[Tig] where.. neutral review RED?

[Rob Lingelbach]

On Jul 4, 2008, at 10:23 PM, Rob Lingelbach wrote:
>
> forgive me for being perhaps a few iterations behind the times with  
> Windows, but are these machines dedicated to a renderfarm and  
> nothing else?  if so perhaps they are underused because:
>
> the advantage, when I adminstered an animation studio, was that any  
> machine- desktop or renderfarm-based, if running Linux, could handle  
> multiple logins, threading, and background rendering, without  
> hampering the at-console user (as Windows did)?

in fact, reviewing my notes and memory of the past, consider this:  a  
3d animation studio, with 26 workstations.   Condition 1: all running  
Windows 2000.   Condition 2: all running RedHat Linux.

Condition 1: background rendering on machines that were in use - at  
their respective consoles- was not possible.  This due to the inherent  
problem, as I understood at the time, that Windows was essentially not  
multi-user.  In other words, it had no way to 'nice - down' the  
background processes to allow foreground work by the user at the  
console.

   Condition 1 answer: get a render farm.   hah.   BUT

Condition 2: all machines running Linux.  Inherently multi-user, multi- 
tasking.  Backround rendering possible at all times of day, whether  
being used as a joined render farm or not.

   CPU capability not wasted; machines with idle CPUs were able to do  
rendering without hampering logged-in user.
   Render Farm also required in Condition 2 because often the  
workstations were in heavy use, and needed the backup CPU cycles.

please correct me if i'm wrong or out-of-date.


--
Rob Lingelbach
rob at colorist.org    http://www.colorist.org/robhome.html