bit).
What consumes a lot of space on a graphic card (on the greatest graphic cards, I assume) are both power circuitry and very wide memory busses (it take some space to have all the 256 lines for memory access, or better call it data paths to memory, addresses and commands add to this another 30 or so lines.
 
Originally posted by: inkbrush
Wow, thanks for all the responses. As I said before, I don't know much about computers. I just thought since the CPU is a general purpose processor, it could be modified to handle very specific tasks, i.e. graphic processing. I thought video cards were so expensive because they contain great amount of processing power in a relatively small space. My idea was that if we do not have space as a limitation, people could come up with a lot more economic solutions. I feel funny that the latest GPU's easily outprice most mainstream processors out there.
Click to expand...

We're all here to learn. =)
 
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