Connecting two Macs and/or Pc for more processing power with Xgrid

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Level 1

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Connecting two Macs and/or Pc for more processing power with Xgrid

Ok, first and foremost I am completely new to how Servers work. I was researching online and most of it flew into my ear and out the other because my brain could not compute. Right now I have a Macbook Pro Core Duo (which will hopefully be upgraded in a year) and I am planning on buying a Mac mini in the Future. I am an architecture student and would really benefit from extra processing power when doing renders. Is there a way to connect the two together (using Xgrid I suppose) to process renders faster? And are performance gains even worth it with these two Macs (either way I'm still buying a mini for a desktop computer).

If I need to use a windows program in Bootcamp to Render files, can the program still talk through Xgrid and send processes to the Mac mini? Or do both computers have to be booted with bootcamp running some sort of windows Xgrid equivalent?

From my research the way Xgrid works is that there is a Client, A Controller, and an Agent. That's three different things, does that mean I need three computers? If i had an old PC could that be included as part of the mix somehow?

I have a feeling the performance gains aren't going to be great lol, but since I'll be getting a new mac mini anyway it sounds like a neat side project and plus if it works out (or not) I'll have my own server at home atleast that i can turn into a NAS or something lol. Thanks for any help understanding this.

Message was edited by: JayjayQ

Macbook Pro Core duo, Mac OS X (10.5.4), 30G 5G iPod, 16GB iPod Touch, 2GB Product RED shuffle

Posted on Jun 7, 2009 4:23 AM

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Answer 1

MrHoffman

Level 10

146,341 points

Jun 7, 2009 7:10 AM in response to JayjayQ

Are you looking to write the programs to do this sort of thing, or are you looking to use an existing architectural-rendering application?

If the latter, start with winnowing and eventually selecting the application, and determining what sort of parallel processing supported by the package(s). See if the package supports Xgrid.

If the former, start with a read of the [Xgrid overview|http://images.apple.com/server/macosx/docs/L355779B Xgridtb.pdf] and work your way up to the [Xgrid manual|http://images.apple.com/server/macosx/docs/Xgrid Admin_and_HPCv10.5.pdf]. You'll be looking at a Mac OS X Server box, and (if you're tossing images or other large volumes of data around) a gigabit LAN to operate the Xgrid configuration.

There's also the discussion of whether you'd be better served with rendering done in parallel, or investing the extra money from your server in a faster box; neither a Core Duo laptop and a Mac Mini are the slower boxes in the product line, and Xgrid (which can make operations that can be decomposed and run in parallel faster) helps here, but fewer and faster (where that's feasible) is a more common approach.

Regardless, start with whatever software you're going to use, start reading, and work from there.

For basic NAS operations, an existing Mac Mini or MacBook box already provides network file services; Leopard client (and other recent Mac OS X client versions) offer 10-user access for the integrated file services.

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