Maxwell Render

Hi,

I do fixed image renderings, but may get into multilite renderings animations in the near future. right now I have an older Pc on XP Pro that is my main workstation, but a new machine will become my main machine in coming months.

My recent rendering have a lot(relative term i guess ) of multi-lights- about 20-30.
Some of the MXIs get up to 7gigs.

I have just bought a machine with this build(which will become my main workstation). This machine handles the latest MXI's fine:

asus p8p67m-pro
intel 2600k
4x kingston pc1600 4go cas9= 16Go
noctua c14
GTX 560 1Go
SSD 120
2 x HD 1To(RAID)
windows7 pro 64bits.

I want to add a rendering node under Win7Pro64, and have some questions:

1.) do I need a lot of RAM on the node machine? how much?
2.) is RAID important to have on a node machine? What drive config would anyone suggest..
3.) I will use onboard graphics or very cheap graphics card- any reason not to?
4.) Any comments- critiques or observatiosn would be greatly appreciated!

Here are the main elements of the build I am thinking of:

asus p8p67m-pro
intel 2600k
G.Skill RipJaws X DDR3-1600 CL8 8Go (2x4Go)???
SCYTHE Mugen 2 RevB
windows7 pro 64bits.

Best regards-

Peter

if you want to render these 7gb mxi's on the nodes too the 8gb will be not enough...

I would say don't take less than 12gb these days... better 16gb (what would fit for your dual channel sys) - ram is VERY cheap atm. and i think it will not get much cheaper anymore (but who knows...)


RAID 1 or 0 ?!?
but NO, it's not really important... a RAID 0 config will save your temp MXI's a bit faster, but not so much. I have Samsung Spinpoint F4 320GB hdd's in raid0 in my nodes... very cheap but fast drives (~30€, 1 platter)
As i said, it's a bit faster than with a single drive but really not much - but you double the failure probability...

I would say, if you have a nice board with onboard graphics, take it... i think this should be the method that saves the most energy - and has less problems with wake on lan and hybernate mode like with some nvidia drivers.

Thanks numerobis!



I put RAID 1 one the exisitng machine(for security)- so in a node would RAID 1 be useful also?




I feel ignorant on this question. if my motherboard says "Onboard chipset: None", does that mean I absolutely need a GPU to use the computer, or is there some sort of 'Bare bones' Grpahics that the Mobo i spec'd will provide (and be enough to check MX render Node)??? I'd love to make this machine as spare eand energy economic as possible while still providing power to render.

Thanks-

Peter

I don't think you need a raid1 for the nodes because you don't store data on it. And for a fast recovering of the system it's maybe better to save an image of the whole installation and copy it back if you need to replace the hdd.
And if you plan to build more nodes with the same hardware you can simply clone them and doesn't have to reinstall win on every machine.

The 2600k has a build in graphics core but you need the right chipset to activate it: H67 or Z68
If you want to overclock you need a board with P67 or Z68 chipset

I can't say if you can run into problems with overclocking when you use the internal graphics and if it's better to use a video card in this case...

you mean i don't necessarily have to buy another Win7Prolicense? wow...

what hardware has to be the same to do this? mobo and processor, i imagine? other??

Thanks A LOT!!

Peter

Yes, you have to buy an additional license.

You could clone the install, though.

_________________
mo cores, mo problems

OK, thanks

everything that needs a driver has to be the same. In a render node this is normally only mainboard, CPU and video card. And this CAN mean REALLY the same... I have the same video card in all my nodes but one of them is an older revision (bought it on ebay ) and i have to reinstall the video card driver for this single node after cloning...
You can have different processors of the same generation (i7 quad core, hexa core) without problem. But you can't use an i7 980x image for an i7 2600k sys.
Different RAM is no problem.


yes, you need a license for every node

OK, here is the setup

Old PC running XP Pro with 3 gigs of RAM - I use FormZ modeller here. Newtwork Monitor and Network Manager are running here.

2 new PC's running Win7Pro64 -i7 2600k with 16 Go RAM each. Render Nodes running here.

So, I launch a cooperative network render from the XP machine from my modelling software, using the two other machines as nodes.

Questions:

1.)When I stop the job and the MXI's are merged, the merging is done by the XP (weaker) machine?


2.)If I have huge MXI's then I will risk failure/crash?thanks-

peter