> If you really want speed, Silicon Graphics has a motherboard that can
support
> 256 alpha RISC CPU's which are now running at 1,000 mhz for a total speed
of
> 256,000 mhz. Better have some really deep pockets for this.

Sillygon Graphics have an ALPHA cpu running at a 1000Mhz,,

I thought digital (compaq) uses/builds alpha processors and SGI uses MIPS
(R12K being the latest edition, running at 300Mhz), and a SINGLE motherboard
supporting 256 CPU's, I know that their deskside origin2000 sports 1-4 node
cards, 2-8 cpu's. And an Origin2000 rack system can house 1-256 node cards,
2-512 cpu's (R10K or R12K), but that's the entire rack-system, not a single
motherboard.

Could you please give some details on this?

Regards, Jens Berg Churchill.

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On Sat, 24 Jul 1999 20:44:02 -0700, Ken <tyl### [at] pacbellnet> wrote:

>Quality of the images produced but direct X and openGL
>are inferior to Pov's raytracing methods anyway and I personaly think it
>would be a step backward.

  True, Ken. These cards are great for their intended use but we would see
no advantage. I don't think that incorporating OpenGL into POV-Ray would be
anything to crow about. We've already fast previews with more control by
using the quality switches (+q). OpenGL might be better suited to displays
from modeling programs, although I like Moray just the way it is now.

-- 
Alan
--------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.povray.org - Home of the Persistence of Vision Ray Tracer
news.povray.org - where POV-Ray enthusiasts around the world can get
together to exchange ideas, information, and experiences with others
--------------------------------------------------------------------

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Alan Kong wrote:
> 
> On Sat, 24 Jul 1999 20:44:02 -0700, Ken <tyl### [at] pacbellnet> wrote:
> 
> >Quality of the images produced but direct X and openGL
> >are inferior to Pov's raytracing methods anyway and I personaly think it
> >would be a step backward.
> 
>   True, Ken. These cards are great for their intended use but we would see
> no advantage. I don't think that incorporating OpenGL into POV-Ray would be
> anything to crow about. We've already fast previews with more control by
> using the quality switches (+q). OpenGL might be better suited to displays
> from modeling programs, although I like Moray just the way it is now.
> 
> --
> Alan

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 :)

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

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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

Post a reply to this message

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 -*/

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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 -*/

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