Animated Computer Graphics

[slugger_2003]

Hi all.

Just a question to get up to speed. With respect to graphics animation, if one were to build a network farm, what would be the reccomended hardware to render animated computer graphics to be displayed on tv?
My initial thought was the need for a high end graphics card in each machine like the gtx280 but then I thought that this was only required to actually display the image, assuming that I was only interested in the rendering, the graphics card wouldn't be important here, would it?
With respect to the processor a quad core processor would be desireable due to its ability to run four threads simultaniously, correct? Something like the q9550 networked would be advisable in the network farm, correct? What about using the processor in the ps3?
With respect to RAM, how important is this when considering graphics rendering? Would 3.5gb on a 32bit operating system be adequate or would something like 8GB on vista 64-bit be more appropriate?

Thanks for any responses.

 

[slugger_2003]

bump

 

[dr.stevil]

never set a farm up myself, but in my personal experience you'll deff. want to go 64bit and with as powerful a processor as you can afford (time is money, especially in that industry). The GPU is completely irrelevant when rendering 3D images 99% of the time (GPU renderers do exist but they're not the norm). For memory, in most cases 8GB will be plenty but it ALL depends on the work your doing. My scenes usually don't eat up much (500mb max), but I'm sure there are some out there that would put a hurting on 8gb.

As for the PS3 thing, I'm sure it could do it but it doesn't seem very practical (reinventing the wheel so to speak)... IMO of course.

Is this for a personal project? new business venture? school? It might be worth while to lease machines for this. There are companies out there that contract this service out... it's been a while since I looked but from what I recall they'll charge you for data processed x how many machines/cores you're using.

 

[slugger_2003]

Thanks for the reply. I presume you mean 8GB per machine in the farm?
Why does the PS3 core not seem very practical? If an existing mobo took the ps3 core then I don't see an issue, especially seeing as the ps3 cpu has 7 cores (i believe?) which means it could run 7 threads simultaniously, no? I was told that 20 ps3 cpu's networked were responsible for decoding the md5 alogorithm...seems to suggest some method behind its madness, no?