Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] [ot] rackmount
From: David Olofson (david_AT_gardena.net)
Date: Fri Dec 08 2000 - 04:46:43 EET
On Tuesday 05 December 2000 23:12, douglas irving repetto wrote:
> "Richard C. Burnett" wrote:
> > I like the one at penguincomputing.com, their low end single
> > space. I think it would be a good machine to get, as I am
> > thinking about getting one too.
> >
> > Rick
>
> i believe the 1u has only one pci slot. i'm guessing that the
> built-in graphics aren't going to be great, so we'll need at least
> two pci slots, one for sound, one for graphics. i've got students
> doing installations and whatnot with openGL components, and man
> have we seen some slow graphics with stock cards on the machines
> we've gotten. you really need to get a card with decent hardware
> acceleration support, and even then i've found configuration to be
> pretty hairy.
Most importantly, you need cards with proper drivers that support the
h/w acceleration, especially for OpenGL. (There are no CPU hogs like
software OpenGL rasterizers, guaranteed! They usually feel like
highres raycasting, and look like sh*t.)
> Erik Steffl wrote:
> > I don't see why you wouldn't use server machine for your
> > purposes. the only difference is that servers are usually more
> > expensive because they use ECC memory, SCSI instead of IDE, SMP
> > etc... so depending on your budget decide how much of the really
> > good stuff you need in the box. the only extra thing you need is
> > (better) soundcard and video card, but you can even buy them
> > separately and just stick them in. Check if the server has enough
> > free slots (I guess you want PCI for soundcard, AGP for video
> > card) but that should not be a problem with servers which are
> > usually expected to be expanded.
>
> price is an issue, which is why the server boxes are a little too
> high end. i'm loooking to spend <$3000 max, inclusive of
> sound/graphics. unfortunately none of the rackmount boxes i've
> looked at so far have AGP slots, which is a bummer graphics
> cardwise.
There are some high end 2D/3D cards with PCI buses, but they're not
exactly cheap. Besides, you'll need the AGP bandwidth unless you're
going to use only static textures/pixmaps that can be resident in the
card's local memory...
> the penguincomputing 2u rackmount has 2 pci slots, so i
> may go with that.
>
> Relion 200 X Server
>
> is the one i'm looking at.
>
> then again, p b-d has suggested building the machine from parts and
> putting it in a case by appro.com, which looks pretty doable too.
> hmm, lots of choices!
If you go with a "full size" box (4 units I think), you can use
almost any standard size mainboard, which makes it a lot easier to
get a fast system with all slots you need. There are quite a few
cards these days with one AGP, one or zero ISA slots, and then PCI
slots. (Be aware that all those PCI slots have only a single full PCI
speed link to the system bus, though - don't expect them to handle a
bunch of RAID controllers running in parallel! ;-)
The VIA Appolo Pro 133 MHz chipset is currently the only real option
for Coppermine P-III cpus with 133 MHz FSB. The other chipsets are
significantly slower. (The only solution that beats the Appollo Pro
is an overclocked Intel BX chipset. However, if you overclock the CPU
bus on the BX, you bring the AGP bus up with it, which is not ok with
all video cards.
RDRAM solutions are basically bogus - extreme prices, extreme heat,
no performance gain. Only the fastest RDRAM with dual bus can beat
133 MHz SDRAM, and doesn't even do it at all kinds of work... (The
RamBus technology has serious latency problems that cancel the effect
of the superior bandwidth. Has some growing up to do, if it's not
simply broken by design...)
//David
.- M A I A -------------------------------------------------.
| Multimedia Application Integration Architecture |
| A Free/Open Source Plugin API for Professional Multimedia |
`----------------------> http://www.linuxaudiodev.com/maia -'
.- David Olofson -------------------------------------------.
| Audio Hacker - Open Source Advocate - Singer - Songwriter |
`--------------------------------------> david_AT_linuxdj.com -'
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b28 : Fri Dec 08 2000 - 07:54:32 EET