He is drinking at the Harrow when he should be at the plough
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How to get really good graphics
PARALLELS AND NVIDIA BOFFINS have come up with software which enables super-rich graphics by dedicating an Nvidia graphics card to each virtualised app.
The result is a super workstation which can be used by engineers and digital animators.
Dubbed Parallels Workstation Extreme, the software enables multiple computer-aided design, seismic modelling, digital rendering and other applications to be run virtually on Windows or Linux.
In the past attempting to virtualise this type of software was considered a waste of space because Parallels or VMware is useless at rendering graphics or animation fast enough. To get around this problem, engineers and animators have multiple workstations at their desks, each of which is used to run a single program.
Parallels Workstation Extreme enables users to run multiple graphics-rich apps side by side without having to reboot.
The way the Parallel's boffins got around the problem was by making the software offload its graphics work to the GPU rather than try to do it in the virtualisation layer. However this was not easy to do, according to Parallels it took it a year of solid software engineering using the OpenGL graphics API. Parallels Workstation Extreme also supports Nvidia's CUDA technology.
The downside of the whole business is that each application will need its own graphics card which can do nothing else. The other problem is that we are talking about one of Nvidia's really expensive new Quadro cards which start at $1,199 a pop.
Each workstation will need to run on HP's Z800 workstation using Intel's new Nehalem processors
So when the software hits the shops in six weeks, the $400 software cost will be the least of your worries. µ
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of the cards isn't really an issue for most professionals. I, for one, run multiple workstations -each running one program -they all need to have a solid graphics card. Shuffling all those cards into one machine actually reduces the cost. You still need, however, lots of screen real estate -lots of monitors -so no hope for shrinking the desk then. I've heard about these new ultra high rez screens though. One of those 50" monsters powered by four cards say, let you have four pieces of software running in four "windows" on the big screen -all on one computer with copy paste intact. Now that. That sounds like my next purchase. Gonna need a big gig to pay for that though...
mAYBE rAY tRACING sLOW 'pUTER DOWN bITS FOR sECOND TO MANAGE FIRST? Opps, NO? Well heres another lead that of Intrest, its ati R700 series specs, gone open for firsta time, here: links' at bottom....http://www.tomshardware.com/news/ATI-R700-ISA,7418.html Pertinence is that Flounderies might take up designes, helter skelter world wide, So Therfore, NEW Design is needed for another 2 years, BIRTH: R800. Coming Soon To ?VM Farm Near You. drashek UB Charlie2
Does this mean we can get GPU accelerated virtual machines?
I'm excited!
summed up in four words. 'have lots of money.' so what else is new??
you simply tell the xen manager to grab that specific item ( so the domain0 Linux doesn't grab it with a Linux driver ), then make the specific userdomain VM you WANT to have it, have it.
People do this to enable gaming-Windows VMs, *while* having a separate video-card for Linux/work...
http://www.xen.org/ read the manual!
Want to give a teraflop GPU to Windows, while running a linux render-node on your same machine?
Quad-opteron, give Windows 2 sockets of CPUs, keep 2 for Linux, stuff the system with RAM, divide the RAM however you want ( giving the RAM attached to 2 sockets is *sane*, however ), and voila:
2 OSs, 1 box, all the power you could want.