Thanks for your answer. For the 24 machines... yeah, I meant it as a possible scenario. I agree, it will not be very efficient to use four sattelites. What I maybe will do, is using five machines for batch.exe (as I'm doing right now) and buying five more machines for raysat.exe only. So each of the original nodes uses one additional machine as a satellite. No machine is supposed to run xsibatch.exe AND raysat.exe together.
Btw. I asked it here, because my local reseller closed its doors. sven -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Stephen Blair Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2013 20:17 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: batch render licenses with satellites (mr) For satellite, it is four machines, not four CPUs. Counting CPUs and cores was too much hassle so they hardcoded the satellite limit at four machines. It should be possible, but if you had 24 machines you'd probably be better off getting some more batch licenses. "each acting as a satellite for one of the other 5 nodes" It sounds like you want render nodes to use satellites, and also to be satellites. At the same time. I don't think that's a good idea. If I remember correctly we (Softimage) used to say "don't do that". Steve On 27/02/2013 1:58 PM, Sven Constable wrote: > Hi list, > > I'm planning to extend my small renderfarm (mental ray). > One softimage network license comes with 5 batch licenses plus one > interactive license for softimage itself, which acts as a full batchrender > license when softimage is not used. > So far so good but... AD says that xsibatch.exe can also use up to 4 > satellite CPUs. > If all render nodes are single CPU systems...does this mean, I could > (theoretically) utilitize 24 (6x4) machines with batch rendering? (Six > nodes, each running one xsibatch.exe and four satellite nodes each). With > one softimage license? > > I know about the pros and cons regarding distributed tile rendering but > that's an other story. The question is, is this possible? Maybe someone > tried it already. Of course bigger studios doesn't care about it, but small > shops or single freelancers could make some use out of it. I could just > throw 5 additional rendernodes into the farm, each acting as a satellite for > one of the other 5 nodes. Would cost me a third of a 2nd softimage license, > that I wouldn't use anyway... > > greets > Sven > >
