Who wants a public compiler?

[VolumetricSteve]

I got some very excellent news today, and I'll be working for a company who's name I can't yet disclose very soon, and I'll have some of that money stuff again.

A while ago AMD held a competition of some kind to write up ideas for what you'd do with a ...32....or 64 core processor or..whatever the hell it was. So I said if I had that many cores....I'd just use like...12 for myself, and let other people use the left over ones for whatever they wanted and potentially lending cores and processor cycles could become a business venture...I dunno.

but they never replied...i have no idea who won...but I still think my idea is a neat one. If the people left in the quake 3 community would be interested, I'd be happy to spend as much as ....2,000 on a little number cruncher and just leave it open to people here who wanted to compile maps with really really fast results.

I was even thinking of setting up a php thing that'd allow you to upload .maps and they'd be thrown at q3map2 with your switches and whatever else. Or I could just do it manually if people emailed me their maps.

Maybe in 2010 this is bringing too much to a table that's already full...but I dunno....it might be fun and if people out there could actually make use of it, that'd be cool.

Is everyone out there happy with their current compiling solutions or would this be beneficial to the community?

[mrd]

It sounds like a pretty cool idea but I think the cost vs. reward aspect doesn't match up. $2,000 is an awful lot for you to cough up (especially if you're saying stuff like 'I'll have some of that money stuff again') purely for the purpose of letting other folks compile their maps externally. I'm not sure that there are that many people out there who legitimately loathe compiling so much so that they'd farm their .map files off to a server. To me, compiling is part and parcel to mapping. I can remember sitting and staring at the compiler screen only to load the map and say "Shit! I forgot something!" and have to do it all over again.

Then again, if there are people out there who want to do 75027 light bounces with an ultra-fine light map... then maybe this could be warranted.

[VolumetricSteve]

oh yeah, I said that with a little bit of sarcasm, I'm doing fine for cash, and I'll just be doing more fine after this. and I was just throwing out 2K, I don't know what system I'd actually build. I'd only do it if people really wanted it though, I was thinking a dual xeon or something really nuts like that, but I dunno.

If a lot of people (like....20 people) would like the services of a system like that, sure..I can slap it together. I don't need a reward. The reward would be in having the experience you described of sitting there watching it tick away, but seeing that it was processing the talents of people who are actually talented. I get a little chunk of quake 3 history I guess.

I figured with my new cash, I'll build myself another insane system for compiling maps, I thought I might as well share it because I won't be using it 24-7.

Any takers?

[mrd]

It'd certainly be a cool thing to do for shits and giggles, and I guess it would enable you to fiddle with the lighting of a map in a much more streamlined fashion if you could do a nice full compile in a few minutes or even half an hour rather than x amount of hours. I can't say that I need it but I'm interested to see how this pans out

[ShadoW_86]

I can't say that I need it but I'm interested to see how this pans out

[VolumetricSteve]

Considering something like this:

http://www.tyan.com/product_SKU_spec.as ... =600000180

paired with one, but as many as 4 of these:

http://www.acmemicro.com/estore/ShowPro ... x?pid=7915

so the starting price could hover around 2K ~ 2.5K but...totally sky rocket whenever I felt like it for insane performance boosts.

maxed out, it'd be a 48 core computer. but it'd also cost like..5K for the CPUs alone. Considering it'd probably be able to compile all of quake 3, at once, with 8 light bounces...close to real time, I'd say that's worth it.

[Eraser]

Is it worth it? I mean, while developing you're just doing quick compiles and for the final version with all the bells and whistles, you just let your computer run for a while. And if you've got a map that takes longer than 10 mins to compile then you've got a real beast of a map.

I don't think extremely high light compile settings make that much of a difference to how the map will eventually look anyway.

[VolumetricSteve]

Heh yeah it is 2010...everyone has their own desktop number cruncher....and once Silicone Milk gets around to releasing q3map3, it'd be totally antiquated anyway. Good to know.