Can I use Xgrid to speed up normal apps?

[sjjordan]

I'm on a university network with at least 6 other macs on the local network. I only use my computer to look at big images, study powerpoint slides (I'm in medical school), surf the net, and check email...

If I hook them all up together, can I use Xgrid to perform those applications or it just for solving individual jobs?

Thanks. I don't know much about it.

 

[robbieduncan]

No. Applications need to be specifically written to use XGrid. In addition they need to be of a very specific type. The app needs to consist of a large number of tasks that can be split out and sent to remote CPUs for processing before getting the results back. These tend to be applications that process large datasets and the like and are basically not interactive, end-user apps.

 

[Sun Baked]

You need to have widgets/scripts/filters written to take advantage of it.

Much like the filters were written in Photoshop to take advantage of multiple processor in OS 8, even though not much else was.

Took years for the rest of the apps to catch up to writing things to take advantage of SMP (multiple CPUs) -- though even apps that don't write anything to take advantage of SMP, the GUI and much of the Apple toolbox/library does.

We may see Motion, Shake, Final Cut, or Logic (the Pro versions) taking advantage of it to run some of the rendering "if" they fit well with Xgrids strong points in the future.