Home Linux Render Cluster

[Rob Oplawar]

http://helmer.sfe.se/

:nerdgasm:

Lately the work I've been doing professionally has produced scenes that take up to ten minutes per frame to render, and I typically need a minute or two worth of animation.
I want one of these.
I wonder if my employer would be willing to fund something like that- to improve my productivity, of course.

[Limited]

This just just built 6 pc's that are better than mine and put them together, my self worth has just dropped.

Today has been a shitty day =\

So he just puts a bog standard gfx card in one of the slots?

[InnerGoat]

Meh. HelmerII is the way to go, once the software supports all that power.

[legionaire45]

Holy fuck, I own three of those storage cabinets and I was just heading to Ikea to get more :O.

Fuck, now I want to do this.

[klange]

I figure you could probably build a more budget-friendly one with a bunch of server-rack-sized motherboards with integrated Intel x4500's (and, of course, a server rack). You'd be amazed at what those things can do under Linux.

[Rob Oplawar]

^this, but you gotta admit, the beast ad-hoc filing cabinet computer is just awesome.
I'm thinking, actually, I might buy a small rack and a single blade to stick on it, and then
just add to it as I have the money...

[legionaire45]

The Ikea cabinets are only like $40.

Server cases are usually over $100, more around $300 for a good one.

He should OC his CPUs to 3.0Ghz. :D

[Cortexian]

Great for rendering jobs sure... I wonder if it could be put to any kind of web server use...

[n00b1n8R]

I like how he never said how much it cost. :gonk:

[legionaire45]

6 x $200 Q6600 = $1200
6 x ~$50 Motherboards = ~$300
6 x ~$50 PSUs = ~$300
6 x ~$80 HDDs = ~$480
12 x ~$60 Ram = ~$600
1 x Ikea Helmer = $40

My guess at how much it costs: $2920 or somewhere close to $3000.

Not bad for a machine that outperforms a $3000 Mac Pro :D.

[Cortexian]

I may have to build one of these next year, I'm going into a two year long 3D Modeling course...

[Hotrod]

Shit, that thing has an amazing amount of processing power, it could take any game I throw at it, and run it amazingly. On second thought, it only has integrated video cards, so a few high-end video cards would have to be thrown on there.

[Rob Oplawar]

Enter Helmer II. :O

[Zeph]

His data sheet, looked german but I'm no linguistic expert, said it costed 3500 local dollars. Whether that was a quick Newegg search or a final figure, who knows. With Legionairs figures, it looks about right after tax and shipping.

For something that doesn't rely on external GPUs to render, it's really nice. Here in two years, I might just build something like this. I'd like to do a little better on the case, though. I'd get the frame pressed and welded myself. I might even be able to get that done for the cost of materials if I can get a professor at a university to help.


Not bad for a machine that shames a $3000 Mac Pro .
ftfy.

I'm definitely going to share this with my department's head. We've been looking into getting a render farm, but have been deterred by the price and our lack of being able to keep older PCs around.


LOL at helmer 3. This guy wins at life hax.
edit: Actually, helmer 3 fails. There's no good place to put the PSU and cool it. On top of that, wiring would be a pain in the ass.

[Zeph]

Shit, that thing has an amazing amount of processing power, it could take any game I throw at it, and run it amazingly. On second thought, it only has integrated video cards, so a few high-end video cards would have to be thrown on there.

It's a server cluster. I dont think games are written to take advantage of that. Only way I could think of it working out is if there's a virtual machine spread out across each blade. I dont have any experience in dealing with these sorts of things, so no idea really.