Render Farm PowerPC

Hello!
I need to convert a ton of files from .dv format to .m4v .mov or similar. Since it will take years to do it (almost 3TB of videos) with my current Mac Mini (first Intel version) I was thinking to set up a render farm with all my desktop PowerPC Macs. I've never tried this before, so I don't know how to do it. I've heard that Apple uses Qmaster to do that. I've also read something about Xgrid, but Xgrid seems to be for different tasks (I would like to know wich ones, because I want to do something useful with my old PowerPC Macs and a distributed computing solution may be the answer).
My macs:
- PowerMac G3 B&W (400Mhz)
- PowerMac G3 B&W (450Mhz)
- PowerMac G4 PCI Graphics (450Mhz)
- PowerMac G4 Digital Audio (733Mhz)
- PowerMac G4 Quicksilver (933Mhz)
- PowerMac G4 Mirrored Drive Doors (Dual 867Mhz)
All of them with at least a bootable partition of Tiger 10.4.11. The PowerMac G4 MDD also has Mac OS X Tiger Server installed.
Thanks!

I think your best bet is simply to schedule it yourself. Set up a simple automater script that reads from a folder and performs the conversion. Simply drop a bunch of files into the watch folder and let it run. You can experiment with how many concurrent processes you can run on each machine before it bogs down.
Don't expect much out of the G3's.

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Question on potential configurations for resource cluster as virtual machine server / beowulf / render farm

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I was recently suggested Microsoft HPC Pack as a platform? Anything?
Here is what I currently have:
these are all fully built)
Intel i5 3.7 quad core
Nvidia (ASUS) GTX-760
16 Gb DDR3 @ 1600 Corsair
ASUS Sabertooth Z87 MoBo
Autodesk - Inventor, Revit, 3Ds Max, Maya, Fusion 360, Flow, etc.
Adobe - PhotoShop, After Effects, Dreamweaver, Illustrator, etc.
Basically as you can see this is used for my work in 3d modeling, rendering, and drafting along with 3D printing.
Sys. #2
AMD 4.7-5.0 8 Core
Nvidia GTX 760 (Same as sys #1)
16 Gb DDR3 @ 2400 Mhz
ASUS Crosshair V Formula Z
Various programs for programming, app development, gaming, etc. (This is my daily driver)
Sys #3
AMD 4.5-4.7 8 core
16 Gb DDR3 @ 1600 Mhz
Asus Crosshair V Formula Z MoBo
Not currently using this one but is fully functional.
Sys #4
HP built i5 3.4 quad core
12 Gb DDR3 @ 1600
Nothing Special - this is the one I was using for school work but being that school and programming became one and the same I have all but abandoned it.
THANK YOU AGAIN TO ANYONE WHO HAS MADE IT THIS FAR in reading this.

The cluster works only for standalone webcache and httpserver installations types.
If you want to do this you have to use dcmctl command to change from one farm to another.
try checking with dcmctl command with out options an dyou will get a full list of options.
then run dcmctl usage(orhelp) option to see what you need.
As far as I remember
you have to check the farm id of the server you want to be the master
then in the second, you have to run dcmctl joinfarm or something like that.
Regards.

After effects and premier render farm

Hey
Im working on a Mac Pro mid2010 and Mac pro Late 2013.
I want to know if and how can I work on one of them but when I render or creating ram previews make them "work together" ?
like a render farm ...
Thanks

Yes let's say its a really small farm.!
There are no differences in the operating systems (10.9)
and im using cs6 in both of the machines (but I am planing to upgrade to cc).
so how can I create this "farm" thing ? And if I got you right, it will work only
when exporting a file. not in a ram previews. Right?
thanks

Converting PowerMacs to a Render Farm?

Perhaps like many of us, upgrading over the years, I've accumulated a collection of G4's and now a couple of G5s, and I'm reluctant to part with them...their resale value being minor, at best. I would be more interested in finding uses for them. (well, one may become an iTunes jukebox - to replace my CDs and player eventually)
I remember once learning about something called a 'render farm' and how several computers can be linked together to take advantage of their combined processing power. And then there was that experiment some years ago - was it at MIT or some university? - where 1000 G5s were used to create a 'supercomputer'.
With 7 PowerMacs, is there a (fairly easy) way to take advantage of this possibility? I use PhotoShop, a CG program and an NLE, and would certainly benefit from faster rendering times. I'm not an early adaptor by any means, and until a MacPro lands in my lap, I'm content enough with what I've got.
So, even better if I could hitch these up like a team of horses!
thanks,
k

Yes, it was Xgrid...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xgrid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpqfDC_4Xos

Cluster Mini Render Farm

I'm terrible at server things, I wanted to start with that and be rather upfront about it. But that's why I'm asking out to you in the community. I'm a video editor and in Final Cut Pro it takes literally forever sometimes for things to render when adding effects. Unfortuantly rather than buying a Mac Pro, I instead bought a MacBook Pro. Which don't get me wrong I love wholeheartedly, except the graphics card inside just is embarrassing, plus with how quickly the processors heat up it's hard for me to work constantly and quickly. So I was curious, I asked out in the general communities last week about putting some minis together and using them as a small "render farm" and what I got back was some more or less maybes... so before I continue on I thought that I should pose the question to those that are basically lord in the mac tech services for help or rather "how to". Because finding out just how much work that would have to go in it would really set the tone of whether or not I should do it.
I was thinking just purchasing two of the Mac Mini Servers (Quad Cores each) and using them.
So finally, is it indeed possible to even use two minis to process the graphical outputs of Final Cut Pro X that I'm running? And if so, just how do I go about doing such a project?
Thanks so much!

I think your best bet is simply to schedule it yourself. Set up a simple automater script that reads from a folder and performs the conversion. Simply drop a bunch of files into the watch folder and let it run. You can experiment with how many concurrent processes you can run on each machine before it bogs down.
Don't expect much out of the G3's.

After Effects CS6 Render Farm

Hi All,
Another Friday, Another test of new AE waters....
I am busy reading up and trying to figure out how to use the three MAC's in the office to work together as a render farm. I have gone through the documentation and created a very simple scenario:
1) Windows XP "server" (it has the shared disk that i use for storage - 2TB spinning disk)
2) Created "Watch Folder" on XP Machine
3) all three MAC's can see and access the shared folder
4) Created a simple project - One 192MB video file (XMP) - applied keylight and matte choker
5) I did a render on the MAC, using only itself and standard setttings to a TGA sequence, to another shared folder on the XP server - this process took 3 minutes and 7 seconds to complete
6) I re-rendered the same project, with no changes on the mac, with the following settings:
and send them all to the watch folder (project saved there, files collected there etc.
7) once the project starts, it takes 20 minutes.
Is there a specific reason why the time would increase so drastically rather than decrease?
The macs all have 1 quad core CPU - 16GB memory and they are connected to a GB switch (all connecting at 1GBps) - If i check the tas manager on the XP pc, network utilization never goes above 25%.
Thanks guys,
Pierre

Hi Pierre,
I believe what you maybe seeing is a limitation on XP's file sharing. For the sake of simplicity network rendering treats every core as a user. So depending on which version of XP you are running it will either allow 5 or 10 users to connect to the computer at a given time. If you have other sharing services enabled (such as printer sharing) any connections to these devices count against this number of users. Given your other thread on where you discuss the rendering nodes, if possible you may want to try using windows 7 (this allows 20 users) or one of the windows server products (max # of users is based on CAL's)
Edited:
A couple of other things came to mind if you are using watch folders.
- If you are running anti-virus software on the server, ensure the watch folder directory and subfolders are excluded from scanning.
- Turn off render multiple frame simultaneously' in the preferences on the render nodes.
Hope it helps
Message was edited by: StevRo

Render Farm - How do nodes Work?

Hello,
My name is Anatoly and I've recently set up a rendering farm connected to an I-Mac as a file-server.
The Problem: Not all nodes come to work together on a project, some arbitrarily choosing to render the assets while others just watching the watch folder idly.
The Computer Setup: There are six headless nodes (all Mac-Minis). The hardware and OS specifications are below.
MAC-MINI Farm:
2.66Ghz Core 2 Duo, 4Gb 1067 Mhz DDR3 RAM, NVIDIA Geforce 320M 256Mb, OSX 10.8
2.66Ghz Core 2 Duo, 4Gb 1067 Mhz DDR3 RAM, NVIDIA Geforce 320M 256Mb, OSX 10.8
2.3Ghz Intel i5, 4Gb 1333Mhz DD3 RAM, Intel HD Graphics 3000 384Mb, OSX 10.7.5
2.3Ghz Intel i5, 4Gb 1333Mhz DD3 RAM, Intel HD Graphics 3000 384Mb, OSX 10.8.5
2.3Ghz Intel i5, 4Gb 1333Mhz DD3 RAM, Intel HD Graphics 3000 384Mb, OSX 10.7.5
2.3Ghz Intel i5, 4Gb 1333Mhz DD3 RAM, Intel HD Graphics 3000 384Mb, OSX 10.7.5
I-MAC File Server:
2.5Ghz Intel i5, 4Gb 1333Mhz DD3 RAM, AMD Radeon HD 6750M 512Mb, OSX 10.7.4
The Software Setup:
Each MAC-MINI node has a copy of After Effect CC Render Engine (version 12.0.0.404) running at startup and set to run in Watch Folder mode.
On the machine that is used to manipulate assets for rendering the following procedure is used:
Open a project
Add assets to render queue
Set Render Settings to Multi-Machine Settings
Check box in settings to “Skip existing files (allows multi-machine rendering)
Set Output Module to Multi-Machine Sequence
Select my desired output settings
Then I click File – Dependencies – Collect Files
In Collect Files Setup the following is chosen:
Collect Source Files: All
Change Render Output to: “custom name” folder
Enable Watch Folder render
Reveal collected project in Finder when finished
Maximum Number of Machines: 10
I then click Collect and save my project to a Watch Folder
From there-onwards, presumably, the Render Farm is now supposed to render out my project, but not all nodes of my 6-node farm work together. More often than not, a single (or two) node(s) render the projects while the others wait idly, watching the Watch Folder.
Can anyone please advise me of why this happens, and perhaps what step I’m missing if any to get all my nodes to render until the project is done?
Thank you,
-Anatoly

Here's a picture of render items in my queue, follwed by a picture of how many nodes are working on it:

Setting up a render farm!?

Hi guys, my office is getting busy with their workload so it would be better if we could set up a render farm to shorten their wait on that blue bar!!
The only problem is, is that I don't know anything about setting it up!
What would I need? and how do you achieve this?!
Thanks in advance guys

NO one knows anything about what future releases entail. Those who do know cannot say.
Speed up renders? Install FCP on a machine with fast processors. It will use only one, but the faster, the better.
Shane

Problems with Dynamic Link and Render Farm

We have a 10-node render farm that we use for all of our AE renders, and it works great, so we know the farm isn't the issue. But if we place a Premiere sequence into an AE file and attempt to send the After Effects file to the render farm, we get this error from every node:
"aerender Error: After Effects error: Failed to connect to Adobe Premiere Pro Dynamic Link."
Does anyone know of a possible workaround for getting an AE file using Dynamic Link to render to a farm? This is a very important workflow for us, and right now we're having to do local renders for any AE file that uses Dynamic Link.

Why not ask such questions in the AE forum? Aside from that, using AE and PPRo DL at the same time can easily exhaust all your system resources and may cause any kind of issues, as effectively only one connection is meant to exist at any given time. So it's definitely in the way you use it, but not necessarily "wrong", just an unfortunate combination that makes things unworkable.
Mylenium

Render farm for DCP creation

We are starting to get more and more requests to make DCPs for clients and we need to speed up the process. Currently doing a DCP through the Wraptor AME plugin takes around 20 hours for a feature length film. It's a bit faster if we do tiffs through AME and use OpenDCP for the rest but even then it's still taking a while. When we are doing work for festivals etc we are simply running out of time where we need to do dozens of films.
Is there a way to use render farms to speed up the AME processing? And if so, any advice about setting it up?

Rather than a farm, if you can find out from Adobe or the Plug-in maker how well the code threads you might consider a single computer with multiple CPU's llike the Xeon E7 v2 chips that can have up to 15 cores and up to 8 sockets. Here is Harm's picture on his Tweakers Page. To run a beast like this you have to us Windows Server OS which not officially supported by Adobe but apparently should work. Of course the pricing is astonomical.each CPU chip (15 Cores 8-way) is $6841.
I would suggest contacting Eric ADK and see if they can build you a Super Workstaion for your processing. If it can be done they are the one's to do it

Render farm between multiple os

Hi All,
I have a question about setting up a render farm for After Effects CC. Basically my main computer runs on OSX Maveriks, and I have two more Windows computers that I would like to help out rendering After Effects compositions. I have set up one of the machines with the After Effects CC render engine, and the Mac and other Windows machine have After Effects CC installed as part of the 2 machine license.
When I setup a watch folder render from the first windows machine to the second one, everything works fine, but what I want to do is setup the render from my Mac to both the windows machines who are monitoring a network watch folder.
Permissions are seemingly all in order, but if I set it up from the Mac both PCs give me the message: "Render control file not valid".
I have searched all over the Internet for a solution, but there seems to be nothing there. Also, I suspected it might have something to do with the way a Mac does line endings in files compared to a Windows machine, so I rewrote the RCF file on the Windows machine itself, making sure it was in the right format, but this did not work either.
Any help?
With warm regards,
Daniel

hello fastlane, for firefox you can use firefox sync to share bookmarks, passwords & history between your three OSs - [[How do I set up Firefox Sync?]]
& for keeping your mails synced it's possibly the easiest way to use a mail-provider that offers IMAP, which keeps the mails on the server so that your mail program on any OS has the same data when it's connecting...
(but we're not specialised on thunderbird here, you might head over to https://getsatisfaction.com/mozilla_messaging/ for more detailed questions).

Render farm question

If the company I am working for is doing a lot of videos on a per month basis should we setup a render farm?
is so should we use window or mac mechines?
can someone provide information for setting up a render farm? or a link to a good how to?

It depends on how render-intensive your projects are.
An octo-core machine with enough RAM will often render in minutes things that used to take hours, or than can still take hours on lesser machines.
If your Comps turned out to be something that such a multi-core machine would render in (say) an hour, would that be fine? That's the question you need to ask yourself. And to answer that question, you first would have to create a typical Comp for this project and render it.
Setting up the project and the machines to perform rendering over a network is very easy. See Network rendering with watch folders and render engines in AE Help.
is so should we use window or mac mechines?
Use whatever you like better. AE is designed to perform perfectly on either platform. In any case, make sure you take a look at AE's system requirements/recommendations.

Building a "render farm"

Okay, so after reading the threads here I have qmaster distributing the tasks between 2 G5 desktop machines and it's going much faster than with one. (it seems like its about 3x faster)
Now I want to build a mini render farm to speed things up even more.
My question is this. Do I NEED to use OSX servers and cluster nodes? The engineer at Apple said I would be better off but I can buy more dual 2ghz G5 desktops with my budget than servers and it would seem they do the same jobs.
I could string 4-5 new G5's together as a start or 3-4 servers. Not to mention I would have to learn the server OS and everything before getting started.
Any advice is appreciated

PowerMacs are faster than Xserves. Just not as convienent space wise. You don't need xserves. Any mac will work, just don't have a mix of really slow machines and really fast, cause they slow machines will really slow things down. Let me qualify that: With compressor slow machines will really slow things down. Frame renderers like Shake and Maya would be fine when you adjust the segment size.
Server OS is not needed. In fact, there is no difference between server and regular OS X, just the admin tools that come with server. You can run all the "server" services on the consumer version.

Creating a render farm

I need help creating a render farm. I have 5 24" imac, 1 G5 tower and 4 G5 iMac. I still need to network them all togeether but I will when I get a chance. I have created a cluster before but it always came up with an I/O error I think it has to do with the permissions to the outher computer. This is for a school and I do not no if I'm going to make a seprate network in the classroom or connect it to the schools network or maby bouth.

One thing you'll need to keep in mind is that you'll need a shared storage location, and that location will need to be mounted on each service node.
Regarding setting up clusters, I posted some links in a different thread that you may find helpful:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8922045#8922045

Do I need extra AE licences to setup a render farm?

We actually have 5 workstations with 5 full CSS5.5 licences. We would like to have 6 more computers to use as a render farm for AE. Do we need extra AE licences to do that?
Thank you very much
Andy

So is it 1 licence per 2 render nodes or one licence per 2 computer total?
5 workstations + 6 render nodes = 6 licences? I would need just one more.
or
6 render nodes = 3 licences? I would need 3 more.
Thank you

Render Farm PowerPC

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