Min Ram Requirements .. HELP

[jamesiv]

I am thinking of setting up a computer farm to help out in this project. How important really is the 128mb of ram? i mean if i use the win text client and set priority to highest and let these computers just run the client do i really need 128. what is the min for real? or is 128 that crucial to the client that i must have it.

thanks for any input regarding hardware of this nature.

james

[Aegion]

Originally posted by jamesiv
I am thinking of setting up a computer farm to help out in this project. How important really is the 128mb of ram? i mean if i use the win text client and set priority to highest and let these computers just run the client do i really need 128. what is the min for real? or is 128 that crucial to the client that i must have it.

thanks for any input regarding hardware of this nature.

james

Definately not. I think the text client uses about 16mb of ram, but I could guarantee that if you have 64mb or more you will be fine running the client exclusively.

[jamesiv]

THank you for your help. i plan on using around 10 P 166 's with about 64mb of ram to set up a first time small farm. thanks

[xj10bt]

James, welcome to DF. I'd keep an eye on your electric bill after you get them set up though. You might find it wouldn't take long to make up buying a 1.66 GHz cruncher with the money you'd save on electricity :cheers:

[Brian the Fist]

Please note that while the client while running uses about 27MB max, there is an initial "burst" of close to 50MB or so needed.

I have tried it on a 64MB machine running Win95 and it ran out of memory right at the start. Basically if it gets far enough to make 1 structure on 64MB it should work fine but I'd test it first to make sure. Also I cannot guarantee that at some time in the future 64MB will not be enough (hence the 128 suggested minimum).

[Aegion]

If you know how to setup Linux, that might prove to be a solution to the memory problem. The electricity issue might be a good reason to just buy a faster computer and run that instead though.

[Scoofy12]

For the initial burst, couldnt it just use swap? seems that as long as you have enough swap/pagefile space to support the initial burst, you should be fine once it settles down, especially if youre running linux. (i wouldnt trust windows 95 to do ANYTHING, but that's just me :) youd get much better performance out of a linux box with DF anyway, especially with low memory and slow hardware. and as long as we're on teh subject, i'd recommend the Debian distribution in particular for your older hardware, because it gets you a much smaller and less cluttered install than, say Red Hat, (which installs loads of crap you don't need). you dont need X or any servers other than SSH, but most distros insist on installing more. lemme know if you have more questions :)

[jamesiv]

yeah the idea of just buying a more powerfull machine does make since. maybe i'll just do that. didn't know though how the client worked. thought the more clients running the better. but i guess that isn't good logic. right now i have a AMD Athlon 1ghz with 200mb ram running this thing

so your saying i would be better just having one more pc at like 1.6ghz running the client instead of building like 5 or so P166's running the client? just kind of new to all of this. thanks alot all for your help.

james

[Aegion]

Originally posted by jamesiv
yeah the idea of just buying a more powerfull machine does make since. maybe i'll just do that. didn't know though how the client worked. thought the more clients running the better. but i guess that isn't good logic. right now i have a AMD Athlon 1ghz with 200mb ram running this thing

so your saying i would be better just having one more pc at like 1.6ghz running the client instead of building like 5 or so P166's running the client? just kind of new to all of this. thanks alot all for your help.

james

The electricity bill for running 5+ P 166 that would process structures slowly is probably high enough that it would be less expensive in the long run to buy a faster system that could process the same number of units using far less electricity. Basicly if you decide to do so, you can make it a barebones unit with the processor being the one relatively fast part.

[jamesiv]

ok i'll just do that then! thanks for the info

james

[muttley]

The K7S5A motherboard you should find on newegg.com for around $50. Couple this with a AMD processor and it has on-board lan and sound and turns in respectable times it also has 4 slots for ram 2 for sdram and 2 for ddr ram --- only one or the other type of ram usable at a time. All thats needed is video and power and your set. And naturally the hard drive. Now I'm guessing the most bang for the buck is the Athlon 1700+ $92 at newegg.com.
The nice thing is that if you need a computer cause another goes down here it is just put in the better video card from the computer that goes down.
I used this board with promise raid and it worked fine with Windows XP pro. However this board with Redhat 7.2 the sound didn't work but I haven't bothered chasing that. The only confusing thing with the redhat was settings for the IP, DNS, and stuff like that other than that redhat ran fine. Me I have got to learn more Linux it really sucks to have to pay 128-168 for no support OEM windows XP pro and activation don't work cause when your testing parts and configurations yada yada.

Actually to tell a story that struck home to me and I'll share it is that licensing sucks and this company on the back end replaced 5-7 windows machines with one linux box and it served the function of the Win machines. It didn't replace the front office Windows machines. And this is in more modern history not just 5 years ago. So what I am going to do is this is I have a dual 1800+ AMD and Windows XP machine and this one has 1 gig of memory. (OT have you ever had a file that was downloaded and your computer stopped while the file was treansfered from temp to permanent, well This don't happen to me with this dual and its nice I just keep working and don't take notice any more. XP pro full install is stable compared to what I had to work with before) Continuing... I will dual boot on the Redhat machine and test software before I install on the dual Win XP programs. Loading and crashing the redhat machine as it happens [seperater drives for Redhat and XP pro] The reason for XP pro is not just to software test but inside you can do all those setting like a library does to make a machine user friendly so u can't do all those nasty bugs like format and floppy and download etc and I have a XP home in the other room and I would like to see if it has similar settings cause I spend time fixing that computer in one way or the other {automation in some areas would be niceer beyond the usual} I've gotten off the point, to be productive for me I have to have multiple machines in front of me to work with. I would like to know Samba in Linux right now I don't even know if it is free or is there a similar replacement just to learn. And as I guess from just reading Samba can serve for windows machines the files and I think I can make more money if I can go into places and say here is a back office server rated better than Windows no license fees and runs 24/7/365 with eternal restarts. Its worth money as companies get bigger and more computer dependant. And it makes me sound like I know more than others in this 70k population city I am in. My wife likes her job at the hospital as a House nurse of the hospital and not a director with headaches and she makes $35 and hour and $10 an hour in IRA. The familys basicly happy. So I would load Different OS's put them to work for you, wave the mouse and the screen comes on and your work is there waiting and you can DF/DC/crunch. I'm running lean on computers at the present time... wifes mad cause I bought a Blue and Gold parrot for $750 18 months old (The Military McCaw needed preening company and a friend) and very much a sweetheart handfed just wasn't played with enough not a wild tamed down one. I gave to the step daughter a computer for christmas it had one air brushed with a bengal tiger and the other side was full plastic side with a blue light going through a blacklight for more effect day and night with a little reflective shield to not get to the eyes and reflect back in the case {I get the plastic at LOWE's and use the old car door interior panel fasteners} Anyway I am saving for the upcomming AMD Opteron guess has been 200 for the motherboard and 400 for the processor. When to buy in for stability is another issue. Tyan Tiger have problems with RAID controllers and they don't disclose it, Gigabyte with onboard raid has issues and BIOS problems on otherboards that may be diverting attention away along with the upcomming opteron motherboard (my guess) Taiwan knows more than the US counterpart. ASUS duals was droped by AXIONtech in Texas cause of problems and I had a floppy section on one that didn't work.

Anyway I'm a little support from AnadnTech.com Team AnandTech were in 63 spot with 12 active members. I just started a few days ago and now I'm up I think to 1,164 position and the team rank I think just went from 63 to 64 ... wrong direction.
How do I find the team rankings beside just the top 10???

Well just joining the group have to put in a different fan maybe to get this powersupply quieter 350 with good ratings but fan seemed a bit loud last time I checked it (Then I'll have the Linux box/XP pro crunching). Also I like the enermax fans with the thermal sensors just short out the sensor and its rather quiet at full speed my dual runs a little under 60c with stock MP heatsink coolers and these low speed/noise fans. The similar Thermaltake are a lot louder but might have a place in a hotter setting or a single fan. The CPU heatsink fans are the cause of most of the noise in this dual setup in a midtower case very well packed. The temp is 5c difference from the 2 processors if anyone is curious with the rear processor being hotter and the AGP card getting a lot of heat from the CPU.

well thats me
Best regards,
muttley/Bruce from the Dick Dastardly series cartoons.

I do/did more hardware and need more software experience not wordprocessing but core apps. To get a rounded view of what fits where and out of nich talk.:offtopic: