I am relatively new to Bryce. Okay really really new to Bryce. I just purchased the 6.1 version for home use, I want to setup a small renderfarm for the creation of driving animations. The network spec's are below. Qty Description 1 HP 3.0 Ghz workstation, 2.0 Gig Ram for modeling - XP Pro OS 3 HP Dual CPU 2.0 w/hyperthreading, 1.0 Gig Ram - XP Pro OS 1 HP Celeron 533, 128 Meg Ram - Win98 to serve network storage drives Connected locally with 100 Mbit network, no internet, no virus or firewall protection. KVM switch, single monitor and keyboard for administration. Is this a reasonable configuration for rendering? I used the workstations because I like the memory error check upon bootup, this helps to prevent memory crashes during long renders. I could afford only 3 machines at the time of purchase, but I wanted to make sure that they were matched in speed and configuration to insure that they were not waiting on a slower machine to finish it's work. With this in mind, how much will the network traffic affect the total time, is it preferred to use gigabit cards and switch, or does this have little affect on the total solution time? Total cost so far including rack is $1100.00, I have two kids in college and a third heading there, so there is not much more money to spread around.

I have a similar plan but on a larger scale, I have the money but I'm waiting for work to become more stable I'm right now contracting so I need to have the money.

Anyways back to the topic :)

I would recommend you install  Bryce on you're HP Celeron 533 machine and upgrad the ram if you can,  the reason is simple.  In a Render Farm scenario, Bryce only deligates work to the Render Clients so it only needs minimal ram and cpu power.

If you use you're HP 3.0 Ghz Workstation to Run Bryce you are wasting CPU Power.

Unless you have no choice but to stay with the current configuration.

Can I take the HP 3.0 Ghz, use it to model and also add it to the renderfarm at the same time? I cannot use the Celeron 533 as my main modeling machine because I run Rhino, Flamingo, Bongo, etc. on the 3.0 also along with all my texture apps, normally at the same time. Is 100 Mbit switch sufficient, I do not know how much message passing goes on in a situation like this with this application? MPI and PVM will run, but can use up available bandwidth if not sized correctly. I have no idea what package the lightning is based on, or if this is a completely different base package than I have ever seen before. Thank you for your response. Since money is not an issue at your house, interested in adoption? LOL!

If you wanted to add you're HP 3.0 Ghz to you're renderfarm, the default method would require that Bryce is installed on another machine.

Bryce will Not Render and Deligate Bryce Lightning Client Machines at the same time.  This was a previously available feature that has been removed since.

Bryce version 5.5 and later will only Deligate work to Bryce Lightning Clients when using the Network Render option, so which is the reason I recommend you run Bryce on you're slowest system when doing a network render.

I'm using a 100 Mbit switch myself, but I havent done any traffic or packet analysis to see how much activity is being utilized from each system.  Something that is on my to do list.

I wish money was not an issue, otherwise I would have a Bryce Renderfarm up and running.  But I cant touch the money I have saved up since work is speradic right now but once I get stabalized again, I can think about the investement.

Another thing that I forgot to mention in my previous posts is, from what I've heard Bryce Lightning does not support Dual Core Processor's, but I cant confirm this since I dont have any dual core systems.

I've heard about People running two instances of Bryce Lightning with Two IP Addresses etc... but I havent seen any concrete proof just speculative info.

Okay, I understand the server versus client application now. I will have to scrounge around a little and see if I can find a few more inexspensive machines based on what you stated. Switch will stay for now. I do not have any dual core processors, just single cpu's with hyperthreading. Right now the 3 workstations are setup like below. 3 machines x 2 processor's x hyperthread(x2) = 12 rendering processes. That is what Vue see's when it renders, hopefully Bryce does also. No need for two IP's. Thanks again for the help. Vince

You are welcome, glad to be of help.

If you do a search in these threads you will find some research that I've done with Bryce and Rendering with Multiple Machines.

I can tell you that 8 x Pentium III Systems @ 600Mhz - 1Ghz runs about the same as a single 2.0Ghz System.

Cool! Another renderfarm!

I'm using 9 systems right now for a renderfarm, all with different speeds, ram, etc. 3 are dual cores. The funny thing is just 20 minutes ago I was once again debating what hardware to buy for the farm.

I found the benchmark page looking through the archives, this will help to tune the systems. http://www.alexpensotti.com/bench2.html The IT staff and I are looking at old machines taken out of service at out factory, many of them are still usable for rendering. I just have to let the power company know when I plan to dim the lights in our neighborhood by turning the machines on. LOL!

Thats a nice setup. Can't wait for benches. Don't forget the AC,... 4+ computers can heat up a small room kinda fast, lol.

Btw, I only ever had two computers hooked up in Bryce(direct connect crossover cable), and Lightning worked fine for client node. I just wish the Host could render better on network.

Ha, ha, look on the floor right under the small computer, a brand new air conditioning duct just for me. I wish I had a little more budget to work with, I would have had five of the workstations to start with, but three is better than none.

I see you have XP Pro on some of those clients,.. do you use the KVM switch for all or remote desktop config?

Ah yes, I see the vent on floor in pic.

I planned to use the KVM for all local administration, the current modeling machine is on another floor of the house, so I am sure there will be times that I want to use remote desktop instead of running downstairs for something minor. XP Home does not recognize 2 CPU machines, it would not even load, XP Pro was my only choice at that time.

Small point....looking at the pic of your setup.........you're gonna need a mouse......:lol:

Touch screen?..... Nothing happening, the mouse is in the computer bag until I start connecting all of the cables. I can see your going to be trouble Bryster. LOL!

I sort of disagree with the stock answer of using the smallest machine for your bryce install and to control the other machines. If you have a lot of ground to cover like you driving animation you want enough memory to keep the whole scene in ram. It's best to keep the file on the same machine you built it with. 

Inevetably your animation runs through and the camera  shifts. You will see something blatant like the edge of a terrain or a POV where there are no objects on one side of the frame. If you need to make any changes and swap to a smaller machine you can end up in the situation where Bryce has to use the hard drive and cache part of the scene. Shifting objects to hide holes you see in terrains can take minutes. 

Iv'e done animations in Bryce 5 with three machines including the Bryce5 machine doing the rendering (cant do this anymore with 5.5 or 6). The other Machines were unmatched and finished 2 and 3 blocks of the image for every 1 block the controlling machine churned out. Bryce had no trouble sending more work to the machines that could do more so everything evened out.

When your setting up and modeling you are actively using the machine. You dont wan't to grab a tree and shift it only to wait a minute for it to move on the screen. When you render you just start things and walk away. If it's taking too long you can add more machines. Unless you are using premium settings Bryce won't use dual processors. You can buy three single core processors for the price of a dual. Cheap and plenty is better than expensive you can't use.

Thanks for the information,I will take this into account when I get to the point of rendering. Now my focus is on getting the cables hooked up, while I try to teach myself Bryce, while modeling the race track in Rhino. I did some house cleaning, I found a usable 3000+ machine and a Dell Pentium 733. They are running burnin tests right now to test stability of the machines.