How to make a supercomputer out of old G4s

[iToaster]

So, as some of you know, I'll be coming upon a fair quantity of G4 PMs and iMacs. I happen to have a memory of something called xcode... so what I'm wondering is how would I go about hooking it all together and xcoding it? It'll be at least two PM G4s and at least two iMac G4s and I'd like to hook it up to my MBP. I know it sounds weird and such, but I think it'll be cool to do and to shove in my 'doze friend's face . Anyway, bestow upon me again thine infinite knowledge o sacred MacRumors!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[CubeHacker]

You're thinking of Xgrid, not xcode

http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/xgrid/

AFAIK, only applications specifically made to take advantage of xgrid will see any kind of performance boost. This is meant to crunch numbers, not make your games or photoshop run faster.

 

[Fearless Leader]

ehh wow, nope.

ok first of all its not xcode but xgrid.
Second of all you'll need a copy of osx server.
thirdly you need a nice large router or switch.
fourthly not a lot of tasks can be split up a bunch of ways. So it will be hard to get full potential power out this set up.

This will take a lot of work.

hope I didn't sound rude.

 

[gr8tfly]

Xcode is the development tool set for OS-X.

I think you mean Xgrid distributed processing.

There are some limitations to what applications can run on a grid. More info here: http://www.apple.com/science/hardware/gridcomputing.html

Four G4's won't be 4x faster than a single one. Just like with dual-core processors, there's overhead used in distributing applications across cores (or, in this case, separate machines connected by a MUCH slower interface than multiple-cores). Not sure what model G4's you're talking about, but if they're older, a single dual-core Intel will probably have the same or more power as the four G4s you have available.

Setting it up could be fun, and it would have some "cool" factor, I suppose.

 

[KD7IWP]

Good luck to you setting this up, it sounds like it'd be a fun project, but it stinks that you have to get OSX server and other stuff.

 

[iToaster]

Oh well, it seemed like a good idea... something to do on a rainy day. Yeah, I got a little confused with the xcode/xgrid thing, I haven't though about it for a while and the idea came up a few hours ago. Oh well, sounded good, but nothin' really. Well, thanks again.
Although when I've bought my dream camcorder I might give it a shot