Linking independent CPUs

[sohrabgandhi]

Hi,

I am having close to 30 system on my network that are of various hardware and make (P4 / DC / C2D / Core i3 / Core i5). I would like to combine all these systems as one powerful system that can share its processing capabilities.

For example, a person running a pentium 4 machine able render video much faster making use the of other idle systems.

I have googled a lot about "grid computing", "clustering" and "distributed computing", but have failed to find an appropriate solution to my query.

I dont know if my thought can be achieved, but, if it can, a well detailed exact solution will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance

 

[memadmax]

A linux build of some sort would be able to help you out. But your pentium 4 would not be able to render video faster because it is dependent on the video card of the machine. Besides, network speeds are much slower than even a very slow video card, so if you attempted some kind of cluster computing for video it would end up slowing it down even more.

 

[vinaykumar5320]

The first step is to find the platform (Operating System) to support what you wnat to do.
And, this kind of O/S isn't available. BTW, if you can modify Linux (or any Open-Source O/S) to do so, I think that may be possible.

I was in the search of somewhat same mechanism, which supports 3 different CPUs (P4, Core i3, C2D), before I realised it's not so simple as it seems.

So, if you happened to find out any means to implement this, tell me also.

 

[sohrabgandhi]

A linux build of some sort would be able to help you out. But your pentium 4 would not be able to render video faster because it is dependent on the video card of the machine. Besides, network speeds are much slower than even a very slow video card, so if you attempted some kind of cluster computing for video it would end up slowing it down even more.

Yes, I am aware that video rendering is dependent on the GPU, but that was just a small example that had crossed my mind. I'm basically looking for something that will help me share the load of the CPU, be it while gaming or otherwise.

 

[sohrabgandhi]

The first step is to find the platform (Operating System) to support what you wnat to do.
And, this kind of O/S isn't available. BTW, if you can modify Linux (or any Open-Source O/S) to do so, I think that may be possible.

I was in the search of somewhat same mechanism, which supports 3 different CPUs (P4, Core i3, C2D), before I realised it's not so simple as it seems.

So, if you happened to find out any means to implement this, tell me also.

Ahh, yes, the O/S is another core aspect of the game! Vinay, you were trying 3 different CPUs. What if say I have the same CPU on all machines? Have you come across any means of integrating them?

 

[memadmax]

Or you can take a distributed computing approach, similar to SETI@Home. This removes the OS aspect but introduces some sort of custom software problem.

 

[vinaykumar5320]

Ahh, yes, the O/S is another core aspect of the game! Vinay, you were trying 3 different CPUs. What if say I have the same CPU on all machines? Have you come across any means of integrating them?

Yes, I was trying to connect 3 Mobos together with 3 different CPUs. (Everything else remaining common)
But, rather than distributing the tasks to various CPUs, I wanted to use the net sum of their processing powers. So, the OS wasn't really important for that task.

So, after googling whole day, I was left disappointed. However, I came to know that similar Xeon CPUs can be integrated to work together. I don't know much, but just to let you know.

 

[solar1992]

Take a look into creating Beowulf clusters which are connected clusters of independant computers running a parallel virtual machine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beowulf_cluster

Tutorials:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.12/beowulf.html

http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/bookshelf/articles/how_to_build_a_cluster.html

I've not done it myself but did a lot of research in college for a project to create one for Phsyics simulations for the college green car racing team

 

[memadmax]

Ahh there we go, solar opened up a door there.
Went and looked up computer cluster and found it on wiki.
Here ya go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_cluster
Skip down to "some implementations".

 

[memadmax]

The wiki that I mentioned shows a windows server 2003 version but there is a 2008 version as well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_HPC_Server_2008

Totally forgot about all this stuff lol
Just never used it before lol

 

[getochkn]

Plain video rendering is not dependent on GPU. GPU's help accelerate it, but big clusters that do CGI are just CPU farms. It's only recently that GPU have started entering the equation for rendering.

The easiest thing to do is find a software that lets you render on multiple machines. 3DS used to be fairly easy back in the day to setup slave machines to render. I used to do it using 386's back in the day.

 

[Brett928S2]

Hi

Easy answer = you cannot...

All the best Brett

 

[davidgermain]

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/337360-13-2012-render-farm-magic
video rendering is the same as any compute task, do a search for ray traced quake, and the above on this forum.

 

[davidgermain]

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/render-farm-node,2340.html

 

[warmon6]

The easiest thing to do is find a software that lets you render on multiple machines. 3DS used to be fairly easy back in the day to setup slave machines to render. I used to do it using 386's back in the day.

I know blender does this currently with "net render".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOjQET1hAEQ