I'd really be interested just to hear about things people have done in the past, and what kind of computer power they found they needed.
Does having several computers give any actual power benefit over one behemoth.
Obviously one fast computer can make more complex sounds and then distibute those over different speakers, as opposed to a bunch of slow computers making a lot of simple sounds independly. It all depends on what kinds of sound you produce. I regularly overload my dual 2 GHz athlon box during performances making only sounds. But those are all synthesized on the fly. For sample playback you need a lot less CPU so if you want a lot of simple voices more or less out of sync a couple a slow computers will do the trick.
What situations have you found noise to be a big problem in, and in what situations has it been more important to have small form factor (as the two seem to be mutually exclusive). Are there any unobvious advantages to SFF and low-noise other than the obvious portability, hide-ability and, well, low noise? eg. have you ever had p roblems with loud machines interfering with microphones?
In a studio environment yes. A reasonably quiet of-the-shelf computer (not the cheapest allready) I have found not to interfere in a theater setting, with all the lights and aircondition etc. But in a recording studio with nice mics you really notice them. It all depends again on the kinds of sound manipulation you do and in what kind of environment. A noisy PA for instance will mask more than a high end one. I you have the good mic and you want to have it take samples, so you are gating the input, you will notice noisy input a lot sooner than if you only amplify it since noise becomes more noticeable when it is interupted. That can be nice or not depending on your esthetics.
For GEM I would definitly get a seperate card but not the most expensive/newest one.Onboard graphics are not meant for 3d stuff. But for pdp they might be ok, I don't know
Gerard