I'm going to be doing a PD bonanza next year as part of my thesis thingy. I was wondering about some general guidelines for building up a network to do interactive sound and video.
First off is quantity vs. quality. I could blow my budget on one modestly powerful PC or about 4 PIIIs given current prices (that may be half a dozen PIIIs by the time I get around to buying). I know it's bad news to try to run GEM and music whatnot on the same computer as it results in clicks, but if I go for quality over quantity I'd still have two comps (my current one and the new one) so that wouldn't be an issue. Another consideration for me would be projecting to multiple screens. I could have the one computer with one AGP card and another PCI card. Would that let me project to 3/4 screens? Or would I be better off getting two boxes each with a more mundane dual head video card? Basic question: pros and cons, quantity vs. quality.
Are there any other things y'all have found useful? Extra quiet fans? Small form factor?
Thanks a bunch -Ian Smith-Heisters
Zitiere Ian Smith-Heisters heisters@0x09.com:
hi. your question can't be answered seriously without an idea of the project you are trying to do: eg: if you need very low latency, you probably will have to use one single computer eg: if you need to tightly sync your output(s), you will probably have to use one single computer.
in other cases it might be sufficient to use several pcs, which could be more fun, because for *most* things you will not need full calculation power of all the computers - so you can split your setting and run e.g. 3 different installations/measurements/whatever at the same time.
as for Gem: putting several gfx-cards (e.g: 1xAGP, 1xPCI) into one single computer *should* work (at least nvidia says it does) - but i have never tried it : i've never needed more than 2 parallel screens. again: if you need your outputs tightly in sync (eg: you want to do one big contiguous image or some stereo-image with polarization) than i don't think that using several computers that do the actual rendering is a good idea.
Are there any other things y'all have found useful? Extra quiet fans? Small form factor?
all of them. as for noise: not only the fans are important, but you should also consider a sound-absorbing interior and air-flow optimization.
the unfortunate thing is, that silent machines tend to be big and heavy.
mfg.ar IOhannes
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Ian Smith-Heisters -
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