Shared Video Card Resources (or, "Clustering Videocards")

[dkoikadabra]

I was wondering if there was a procedure to share video card resources (RAM, processing ticks, et cetera) across a network to make sort of a buff "meta-videocard".
For example, lets say I got 3 computers clustered together. Each has a NVIDIA TNT2 with 32MB of RAM. Would it be possible to make the three video cards work in concert so that the master node may have a higher framerate?
I figure there might be a way; not only can you cluster computers, you can have a distributed compiler (distcc), and have shared and RAIDed HDDs (through NFS and software RAID). If those two avenues have been explored, surely has the one that I suggested?

 

[chiph]

There's a bandwidth problem with doing this:

Video cards typically run at 300 MHz or higher. There's just no way to pump that much data thru a network connection running at 100mb/sec. Even worse, Ethernet typically maxes out at 70% efficiency, so it's more like 70mb/sec.

You're wanting a solution like nVidia's SLI. But you'll need a motherboard with two or more PCI-Express slots to make it work.

Chip H.


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[dkoikadabra]

Hrm. That makes sense. It wouldn't work that way... but that assumes that raw data is sent (i.e. every bit to be processed and that is processed is transmitted). What about 'processed' data (i.e. the host computer gets the info to process this polygon or that mesh, processes it, and then sends back the final result to the master)?
Thank you for the answer. Please excuse me if I sound ignorant- I know little of how the low-level stuff works.

 

[dkoikadabra]

Not to double-post, but I just read about the SLI feature on Nvidia's page. Would it work over two or more computers? It seems that it doesn't, but clairification never hurt.
tt

 

[mseth]

Nope, it is for a single PC with a motherboard that has 2 slots for that type card.