Working on a mac & using pc power ??

[sketchbook]

i secone this question. i am in the same situation.

[Srek]

Hi,
take a look here: http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=167745
and a search here: http://www.cgtalk.com/forumdisplay.php?f=23
If you go for a SFF Barebone you will only need Processor, RAM, Harddisk
and optical drive.
As for RAM, more then 2 Gig is not very usefull on PC. What you realy need depends on your scene so there is no way to tell. If possbile check the memory consumption you get on current projects, that should give you a hint.
Cheers
Srek

[MJV]

Will more than 2 gigs of RAM not help when switching between multiple apps, such as from Cinema to After Effects to Photoshop, when they're all open at the same time?

Hi,
take a look here: http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=167745
and a search here: http://www.cgtalk.com/forumdisplay.php?f=23
If you go for a SFF Barebone you will only need Processor, RAM, Harddisk
and optical drive.
As for RAM, more then 2 Gig is not very usefull on PC. What you realy need depends on your scene so there is no way to tell. If possbile check the memory consumption you get on current projects, that should give you a hint.
Cheers
Srek

[brammelo]

Will more than 2 gigs of RAM not help when switching between multiple apps, such as from Cinema to After Effects to Photoshop, when they're all open at the same time?
Why would you be switching between AE, PS and C4D on a renderfarm?

[MJV]

Why would you be switching between AE, PS and C4D on a renderfarm?
Yeah right I didn't pay attention to the original question and sorry for going off topic, but just curious.

[Srek]

Will more than 2 gigs of RAM not help when switching between multiple apps, such as from Cinema to After Effects to Photoshop, when they're all open at the same time? Hi Michael,
most likely it will only help if you use the /3GB switch since otherwise Windows will only use up to 2GP for all apps and will use VM to fill the rest up. Not realy sure about this though.
Cheers
Srek

[fluffouille]

Yes, WInXP seems to only manage 2Gigs of Ram from what I heard.
Not cool, but if you had the nodes running on Linux, it would be fine.
So far, I don't think Maxon supports Linux, at least not officially and only on R9 version, so I shut up :)

Otherwise, you can run on 1Gig without any problems if you don't use big post effects like depth of field, glow and stuff like that.

You can always add Ram later too (most of the SFF take only 2GB anyway)...

[acmepixel]

hopefully this has changed in r9. but in 8.5 and earlier, all the ram in the world won't make a bit of difference in large renderings of post effects like object glow, motion blur,etc. , since there is a maximum render of 4096 pixels. I currently have to render effects passes at 4094 pixels then enlarge them using Genuine Fractals. Not a problem for animators, but those of us doing large output for print, have this limitation. And splitting up the image across multi-cpu's won't help either, until Maxon repeals the 4096 limit, which is quite severe since that is less than a standard magazine spread size of 5100 pixels. Makes it a real pain to do billboards with post-effects.

as for pc render boxes, a large, fast hd is more important than maximum ram, 1536 or 2048 ram is plenty. and since a mac g5 is the workstation, it would also be great to have firewire ports on the pc's for quick transfers to/from an external fw hd. i've heard it's best to go all intel p4's and avoid mixing cpu's. seems to keep c4d-net happy, that way.

[fluffouille]

It keeps it happy with Thinking particules and effects like Shave for example, because different processors types output different calculations.
One thing I don't understand : you advise him to buy large and fast HD for the clients, but it will need it only one on the server as that's where the images are stocked once rendered?
I think a small 40Gigs HD at 7200RPM is more than enough in case the server crashes. It will let the clients finish their current frame and stock it on their own drive..

An external HD with firewire is definitely a good thing, that's true :)

For the post effects size, would it help to animate an offset of the camera if you have 8.5? Because that's the only way to go around the 16000 pixels limitation for standard image, maybe that would also apply to effects?

[acmepixel]

One thing I don't understand : you advise him to buy large and fast HD for the clients, but it will need it only one on the server as that's where the images are stocked once rendered?
I think a small 40Gigs HD at 7200RPM is more than enough in case the server crashes. It will let the clients finish their current frame and stock it on their own drive..?

A sign of my age :hmm: A 40 gig 7200 drive IS a large and fast drive, to someone like me from the 400k floppy era. :) But my reason is that WinXP uses the drive for memory caching, as does c4d-net, so you want a fast one.

Another thing I forgot to mention is Gigabit ethernet built in, would also be nice since it is standard on the mid to high end Mac g5's.

[MJV]

A sign of my age :hmm: A 40 gig 7200 drive IS a large and fast drive, to someone like me from the 400k floppy era. :) But my reason is that WinXP uses the drive for memory caching, as does c4d-net, so you want a fast one.

Another thing I forgot to mention is Gigabit ethernet built in, would also be nice since it is standard on the mid to high end Mac g5's. But if Cinema can only use two Gigs of memory, then there would be no caching provided you've got two gigs of RAM, right? Also, is there a way to tell WinXP which disk to use for memory caching? Thanks.

[jorgevaldes]

Another thing I forgot to mention is Gigabit ethernet built in, would also be nice since it is standard on the mid to high end Mac g5's.
Agreed, we had to rent a Gigabit switch at work for a project because each shot used up to 3 gb of textures, and with the normal 100 mbit ethernet it took quite a while to transfer to all the g5s rendering.

But after that , with the gigabit network.. it was lightning fast

[MJV]

Hi Michael,
most likely it will only help if you use the /3GB switch since otherwise Windows will only use up to 2GP for all apps and will use VM to fill the rest up. Not realy sure about this though.
Cheers
Srek
That's not good. I do a lot of switching between Cinema and After Effects and was hoping that adding more ram might help but from your answer I guess not.

[rizon]

Thanks all for the mass of info... still abit confusing but this is what i filtered out of the threads...

is this the way to go?

Motherboard
_socket 478 or micro-ATX motherboard

ATI graphic card

Gigabit ethernet built in

CPU
_P4 HT 3.0Ghz

Memory
_2Gig DDR Ram PC3200

Hard Drive
_40Gigs hard drive

Case
_Aria Antec

Cooler
_Zalman fan

OS
_WinXP or linux

[dAfTiE]

Looks like a decent setup,I really don't know much about Intel CPUs and the available chipsets and mobos for them,
but they should be fast,and not too expensive.
For the OS,I'd go for windows,for sure.
Unless you have a good working knowledge of linux and wine,it might prove to be more trouble than it's worth.
In fact,I've never been a fan of Wine...never noticed any significant improvements in speed or stability compared to running the app in windows,
and in the long run one botched job can cost more than a bundle purchase of some win licenses.
That being said,I'd absolutely LOVE seeing Net ported to native linux code...would rock.

[acmepixel]

Yeah, XP or XP pro is pretty stable. (even on a Mac). As for Net on Linux, since it already runs on Unix (Apple Mach Kernel) I don't see why it wouldn't be easy to port to Linux.
That would certainly make an impression on the bigger houses that all use Linux render farms.

MV; I'm not sure how XP memory caching works but it's probably similar to the Mac OS in that it provides extra virtual ram when an app needs more than the system has available. And Cinema is not limited to 2 Gigs of memory. I have only 2 Gigs in my G4 running OSX and I've never had a memory limit problem with C4D, and I use 300dpi texture maps, and make very large renders.

As for the point of this thread, someone on another thread turned me onto a PC cloner that makes a very attractive box suitable for render farms:

http://us.shuttle.com/SB83G5.asp

very quiet, stackable, reasonable price, front panel firewire ports. On my wishlist for next years' budget :D

[fluffouille]

Thanks all for the mass of info... still abit confusing but this is what i filtered out of the threads...

is this the way to go?

Motherboard
_socket 478 or micro-ATX motherboard

ATI graphic card

Gigabit ethernet built in

CPU
_P4 HT 3.0Ghz

Memory
_2Gig DDR Ram PC3200

Hard Drive
_40Gigs hard drive

Case
_Aria Antec

Cooler
_Zalman fan

OS
_WinXP or linuxYep, that's what I got, pretty good and cheap setup.
Go for WinXP, because Maxon don't officialy support Linux/Wine, so better take the safe road as said Daftie.
I took two P4 HT 3Ghz 800Mhz FSB Prescott. They are nice, but hot, and in such a small case, you will have to pay attention to that. If you can, go for the Northwood for that reason, otherwise the Prescott is good, especially with the Zalman fan and heatsink which are really efficient.
I did a small test :
- idle, the processors are roughly 55 Celsius degrees
- when rendering, they reach 65/68 C degrees
If I open a panel from the case on the processor side, I lose 10 C degrees overall, which is good for the processor, but not really a way to go when you deal with computers :D (well, the computers are ok, but it's better to have the case closed).
Depending on which motherboard you buy, the graphic card will be included, which should fit your needs for the clients, but most of the time you can add a big one if you want. The Aria Antec comes with a low speed / low noise blower for that purpose, cool feature.
You can also add a gigabit Ethernet card if the motherboard doesn't come with one (they usually come with 100Mbits cards). Keep in mind that the space is tight, and you should make sure that everything fits in place. You won't have any trouble with the heatsink and fan as they are not big, but you should check the PCI/AGP slots and see if that fits with the cables and all - it should.

Other than that, that's what I did and I'm happy about that setup, I hope you'll like it too :)

Shuttle barebones are good too, but as they come with a specific moterboard, you won't be able to upgrade anything. It all depends on what you intend to do with these, and how long you want to keep them ;)

[squidinc]

Also, is there a way to tell WinXP which disk to use for memory caching? Thanks.

right click on my computer > properties > advanced tab > performance settings button > another advanced tab > and then the change virtual memory button

the you can turn off virtual memory on c: and move it to somewhere else if need be

[MJV]

Thanks! :thumbsup:

right click on my computer > properties > advanced tab > performance settings button > another advanced tab > and then the change virtual memory button

the you can turn off virtual memory on c: and move it to somewhere else if need be

[sketchbook]

i like this thread...

question: firewire external drives - i did not know that something formatted for pc will work on mac, and vice versa. does it work on both? that would be great.

thanks

[acmepixel]

Macs can read PC formats but not the other way around. Transfer disks can be formatted on the PC side and the Mac can read it (or be made to).


BTW, Microsoft has announced the release of Virtual PC 7 which is Mac G5 compatible now.

[rizon]

I just received an offer... what do you think?

Pentium 4/3.0GHz 478P 800MHz 0.09u 1MB
_232,08 Euro
Sapphire ATI 9600SE Atl AGP Tv-out, DVI, 128mb DDR21
_74,19 Euro
Maxtor 40 GB 7200 rpm 9ms 2Mb Cache
_50,80 Euro
Microsoft OEM MS Windows XP Professional NL21158,0915
_140,00 Euro
D875PBZLKD875PBZL/S478 i875P FSB800 DDR400 SATA RAID USB2 ATX A/
_158,09 Euro
Samcheer TX950 Black with Airtube 300W
_53,75 Euro
Memory/1GB kit DDR400 PC3200
_346,20 Euro
Assemblage PC
_94,03 Euro

Total excl. taxes: 1.149,14
Total incl. taxes: 1.390,46

[rendermania]

a) you're getting screwed on the RAM big time (check pricewatch.com to see how much 1gig costs these days b) there is absolutely no point in building your own P4 rendernodes when you can get them just as cheap, fully configured and with full warranty from companies like Dell:

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/desktops_Q3_W6_dimen_8400_D0925?c=de&cs=dedhs1&l=de&s=dhs

DIY only makes sense if you have special requirements or you can get components cheaper than companies like Dell (which is often not the case, because they buy everything in bulk quantities of thousands, not one at a time).

If you are gonna go the DIY route, that only makes sense if you wanna build dual machines, because they are considered 'workstation' or 'server' class, and get priced up accordingly, even if the components are really cheap these days. I'm running on dual Xeons these days and my next machine is definitely going to be a quad board that recycles my existing Xeons. Matter of preference, but I like my CPUs to accelerate other aspects of my work (cloth, particles, dynamics, preview renders with full AA), not just sit there for when network/background rendering is needed.

[rizon]

Thanks it did look expensive to me too...
Howcome that those barebones seems so cheap? they offer them for like 350 Euro?

this what dell offered me for a 4 set-up

4 times:
Dimension 4600 P4 HT Technology 3.0 GHZ 800fsb 1MB cache
2*256 DDR400 Dual channel Memory (2x128)
40 GB / 7200rpm Hard drive
XP home

Total excl. taxes: 2400 Euro

4 times:
Optiplex GX280 Small Desktop - P4 530 (3.0 GHZ / 800MHz, Int NIC)
2 GB 400 MHz DDR 2 Memory (4*512)
40 GB / 7200rpm Hard drive
XP pro

Total excl. taxes: 4000 Euro

[rendermania]

That second price doesn't look too bad to me, considering that it includes 4 x XP pro and 2Gb RAM each, although I'd ask them if they can make that 2 x 1G RAM chips, not 4x512Mb. how much is tax though? :) I'd shop around some more, call the other big PC vendors and see if they can go lower.

I'd say that the advantage of getting Dell's or similar rather than no-brand computer is:

1) somebody has already checked whether the hardware, software drivers and everything else works together ok

2) its much easier to sell a used Dell Optiplex or similar second hand if you ever need to, than it is to sell a no-brand computer.

3) it should be easier to network and maintain four identical Dell's (or troubleshoot them), and I presume you'll get warranty, tech support and stuff like system restore and driver disks with them in case something goes wrong.

what else is in the offer though? they should have USB, firewire, ethernet, DVD-ROM drives, floppy and similar stuff as standard.

[dann_stubbs]

I'm running on dual Xeons these days and my next machine is definitely going to be a quad board that recycles my existing Xeons. Matter of preference, but I like my CPUs to accelerate other aspects of my work (cloth, particles, dynamics, preview renders with full AA), not just sit there for when network/background rendering is needed.

reusing your existing xeons will most likely give you problems - to have duals or quads the mb recommends they be from the same batch - much like everything else in computer land - everything is always being tweaked and revised - even silicon chips.

even if you purchased two matching new xeons to add to your exisiting two xeons - i would be wary of problems mixing two different pairs - just something you should research before you make the assumption it will work fine.

dann

[CGTalk Moderation]

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.