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[Ravo_5002]

QUOTE(SScorpio @ May 28 2003, 01:56 AM)

Technically you wouldn't even need a modchip.

[fghjj]

Look at date... more then two years ago.

[firebane]

[Fokus]

Since I work in the 3d industry I was wondering whether or not you could theoretically network a bunch of xboxes together to a single computer and use it as a render farm for rendering animations?  Hmmm it sounds like a plausible idea(and much cheaper than buying a bunch of SGI/SUN/OR intel workstations), any thoughts?

This post has been edited by Fokus: May 19 2003, 03:33 PM

[radfx]

Hmm - i suppose it could be possible, i mean once you have a modchip and a new BIOS you could write just about anything for it, but remember, using 3d rendering would be a ram/CPU intensive task - just think of the Xbox as a no OS 64meg Celeron 733 - not a great rendering system (but still i suppose $199US or whatever it is over there would be cheaper then a similar spec PC??

interesting..

honestly dont see why not?

[Fokus]

Well most 3d render farms are mainly just a bunch of cpus...the main computer sends the information over the network and instructs the other cpus to render away(render each frame together, or render alternate frames, whatever).  This would sure be something worthwhile to start off, too bad Im not a programmer...

Maybe the Linux people can be of help, but I guess we would need a way for the windows environment to communicate with the xboxs to tell them to help with the render.  

Or get windows to properly work on the xbox, but if that were to happen though...well then all hell would break loose I guess.

[brian]

Don't you have to put things like IRIX on there? You would either have to write a BIOS that launches like a PC would, as render farm OSs aren't generally open source and so can't be made into Xbox compatible files with a normal BIOS. Apart from that and the obvious having to set up USB ports for each one (just for initial installation), it would be a lot of work per each one but it may be worth it.

[Fokus]

Thanks for the comments Brian...yeah it would be a lot to set up, but if it could be done it would be a much cheaper alternative than buying a bunch of machines...

But if we could get windows to boot, then problem solved, could get them all to communicate throught the lan port...I think I will have to talk with my lightwave distributer mate to figure some more stuff out...

Later

[Plagued]

someone created a clustered linux server from xbox's and decided it was pointless .. although the xbox is cheap, for say twice the price you could make a PC 4 times as fast, so if you were talking about clustering or creating a render farm it's just not worth it .. it would look cool though

[BrianW1800]

They arn't using Xbox's but still interesting:

From slashdot: http://arrakis.ncsa.uiuc.edu/ps2/

[Fokus]

BrianW1800 thansk for the info on that....yeah very cool indeed!

here are some figures to think about... 10 xboxs = 7.33GHZ of power = 1790 bucks, + a modchip each that woudl equal to about 400, wow a much cheaper solution I think than buying a mainframe or a bunch of computers...Just need the software that will make them communicate with eachother...darn it!

[EvilWays]

I can't remember the website (and I don't have it bookmarked unfortunately), but someone clustered 3 Xboxes together as a University project by using Linux. I don't remember all the details...maybe someone else has heard of this and can shed more light on this.

[caustic]

QUOTE (EvilWays @ May 24 2003, 03:13 PM)

I can't remember the website (and I don't have it bookmarked unfortunately), but someone clustered 3 Xboxes together as a University project by using Linux. I don't remember all the details...maybe someone else has heard of this and can shed more light on this.

http://www.shadowflux.com/xbox.html

[EvilWays]

That's the one. Thanks caustic!

[Gimpmaster3201]

Couldn't you just run Linux, then run something like Maya and render with mental ray across a network, not sure if it would work i've only used Maya on Windows