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I'm looking for all of your advice on proper network setup for rendering. I figure some of you guys have more expertise in this area and can help out.
My Current Setup/Situation:
Right now I have a bunch of machines (under 10) all XP x64 networked and connected by gigabit switches. There's no Windows Server or Samba or any other official server. I do have one slower x32 XP Professional box which holds my model files and textures. All the computers pull from there.
My Unofficial Server Is:
AMD 2400
2 Gigs RAM
Windows XP x32
My Network Setup Is:
1) Cable Modem for Internet
2) Dlink Gigabit Network Switch/Router connected to cable modem.
3) Dlink Gigabit Network Switch (additional for more ports)
4) Netgear Gigabit Network Switch (added to increase distance to other room.)
I previously had Netgear Gigabit GS108 Switches - both which fried in power outages. Also, the network seems to run better/more stable without them prior to them frying.
Overall, the connection now seems fine. There are a few problems however:
1) I start DR and the buckets on other slower machines take a long time before they pick up. By the time they do, the main machine has already rendered through nearly half the scene.
2) If I save an irradiance map or lightcache to the x32 server and run a render afterwards, they all pick up right away and start rendering. Sometimes however, they start to render and it seems as if they didn't pick up all the textures off the server (it's as if they are still busy loading.) The buckets on these slaves turn dark or textureless. Often, this is corrected by restarting the render again. It's as if pulling textures from the server is creating a bottleneck and it's overloaded.
Some might say the having 'Check for missing files' may help - but I found this made my renders take VERY/unacceptably long over DR.
So my questions for all of you networking experts out there are:
1) Do you recommend an actual server such as Server 2003 or Samba to store files and manage the network? Any others? If so, why and how do they perform better? Is there anything which is 'dummy-proof' without needing a degree in network engineering?
2) Would getting a better machine than the x32 (which is more or less my server) probably be the biggest problem I face?
3) Any recommended switches, routers, or ethernet adapters?
4) Simple File Sharing on or off?
5) Host files edited to point Computer Names to IP Addresses under \windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts ? Done.
6) Dynamic DNS changed to Static IPs? Done.
7) Gigabit networking (I think this is a given but I'm posting this anyways for others.) Done.
Does having an Alternate DNS Address (under TCP/IP) really help? Done.
9) Max Timeouts Set to Max. Done.
If there's any other things you guys feel that you can add to this list of networking questions, please do.
My Current Setup/Situation:
Right now I have a bunch of machines (under 10) all XP x64 networked and connected by gigabit switches. There's no Windows Server or Samba or any other official server. I do have one slower x32 XP Professional box which holds my model files and textures. All the computers pull from there.
My Unofficial Server Is:
AMD 2400
2 Gigs RAM
Windows XP x32
My Network Setup Is:
1) Cable Modem for Internet
2) Dlink Gigabit Network Switch/Router connected to cable modem.
3) Dlink Gigabit Network Switch (additional for more ports)
4) Netgear Gigabit Network Switch (added to increase distance to other room.)
I previously had Netgear Gigabit GS108 Switches - both which fried in power outages. Also, the network seems to run better/more stable without them prior to them frying.
Overall, the connection now seems fine. There are a few problems however:
1) I start DR and the buckets on other slower machines take a long time before they pick up. By the time they do, the main machine has already rendered through nearly half the scene.
2) If I save an irradiance map or lightcache to the x32 server and run a render afterwards, they all pick up right away and start rendering. Sometimes however, they start to render and it seems as if they didn't pick up all the textures off the server (it's as if they are still busy loading.) The buckets on these slaves turn dark or textureless. Often, this is corrected by restarting the render again. It's as if pulling textures from the server is creating a bottleneck and it's overloaded.
Some might say the having 'Check for missing files' may help - but I found this made my renders take VERY/unacceptably long over DR.
So my questions for all of you networking experts out there are:
1) Do you recommend an actual server such as Server 2003 or Samba to store files and manage the network? Any others? If so, why and how do they perform better? Is there anything which is 'dummy-proof' without needing a degree in network engineering?
2) Would getting a better machine than the x32 (which is more or less my server) probably be the biggest problem I face?
3) Any recommended switches, routers, or ethernet adapters?
4) Simple File Sharing on or off?
5) Host files edited to point Computer Names to IP Addresses under \windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts ? Done.
6) Dynamic DNS changed to Static IPs? Done.
7) Gigabit networking (I think this is a given but I'm posting this anyways for others.) Done.
Does having an Alternate DNS Address (under TCP/IP) really help? Done.9) Max Timeouts Set to Max. Done.
If there's any other things you guys feel that you can add to this list of networking questions, please do.
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