hardware components for effective Distributed rendering

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rpmaguire
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Joined: 04 Feb 2013, 05:54
Skype: eyekeystudio

hardware components for effective Distributed rendering

Post by rpmaguire » 30 Mar 2014, 08:54

Hello,
I have recently set up a small Distributed rendering setup. The master has an I7 4-core. The slaves are two I3 4-cores, & two intel Duo-cores.
With the four slaves added the render time has only been cut in about half, I would have thought IT would have been more than that. Which makes me wonder about bottlenecks in the communication.
Will cross-over cables speed up the communication, I am using CAT5 cables as of now. Also the master & two of the slaves CPU's have hyperthreading capability.. WHich I have enabled.

I'm not too worried about this setup. But I want to build one similar to : http://www.finalmethod.com/blog/formula-5-is-alive/

Can anyone inform me on what components are needed to provide efficient flow of communication between master and slaves?

- Network adapter im assuming has to be as fast as can be, as well as network HUB...
- Motherboard's frontside bus speed...
- Cache speed for CPU?
- Fast RAM & SSD drive

I read somewhere THat 2GB of RAM per core will suffice.
Since mental ray only allows four satellites for rendering... I was thinking four I7- 6-cores... Judging by finalmethod's website I estimate It will cost around $1000 per node.
any suggestions.?

Thanks,
RYan

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origin
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Joined: 09 Jun 2009, 11:59
Location: warsaw

Re: hardware components for effective Distributed rendering

Post by origin » 30 Mar 2014, 10:24

you have crap renderslaves not..cables. Run a cinebench 3d benchmark on each one to see how much power you have against your i7...

Pancho
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Joined: 19 Sep 2010, 11:28

Re: hardware components for effective Distributed rendering

Post by Pancho » 30 Mar 2014, 10:54

Did you compare the costs of the build you have in mind to two GPUs? Since the arrival of Redshift the investment in CPUs seems to be a very bad choice. VERY BAD!

rpmaguire
Posts: 67
Joined: 04 Feb 2013, 05:54
Skype: eyekeystudio

Re: hardware components for effective Distributed rendering

Post by rpmaguire » 30 Mar 2014, 22:48

I just did the cinebench tests on the renderslaves.

i7 : 222cb

i3 2.13 ghz : 117cb
i3 2.13 ghz : 68cb
AMD e-350 1.6ghz : 44cb
Pentium D 3 ghz : 22cb

The i7 with norton 360 put on silent mode it tested : 270cb. And also with CPU priority set to high it tested : 280cb

I knew the AMD & the pentium were going to be garbage... But the i3's are the exact same computers... So I will need to track down why one is half the speed.

Now that I look into it , I see they all only have 2 cores. 2 have 2 threads & 3 have four threads.



GPU rendering looks amazing.. But I was under the impression It was to speed up the workflow by reducing time for test renders. Is GPU rendering good for a final render of an animation? while still being able to work on another project simultaneously...

Thanks,
Ryan

Pancho
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Joined: 19 Sep 2010, 11:28

Re: hardware components for effective Distributed rendering

Post by Pancho » 30 Mar 2014, 23:42

Don't waste any time to set up the stuff you have currently available. Utterly useless (sorry to be so direct, but once you've gone GPU you'll get my point).

Download the Beta from REDSHIFT. In case you current GPU is quite o.k., there'll be no chance for your CPU to keep up with it. Redshift is like fPrime a dozen years ago a total game changer in all ways.

Get yourself two new 780 with 6gb (end of April available) and a big PSU and you do have a renderfarm and workstation that will blow you away.

In case you want to render and work I guess you'll need to run SI on two computers and get two licenses of Redshift.

rpmaguire
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Joined: 04 Feb 2013, 05:54
Skype: eyekeystudio

Re: hardware components for effective Distributed rendering

Post by rpmaguire » 31 Mar 2014, 01:07

Thank Pancho for the info, Very much appreciated!

I have installed redshift and played with it a bit, certainly is fast... and I only have a quadro 1000m on this laptop. I will have to look into this more...

I wonder how does redshift compare with vray, It would seem that vray can take advantage of the gpu as well as cpu.

-Ryan

Pancho
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Joined: 19 Sep 2010, 11:28

Re: hardware components for effective Distributed rendering

Post by Pancho » 31 Mar 2014, 09:13

As far as I understood, they pulled the brake on Vray development for SI. That's a no go! I do have two licenses and I'll convert them to Max or Maya and try to sell them.

Pancho
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Joined: 19 Sep 2010, 11:28

Re: hardware components for effective Distributed rendering

Post by Pancho » 31 Mar 2014, 12:15

But be aware that currently Redshift can't render everything that MR is capable of.

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