[PD] Buying PCs for PD: Quantity or Quality

zmoelnig at iem.at zmoelnig at iem.at
Wed Mar 31 08:09:53 CEST 2004


Zitiere Ian Smith-Heisters <heisters at 0x09.com>:

hi.
your question can't be answered seriously without an idea of the project you are
trying to do:
eg: if you need very low latency, you probably will have to use one single computer
eg: if you need to tightly sync your output(s), you will probably have to use
one single computer.

in other cases it might be sufficient to use several pcs, which could be more
fun, because for *most* things you will not need full calculation power of all
the computers - so you can split your setting and run e.g. 3 different
installations/measurements/whatever at the same time.

as for Gem:
putting several gfx-cards (e.g: 1xAGP, 1xPCI) into one single computer *should*
work (at least nvidia says it does) - but i have never tried it : i've never
needed more than 2 parallel screens.
again: if you need your outputs tightly in sync (eg: you want to do one big
contiguous image or some stereo-image with polarization) than i don't think that
using several computers that do the actual rendering is a good idea.

> 
> Are there any other things y'all have found useful? Extra quiet fans?
> Small form factor?
> 
all of them.
as for noise: not only the fans are important, but you should also consider a
sound-absorbing interior and air-flow optimization.

the unfortunate thing is, that silent machines tend to be big and heavy.

mfg.ar
IOhannes





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