Render Farm(On the cheap)

-Ben-Ben
edited August 2004 in Hardware
Hi guys, I am seriously intrested in building a render farm for worldcraft(half life) Some of the maps i am working on at the moment are taking 2 hours to compile. And some of the maps my MOD's other mappers have taken over 5 hours to compile!

So I really need suggestions on how to get this all working. At the moment i have my main machine(64 3000, 1 gig-o-ram) And i have my older more senile computer ;)(Duron 1000, 256 Ram) I am intrested in Geekys Dual 400mhz xeons(I am just awaiting Gabe Newells answer to wether worldcrafts network compiler takes advantage of dual CPU's)

So what would be you're suggestions guys? How would i set up the network? Can i just have 1 copy of windows 2000 network booting with 1 harddrive booting the whole shizbang? Can i have 1 high wattage PSU with splitters powering the whole operation?

I do not need power the 3000 with the PSU ;) Or the Duron.

Any help would be appreciated guys :D

Comments

  • ArmoArmo Mr. Nice Guy Is Dead,Only Aqua Remains Member
    edited August 2004
    the xeon box would most likly benifit from being its own entitiy with its own hard drive and power supply, but you might wanna see what other poeples think :)

    you may beable to send the uncompiled maps over the lan to the Xeon box and use a remote client like RealVNC to take control of the xeon from ur main rig and compile thusly, if u get the xeons let us know how long they take as opposed to the duron.
  • -Ben-Ben
    edited August 2004
    Hehe,

    Yeh i was thinking the Xeons would be the "top level" box.

    Worldcraft uses it's own network compiler so i just setup the machine and when i go to compile. It will look on the network for other rigs that have the client software installed and use them.
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