Render Farm
 

What are your guys thoughts on render farms? I'm currently running a Windows XP 32bit system with a Q6700 on an Asus P5Q-EM, running 4gb DDR2 6400 and a Radeon 2600 Pro card. My video editing software is not compatible with anything higher than Windows XP 32bit and even running it in XP mode in Vista or 7 does weird things to it. I'm not about to spend another $4000 in order to get the same program just so I can run 7, so I'm looking for a cheaper alternative. Rendering a large amount of effects tend to tax the system and make it run pretty slow, so I thought about a render node farm to help take the load off the main machine. I've got plenty of old computers floating around the house that I've stripped for other systems, but I'm not entirely sure what I'd need in order to perform this setup. Most of these shells are single core machines, with maaaaybe 1.5gb of ram, though all support Gigabit networking. I'm not even sure how I would go about setting things up on other computers to make them a render node, muchless what sort of hardware I'd need...

Thoughts? Tips?

Whats the software?

Yeah, each program usually comes with their own network rendering program.

And depending on the program you use, you have different options on controllers.

Avid Media Composer.

Heh, no. I like to keep my film stuff as legit as possible...

^ Agreed.

Man, the Avid softwares are awesome!!! It's pretty ball'in.