Xgrid Previewed

This is potentially great -- perhaps more and more apps will now come to support rendering on a network of machines. That would kick butt for apps such as, say, MojoWorld Generator, which can take a really good amount of time to render!

I think, along with the G5 XServe, this is possibly the biggest announcement of the day (iPod Mini would have been if it was priced at $200).

Clusters are notoriously hard to set up, especially if you're interested in using the computing power of, say, your iMac lab for a night time render or simulation.

Bringing Rendezvous and "Apple Ease of Use" to clustering automatically increases the value of all existing Macs for institutions, and will create a lot more interest in Macs among corporate and educational markets.

Imagine an Apple pitch to a major university: "Not only do you get 500 easy to use iMacs for your english labs, and 50 powerful G5s for your art department, but you'll get a top 100 super computer for free!"

I can't wait to see programs like LightWave, Maya and RenderMan support Xgrid. I wonder if Xcode's distributed compiling already uses it?

Originally posted by spankalee
I think, along with the G5 XServe, this is possibly the biggest announcement of the day (iPod Mini would have been if it was priced at $200).

The mini ipod isn't cheap.. but neither are decent flash MP3 players. I shoped for one a while ago and decided it wasn't worth dropping over $150 for a decent player with crap for storage. For what you get I think $249 is a very good price, though i would of course preferred to see it come in cheaper.

I wonder if Xcode's distributed compiling already uses it?

I was told by an upity up in the xcode project that they did not use the same technology in xcode as in other (pending) clustering projects. I was basically told.. no, it's not the same, no I can't tell you what's coming, yes, it's very cool.
:-)

Originally posted by Macrumors

Xgrid is available as a free download from Apple starting today, according to the press release.

Where, dammit... Need linkage... can't find... pant, pant, pant

;)

Originally posted by woodgie
Where, dammit... Need linkage... can't find... pant, pant, pant

;)

Ditto!
*bump*

I'll be waiting for the day when I can use all my macs ( 4.5 GHz of combined processing power! ) to run photoshop batch.

ftp://ftp.apple.com/developer/Tool_Chest/Xgrid1.0.dmg.bin

just did a search on apple site

the have also a dedicated website

http://www.apple.com/acg/xgrid/

Originally posted by liudger
ftp://ftp.apple.com/developer/Tool_Chest/Xgrid1.0.dmg.bin

just did a search on apple site

the have also a dedicated website

http://www.apple.com/acg/xgrid/

Must have just appeared then :) I searched last about 10 minutes ago.

tachometer is coool is shows the amount of power of your renderfarm :)

As more people on the network share their resources, you can solve more problems. Not a bad metaphor for life, either.