Harware for the poor man

VisceralD

So I have a question about some great hardware options. So to explain my story I really hate rendering because it just takes too long and my computer is disabled from doing anything else in the process. I have some old laptops that I’m not using is there any way I can link them to my main computer so that there processors would help with the rendering process. I mean I understand the concept of a render farm but I would have to set it up especially for each program. Some programs I have don’t even offer a multi computer rendering option. The problem a lot of times is even if I have the best computer rendering is still limited to the CPU and I got the best one on the market(which i can afford) right now, everything else is not really utilized. Is there any way I can have the CPU usage shared between my different old laptops.

EarthQuake

This is possible but it is very app-specific, in max I think there is a thing called backburner that will let you do network rendering stuff, but I've never used it. It will be helpful to know which software you are using.

When rendering, you can open up the task manager and reduce the priority of the app that is rendering if it is taking all our resources and preventing you from doing other things. Either set priority to low, or set affinity to limit the app to certain cpus/cores.

MikeF

when i was in school we used smedge for network rendering
http://www.uberware.net/smedge/features.php

We never really used it in depth but it was quick and easy to get a scene going, had an informative UI and ran for months straight without issues

Noren

It depends on what kind of rendering you are talking about, but if you have a reasonably modern CPU it very seldom makes sense to render even on a couple of older computers instead of your new one. They are usually much slower and you have to add data translation time.
With most programs you can set priority and core affinity for the rendering instance, so a network solution for something like texture bakes would make sense mainly if your application can't open several instances or if you're very low on RAM. Older laptops might also be prone to overheating if you are thinking about bigger renders that work the CPU without pause.

VelvetElvis

If you have an 8 hour render on the new machine and with your old hardware added it now takes 7.5 hours, it's not worth it to distribute it.

If you have a new CPU and you are still struggling with render times, it might be worth it to look over your render settings. More than likely there is an opportunity to optimize your settings and gain some speed.

What is your definition of "too long?"

Noren

To be a bit more helpul:
If you happen to have two good Computers, a quite straightforward solution is to connect them both directly with a network cable, that's what I used to do. (Don't know anymore what kind of cable exactly you need. )
Your main PC should have two network connections, though, if you want to continue to have internet access atg the same time, or you need to build a real network.

VisceralD

Thank You mike I think Smedge is exactly what I'm looking for

Also thank you guys for not making fun of me for misspelling hardware.

Anything else on the market like smedge