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Renderfarm Setup Tips?

Posted by Cliff on from the engineering-massive-raster-output dept.

CarlosOlivaG4 asks: "We're in the process of acquiring and setting up a renderfarm, and I'm hoping the Slashdot community might light us up a little here. We'll use 6 to 8 nodes first, but would like to be able to expand it in the future." There was an earlier version of this question, but it dealt more with the hardware of the farm's nodes, rather than the network and software infrastructure on which these nodes would be based.

"In the hardware side, we still haven't made a choice between using AMD's Opteron or Apple's Xserve G5 (they have some very nice and price convenient cluster nodes which seem to be ideal for this kind of job), with Linux. As for the networking between them, is Gigaethernet enough or should we be going for Fiber? The software used to manage the render queues is another important point as well: I've been looking into Rush, and even though it's a commercial package, it works on all of the platforms we currently use (W2k/XP, Irix, OS X and Linux). But then there is also Dr. Queue, which is open source and is supported on at least the *NIX members of the aforementioned OS's. Other options include RenderPal and Pixar's RenderMan, but I would prefer an F/OSS alternative. Finally, it's worth noting that we'll be using the renderfarm for Maya and Adobe AfterEffects."

8 of 253 comments (clear)

  1. Simple by hanssprudel · · Score: 2, Funny


    (a) Wait for the next new processor technology to hit Slashdot.

    (b) Build a Beowulf cluster of those.

    1. Re:Simple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny
      Build a Beowulf cluster of those.


      I imagined someone would say that...

  2. [OT] Re: Simple by Mick+Ohrberg · · Score: 1, Funny

    (c) Profit!

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    Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

  3. Oops. by Mr.+Bad+Example · · Score: 4, Funny

    My subconscious desire to get out of the computer field as a career must be surfacing--I read this as "reindeer farm". Then reality set back in and I almost made a lame "LapLANder" joke before tasering myself.

  4. Light us up by Reckless+Visionary · · Score: 4, Funny
    I'm hoping the Slashdot community might light us up a little here.

    Light us up the bomb!

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    I think I'll stop here.
  5. Re:My $0.02.. by Selecter · · Score: 2, Funny
    Damn, Motley Cluster is a hell of a name for a band....

  6. Re:Cinelerra by vk2 · · Score: 1, Funny

    Wow - you just made a karmafarm there..

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    No Sig for you.!
  7. Re:I had a related question by boomgopher · · Score: 1, Funny

    "How do you deal with terabytes of data (50+ TB), all in a single directory tree, all must be accessible to every node?"

    Easy! Just use Gnome 2.6 - it has super-duper spatial browser behavior. All your troubles will be solved.

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    Your hybrid is not saving the environment. Its purpose is to make you feel good about buying something.