#Render'g engine advice
7 messages in this thread
Peter,
Would like to hear comments from you/or other end users that have
put together rendering engines to speed up their graphics work.
Especially, where Amiga prgms have been ported to the Pc, ie…
like Imagine3.0.
Which was more cost effective?
1) Upgrade your Amiga setup with an accelerator
2) Buy an accelerated (50mhz) A1200 setup
3) Buy a pc (66mhz or greater)
If you went the pc route, what config did you get? Is it possible
to buy/or build a stripped down rendering engine?
Last, what is most cost effective in networking this rendering
engine pc to the Amiga? Are there utility programs available that would
do batch processing for this setup ie…..run both Amiga and pc ?
I'm trying to evaluate for future purchase, but this is what I've
found so far:
A)The fastest you can accelerate an A3/4K currently is 40mhz.
Cost=approx 1,400-1,600.
B)Build an A1200 w/HD,extra ram and 50mhz accelerator.
Cost=approx 1,200-1,400.
C)Buy a 66mhz pc. Cheapest config I've seen in mail order=$2,000.
Additional cost for a network of some sort.
I realize there are other advantages that come with the pc ie..
being able to use other prgms not available to the Amiga,etc.., but
the main concern here is rendering.
Thanks.
CJ —-)on AP
I haven't taken the PC plunge yet but the folks I know who HAVE tell me
they've seen a LARGE increase in rendering speed.
Espescially with a Pentium based Clone
The folks that you know………….
Did they just buy a complete pc setup, or did they come up with a stripped
down version, just for rendering?
I've been wondering if it is possible to buy a motherboard and configure
it to render for the Amiga via a netwk of some sort. And, using some
arexx script tell it what to render. OR, would you have to actually load
the pc version of Imag3.0 into the machine and do the entire setup of the
scene and then have it render. If this is the case, then you're looking at
buying an entire pc setup, graphics card,monitor etc…
I guess this is kinda like the raptor setup, except on cheaper scale.
CJ —-)on AP
They folks I know all bought Complete Pentium systems….ie SVGA Monitors
et all….relatively inexpensively approx $2k if memory serves for the
original Pentium systems
I have moved to a Intel based PC to render with. I use both Imagine
3.0 and Animation Master ( from Hash Inc. ).
I have networked the PCs and the Amiga. I started with TCP/IP and
copying files around. I have now moved to a Novell server. I found I could
build a server 486dx2 -50 mhz for about $600-700 ( without disk drives
or software). I moved the disks from other systems. I use the Oxxi
software on the Amiga and can mount the server disks on the PCs and
Amiga. This allows the Amiga and PCs to work from the same directories.
I still have to type on the PC keyboard to start a render.
The PCs are a mix of older 486-66mhz and new Pentium-90mhz. I built
the pentium-90 ( 16mb ram, 370 MB disk, ethernet, monitor ) ready to
render for a little less than $2500 and find it a little better than 3:1
faster than a 486-66mhz.
Overtime I have found the speed and extra resolution of the PC display
has made me move to the PC for creating as well as rendering. The Amiga
with toaster is used to put the animation on tape and work with ADPro
and Morph Plus. With the ASDG products becoming available on the PC
All I need is a good frame buffer or maybe PAR on the PC to move the
Amiga out of the picture.
Steve Peters
Steve,
Thanks for info.
Is it possible to put several pc motherbds into a tower chassis with
a large power supply and have each unit function separately?
CJ —-)on AP
Chris,
You can do it. I have seen people buy the motherboards in the form of adapter
cards and use them.
Each card has a complete motherboard on it (RAM, CACHE RAM, BIOS) the bus is
used to access common functions and therefore would potentially require special
software to keep things sorted out. The cards themselves don't have plug in
buses like a regular mother board.
The bus would be accessed through the adapter interface to the bus. That bus
could be a simple bus rack with only power and other adapter or CPU/adapters
attached to it or it could be the bus of a regular mother board.
-Marco