Daniel Browne wrote:
> Hi Greg,
>
> I don't know if I mentioned this in my last correspondence but I'm running =
> tests to integrate linux into our render farm. My implementation and initia=
> l rush render tests have been successful. I thought I'd ask if based on you=
> r experiences you thought it better to have discreetly separate settings di=
> rectories on the network (i.e. shaders, plugins, library elements). I'm jus=
> t trying to think of how best to balance the needs of each platform vs ease=
> of maintenance.
Hi Dan!
Hmm, do you mean installing the renderer/plugins and such on an NFS server
vs. locally on each machine, and having PATH settings point to the NFS
server? Or perhaps by "settings" you mean initialization files that get
loaded by these programs from the users home directory, or..?
(I think I didn't quite fully catch your question)
Some renderers let you install the software on NFS, some don't.
For instance, some installers like to put stuff on the local machine
(eg. .so's, mods to the user's login paths, etc). Usually under unix
these can be coerced to be on NFS servers, but under Windows they often
like/need to dive into the registry to install properly, and drop stuff
in c:\windows\system32.
The thing about installing software on an NFS server is that the
executables have to load and 'page' over the network, and some
applications (maya) need to load a LOT of stuff from its install
directories to come up properly (like .mel and python initialization files)
which are usually much quicker to load from local disk than over NFS,
thus impacting per-frame render times. So in other words it's often
worth it to go to the extra effort to install the software locally
on each machine to keep render times smaller. But in some cases it
doesn't matter; depends on how much you find it affects your render
times, and if your renderer/shaders/whatever behave properly when
installed over the network.
--
Greg Ercolano, erco@(email surpressed)
Seriss Corporation
Rush Render Queue, http://seriss.com/rush/
Tel: (Tel# suppressed)ext.23
Fax: (Tel# suppressed)
Cel: (Tel# suppressed)
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