XGrid Distributed Processing

[Anonymous]

We're a 6-person office considering OSX Server (rather than regular-vanilla file serving from an older G5 tower). In addition to being able to share iCal and have an office Wiki (presumably) easily hosted, the allure of XGrid is enticing.

From everything I've found, and from a business specialist at Apple, any software, including ArchiCAD, should be able to take advantage of distributed processing. If this is true, I would think it would be all over the forums...but it's not.

Does anyone have specific knowledge of XGrid working with ArchiCAD? Or not working? If it sets up as easily as the Apple web site suggests, it's the best-kept secret in the (OSX) world!

Thanks.

[TomWaltz]

Sorry, but Archicad doesn't have any use for XGrid.

[Anonymous]

Tom, do you know why that is? I spoke with my local Apple Store business rep since my post (I'd previously called the business 800 number) and she also thought it would work for ArchiCAD (and PhotoShop and anything else).

Could it be that the new version of OSX Server, which now has Xgrid 2, is different, and would now work?

[Thomas Holm]

To benefit from it, the program in question has to be written to make use of it. Archicad currently isn't.

[Anonymous]

Thomas, can you let me know where you found that out? I'm getting anecdotal responses both negative and positive, and am looking for some sort of documentation. I am skeptical of the Apple folks' statements that it's no problem, but I want to know for sure. I wouldn't want to miss the opportunity if Xgrid 2 can help.

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

This link may shed some light!

http://www.macresearch.org/the_xgrid_tutorials_part_i_xgrid_basics

seems that most of apples apps arent xgrid-able! so not much hope for Archicad.

[Anonymous]

Good article, Lennox. I also just had a long discussion with an Apple specialist, and confirmed that the software does have to be written specifically to take advantage of Xgrid.

So another item for the wish list.

[Thomas Holm]

Erick wrote:
Thomas, can you let me know where you found that out?

Erick, I don't remember any specific sources, I've read some
Lennox' article is good. Maybe a little over my head, though.

But it points out the basic issue: The program has to be written to utilize it.

As I see it, step A is that it has to be multithreaded to utilize more than one processor. Currently (AC11) Archicad doesn't do that, except when rendering with Lightworks. But I see a number of tasks that would benefit. Especially updating of linked drawings in layouts, sections and elevations etc could be much faster.

(It would surprise me if GS isn't hard at work with this though. The current crop of multicore processors really make it worthwhile, so I hope they will do it soon)

Step B (after utilizing several processor cores in one machine) would be to allow those threads to be distributed over a network of several machines. If this is complicated to do for the programmer, I wouldn't expect Graphisoft to care much, the cost would be high and the benefit is limited to a small number of users.

However, if the operating system allows easy scaling from one machine to several, and takes care of the complicated process intercommunication necessary without changes in the application (other than perhaps a switch of type 'allow Xgrid for this process'), then maybe. I don't know if Xgrid is that easy to implement.