Yes networking is easy.  As long as it is with winsows.  I can't get
linux to see my NIC because it is a 9.99 special.  But dual processors
will not speed up POV if I'm correct.  Does POV use treads?  If it does
it would benefit from mulitple processors.  

I heard someone is makeing an eight processor motherboard for the AMD
K7.


Bill DeWitt wrote:
> 
> Steve <ste### [at] puzzlecraftcom> wrote in message
> news:379AF3E8.AF37E7C3@puzzlecraft.com...
> >
> >
> > A low budget solution is to get a dual Pentium Dell server and run it as a
> > workstation.
> >
> 
>     Can you elaborate on this a little? I have been having some sort of
> thought like this... getting a box and a motherboard and a network card and
> using that box to do nothing but renders. No keyboard, monitor, mouse,
> soundcard, videocard, with smallest possible HD, lots of RAM...
> 
>     But, since I have never done any networking but some serial port copying
> of HDs...

Post a reply to this message

In article <379B5723.6CD9C078@pilot.msu.edu> , Nick Portelli 
<por### [at] pilotmsuedu>  wrote:

> Yes networking is easy.  As long as it is with winsows.  I can't get
> linux to see my NIC because it is a 9.99 special.  But dual processors
> will not speed up POV if I'm correct.  Does POV use treads?  If it does
> it would benefit from mulitple processors.

You can start POV-Ray several times.


     Thorsten


____________________________________________________
Thorsten Froehlich, Duisburg, Germany
e-mail: tho### [at] trfde

Visit POV-Ray on the web: http://mac.povray.org

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Graham Redway wrote:

> What Bill is suggesting is buying a server similar too those found in
> offices and running povray on that. What you're thinking of is buying a
> bare-bones system to run POV. If you did that you'd still need the
> keyboard, mouse and videocard (at the very least to install Windows
> etc.) but you could save on the monitor by having a switch box (using
> your existing monitor) or running it remotely using a piece of software
> such as CarbonCopy. Networking is getting very cheap and what you're
> suggesting is entierly possible, all you would need is the two network
> cards, a cable and the software (Windows.) I've been doing this
> successfully for nearly a year and only had a few minor problems.
>
>         Graham.
>

Well, if you go with Linux you might be able to skip all that. No mouse needed at
all. Keyboard and monitor need only be connect if you are doing a simple
installation (i.e. default off the RedHat CD).

At my prior company, we had a product that was a linux-based small office server.
To configure each box all we had to do was have it hooked to the network and a
serial port. I believe that we'd just connect to the serial port to enter a
machine name and IP address for our install script (running from a boot floppy),
then everything else was automatic. No need for monitor, keyboard or mouse. We
did have a video card, but I'm not sure if that was completely necessary, or just
default on the boxes we were buying.

BTW, I setup a system here at home quickly with a $15 cheapie network card from
Fry's. The main trick was just needing to figure out which driver to use (found
the chip listed then everything else went quickly). I didn't even configure the
graphical display on the system. When I needed to run a graphical configuration
tool, I just telneted in from my main machine, set the display environment
variable to name that main work machine, and then the X display from the new
computer was running on my main computer no problem. Don't even have a monitor
switch box here (but I did use a spare monitor for the initial setup). Gee,
Linux/Unix is quite handy.

--
"My new computer's got the clocks, it rocks
But it was obsolete before I opened the box" - W.A.Y.

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Nick Portelli wrote in message <379B5723.6CD9C078@pilot.msu.edu>...
>Yes networking is easy.  As long as it is with winsows.  I can't get
>linux to see my NIC because it is a 9.99 special.  But dual processors
>will not speed up POV if I'm correct.  Does POV use treads?  If it does
>it would benefit from mulitple processors.
>
>I heard someone is makeing an eight processor motherboard for the AMD
>K7.


You could use PVMPov.  I think it can handle multiple processors on one
machine.

Mark

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Ken wrote in message <379B48A0.5961D6C2@pacbell.net>...
>I think I summed it up very well in the VFAQ. If you want to play games and
>mpeg movies on your system then by all means buy a good harware accelerated
>graphics card. If speed is a concern in raytracing then buy a fast
processor,
>with a mother board the has a fast buss, good amounts of level one and 2
cache
>memory for swapping out instructions, and tons of fast system ram. Then sit
>back and wait cause raytracing is a slow process no matter what kind of
system
>you can afford to buy :)


Actually, there is one system that can raytrace in real time, using
massively parallel processing -- the real world.  Anyone know where I can
buy one? :-)

Mark

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Steve <ste### [at] puzzlecraftcom> wrote:
: If you really want speed, Silicon Graphics has a motherboard that can support
: 256 alpha RISC CPU's

  Too bad the official povray can't be run in multiple processors...

-- 
main(i,_){for(_?--i,main(i+2,"FhhQHFIJD|FQTITFN]zRFHhhTBFHhhTBFysdB"[i]
):5;i&&_>1;printf("%s",_-70?_&1?"[]":" ":(_=0,"\n")),_/=2);} /*- Warp -*/

Post a reply to this message

As others have stated, povray will probably never benefit from this card.

  Moreover, the official povray will probably _never_ benefit from _any_
card (as long as compilers can't optimize code for them). Povray is intended
to be portable. This means that it has to be compilable in any standard
compiler.
  The only way povray could benefit from an acceleration card would be:
a) if the compiler can automatically create optimized code for that specific
card, or b) if you create your own custom compile with inline assembler
optimizations (which is not portable anymore).
  AFAIK, no such graphics cards exist nowadays. The 3D graphics cards used
nowadays are pretty useless to povray even if you wanted to optimize it for
them.

-- 
main(i,_){for(_?--i,main(i+2,"FhhQHFIJD|FQTITFN]zRFHhhTBFHhhTBFysdB"[i]
):5;i&&_>1;printf("%s",_-70?_&1?"[]":" ":(_=0,"\n")),_/=2);} /*- Warp -*/

Post a reply to this message

Mark Wagner wrote:
> 
> Ken wrote in message <379B48A0.5961D6C2@pacbell.net>...
> >I think I summed it up very well in the VFAQ. If you want to play games and
> >mpeg movies on your system then by all means buy a good harware accelerated
> >graphics card. If speed is a concern in raytracing then buy a fast
> processor,
> >with a mother board the has a fast buss, good amounts of level one and 2
> cache
> >memory for swapping out instructions, and tons of fast system ram. Then sit
> >back and wait cause raytracing is a slow process no matter what kind of
> system
> >you can afford to buy :)
> 
> Actually, there is one system that can raytrace in real time, using
> massively parallel processing -- the real world.  Anyone know where I can
> buy one? :-)
> 
> Mark

The system or a "real" world ?

-- 
Ken Tyler
  
mailto://tylereng@pacbell.net
http://home.pacbell.net/tylereng/links.htm

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On Sun, 25 Jul 1999 06:24:25 -0500, Steve <ste### [at] puzzlecraftcom>
wrote:
[snip]
>A low budget solution is to get a dual Pentium Dell server and run it as a
>workstation.
>
I know NT can split it's workload, to some degree, between CPU's - but
IIRC POV-Ray itself doesn't support multiple CPU's so is there an
appreciable benefit from a dual-processor PC? Or is there another OS
(Linux?) which can make better use of the 2nd CPU with it's flavour of
POV?


Cheers,

Cliff Bowman
Why not pay my 3D Dr Who site a visit at http://www.who3d.cwc.net/
PS change ".duffcom" to ".net" if replying via e-mail

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You can always run multiple copies of POV, and even with one copy, it
gets most of one processor with less system overhead. Maybe POV-Ray will
be threaded in POV 4.

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