Use Distributed Computing Software to speed up a program?

I have these two computers (specs below), and linked them using Microsoft HomeGroup.

I go on Second Life, using the faster 4GB computer, and Firestorm viewer . . . About « Firestorm Viewer ? The Phoenix Firestorm Project Inc.

Even with the 4GB computer, graphics are slow to load. I have AT&T's 6 Mbps internet connection.

I think the graphics are slow to load, due to the chip's speed, and not the 4GB of memory.

Is it possible to install something like this distributed computing software (links below), which will add the processing power of the 2GB computer, and then the graphics will render faster?

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Windows Distributed Computing Software - Collection . . . Windows Distributed Computing Software - SourceForge.net

Windows Distributed Computing Software - Win 7 - Most Popular . . . Modern (Vendor-Supported) Desktop Operating Systems :: Windows 7 Distributed Computing Software - SourceForge.net

Xming X Server - Xming is the leading X Window System Server for Microsoft Windows 8/7/Vista/XP (+ server 2012/2008/2003). It is fully featured, small and fast, simple to install and because it is standalone native Microsoft Windows, easily made portable (not needing a machine-specific installation) . . . Xming X Server for Windows download | SourceForge.net

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Operating System
. . . Windows 8.1 Pro 32-bit
CPU
. . . Intel Pentium 4 521
. . . Prescott 90nm Technology
RAM
. . . 2.00GB Dual-Channel DDR2 @ 332MHz (5-5-5-15)
Motherboard
. . . Hewlett-Packard 09F0h (XU1 PROCESSOR)
Graphics
. . . HP 2311 (1920x1080@60Hz)
. . . 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT (Undefined)
Storage
. . . 149GB Seagate ST3160815A ATA Device (ATA)
. . . 233GB Maxtor 7L250S0 ATA Device (SATA)
Optical Drives
. . . HL-DT-ST DVD-RAM GH22LP20 ATA Device
Audio
. . . SB X-Fi Surround 5.1

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Operating System
. . . Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit SP1
CPU
. . . AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+
. . . Brisbane 65nm Technology
RAM
. . . 4.00GB Dual-Channel DDR2 @ 372MHz (5-5-5-15)
Motherboard
. . . Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. GA-MA69GM-S2H (Socket M2)
Graphics
. . . HP L2045w (1680x1050@59Hz)
. . . 1023MB NVIDIA GeForce GT 610 (PNY)
Storage
. . . 465GB ATI 1+0 JBOD SCSI Disk Device (RAID)
Optical Drives
. . . No optical disk drives detected
Audio
. . . SB Audigy

I found the web page. Doesn't look easy to get help there.

What can it do? . . . Does the third one below mean it will work? Here it is:

Enable your Windows and Linux/Unix machines to integrate as a heterogeneous Private/Personal Cloud by using Xming and PuTTY. Be clear, not cloudy, about where your data is and who may get at it!

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Support . . . Xming X Server for Windows - Official Website

I get so much email that I literally do not have time to answer it all. I regret this, but there's nothing I can do about it. So if you can possibly avoid sending mail to me, I recommend you do so. In particular, support requests are probably better sent to newsgroups, or passed to a local expert if possible. Reports will ALWAYS be ignored by me if your complete Xming log file is not attached, if the report lacks detail and clarity and if you compare Xming with an X server not built directly from X.Org code. If a Plink problem I need the Plink command line used or a copy of your config.xlaunch file and if an Xmingrc problem I need a copy of your Xmingrc file! Tell me, upfront, if you are using virtual machine interfaces between Windows and Linux/Unix installed on the same machine. Failing to follow instructions, or answer questions, will quickly lose any interest in your problem. I do however appreciate well formulated reports and suggestions; but read this website's documentation first before asking a question...I don't reply if the answer is already here.

Most issues, outside the scope of the Manuals, can be resolved by consulting the Trouble with Xming? documentation and Terms and Conditions...

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What can you use Xming for? . . . Xming X Server for Windows - Official Website

All the normal [WWW]X Window Server functions and some you might not have thought of

Extend the magic of X11 [WWW]Network Transparency to the ubiquitous Microsoft Desktop.

Enable your Windows and Linux/Unix machines to integrate as a heterogeneous Private/Personal Cloud by using Xming and PuTTY. Be clear, not cloudy, about where your data is and who may get at it!

Use your Microsoft computer as a thin client terminal to remote Linux/Unix machines .

Headless a Linux/Unix machine by removing its keyboard, mouse, monitor and maybe even its graphics card. Execute commands via PuTTY terminals, and display via Xming, over your network.

Window's drivers are often faster and more capable than Linux drivers for hardware-accelerated OpenGL enabled graphics cards. Xming can exploit the capabilities of an OpenGL enabled device, on a Windows machine, by use of its -wgl option in all modes including XDMCP (i.e. -query).

You can display remote X clients directly on the Windows Desktop without running a remote Display Manager and so free up the resources used by that DM.

Remote control your [WWW]Raspberry Pi from Windows. Here is an example XLaunch file to display Midori for Raspbian wheezy using Plink.

Extend server-side X fonts to include any TrueType fonts on your Windows machine. These high quality fonts can be accessed, in situ, and added to the X server font list.

Use Xming with portablePuTTY as a pocket X server by copying both to a USB flash drive etc. Once made portable; no installed software or access to the Windows registry is needed.

Old slow redundant Windows machines can be easily re-cycled into slick Linux machines and then accessed with Xming from your latest Windows computer. You will then get the best of both worlds, each with its own separate system architecture, security and philosophy. Xming elegantly and efficiently provides input control and graphical display for software that is running on the remote system.

Use SSH and X-Forwarding in -multiwindow mode, instead of [WWW]VNC, to reclaim precious resources (including desktop space) and facilitate cut-and-paste between windows.

You can run Xming on multiple monitors in many ways, e.g. if you have two monitors on a Windows machine, you could put the full remote Linux/Unix session on the second monitor using

>Xming -query <IP address of remote host> -nodecoration -screen 0 @2 -clipboard -wgl

[WWW]Xinerama could be used to create one large virtual display, e.g. with two monitors

>Xming -query <IP address of remote host> -nodecoration -screen 0 @1 -screen 1 @2 +xinerama -clipboard

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Looks like the answer is no:

Is it possible to combine processing power of 2 computers? . . . windows 7 - Is it possible to combine processing power of 2 computers? - Super User

. . . It is very possible! But judging by the simplicity of your question, I assume you would like to simply run a program which will magically make your computer twice as fast, which is not possible . . . You need to understand that when a program runs it maintains its state by provoking the CPU to move memory between the HDD, RAM, and CPU registers, as well as addresses on various components (such as video cards or network cards). The trouble with using a CPU from another computer to help you is that it needs access to the same memory. And maintaining a mirror image of your computers memory on another computer requires so much overhead that it easily defeats the purpose of trying to add another computer to gain performance . . . But the type of things which can be split among multiple computers are image rendering or some mathematical calculations which can work independently . . .

. . . Yes, communication between hosts can be a bottleneck, this is part of the overhead involved. Non-gigabit networks would be the prime culprit of this, but given the cheap and prolific gigabit availability I don't feel like this is especially penalizing. However that is true of all network distributed processing, and VM is a far more usable scenario with significantly less complication than Remote Procedure Calls and custom-written applications dedicated to (what would have to be anyways) network distributed computing . . .

Distributed computing is a viable concept but it is only useful for some types of applications. That is when the computers can work largely independent of each other with only limited coordination needed between them. Otherwise the potential advantages are overwhelmed by the overhead of inter computer communication. Even with a very fast network connection this will be inherently much slower than shared memory between processes in the same computer, and that is slower than communication between threads of the same process.

And applications must be specifically designed to work this way. Doing this at all is difficult, making it work efficiently even more so.

The OP's application does not seem a good fit for distributed computing.

Do they have motherboards that can take multiple chips, so it will be faster than just one chip? Yes.

Do they have a motherboard that can use chips from old computers, and have it end up being faster than just one present day chip?

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Multiple processors on a single Motherboard - Motherboards - Motherboards

Dual processors were not uncommon a few years ago, not much need for them anymore, in the desktop arena anyway.

Servers can and do run multiple processors.

Here, for instance, is a board that supports 4 six core Opterons, for a total of 24 processor cores.

TYAN S4989WG2NR-SI MEB Server Motherboard - Newegg.com

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If you had this motherboard, and 24 processor cores, could you use it in a desktop computer? Would it be fast?

You could likely use the board but you would not be able to take full advantage of it. Windows 8 Pro can use a maximum of 2 physical CPUs. Any more will be ignored. To support more than 2 physical CPUs you need a server OS.

CPUs used in such a configuration must be closely matched and designed to work this way. Preferably they should be a matched set purchased at the same time.

How much you will benefit from multiple cores depends on the applications you use. It is difficult to write applications that really benefit and many do not.

Didn't know that, thanks.

It seems to me like you should be able to build a motherboard with sockets that can use, something like, 4 chips, from any computer - present day chips, or from computers that are now outdated - and have it end up being faster than if you were using just one present day chip.

Use something like Microsoft Virtual Machine - it will look at everything as one - chips don't have to be matched or designed to work with each other - and then the software program you want to see speeded up can use the processing power.

It seems like there's a lot of waste, since outdated chips no longer get used, they just get thrown out.

mb1280 said:

Didn't know that, thanks.

It seems to me like you should be able to build a motherboard with sockets that can use, something like, 4 chips, from any computer - present day chips, or from computers that are now outdated - and have it end up being faster than if you were using just one present day chip.

Click to expand...

It doesn't work that way. Maybe such a motherboard could be designed and built but I see some serious challenges in doing so. With the current market I don't see that happening.

A motherboard capable of using different CPUs as suggested would be expensive and have a very limited market. As explained having more cores does not proportionately increase performance except for some very specific situations. Busy servers can use many cores but that is not normally the case with desktop applications. With current multi core CPUs most users (with reasonably modern hardware) aren't able to fully utilize the cores they have.

I see - yes - I found this article:

Quadcore gaming | Rock, Paper, Shotgun . . . The challenge regards rendering VR is primarily a problem involving big pixel grids and fast refresh rates. I don’t see dramatic new CPU workloads. So like other games, VR will be GPU limited, not CPU limited . . . https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/03/05/quadcore-gaming/

To get better graphics, the CPU is not the main factor. I must need a better graphics card. This is the graphics card I have, $40 at Best Buy last September . . . GT 610 1024MB PCIe Graphics Card . . . GT 610 1024MB PCIe Graphics Card

Product Specifications:
Processor Cores . . . 48
Core Clock . . . 810 MHz
Memory Amount . . . 1024MB DDR3
Memory Data Rate, effective . . . 1000 MHz

1 GB of Memory seems like a lot to me . . . What are you looking for in a good graphics card? It must be the GPU - the Core Clock?

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These would be the specs for Firestorm, the link is listed above . . . https://secondlife.com/support/system-requirements/

Recommended (In my opinion, Nvidia works better than ATI):

NVIDIA Graphics cards:
9000 Series: 9600, 9800
200 Series: 275 GTX, 295 GTX

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_9_series
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_200_series

My GT 610 seems to be better than the "recommended"

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Idea: You should be able to run your graphics intensive program in Microsoft Virtual Machine, which would enable the GPU to send some of the workload to the under-utilized CPU, thus, giving you better graphics - I'd like to be able to put it on the highest level.

Idea: You should be able to run your graphics intensive program in Microsoft Virtual Machine, which would enable the GPU to send some of the workload to the under-utilized CPU, thus, giving you better graphics - I'd like to be able to put it on the highest level.

Click to expand...

Sorry, that makes no sense to me at all. I cannot conceive how using a virtual machine (any kind) would in any way improve graphics performance. I would expect the opposite.

Edit: A virtual machine emulates a graphics card different from what your computer has, generally one that is older and less capable but more compatible with older operating systems. This means more work for the CPU, in many cases a lot more. This is inefficient but necessary. If the virtual machine used the native graphics card directly it would perform better but be useless for older operating systems that have no compatible driver.

Introducing inefficiencies does not improve performance.

Ok, I was thinking that a VM takes all available resources, makes it so a program sees them as one, maximizes use of the resources, and the GPU output transparently reflects the increased processing power

Do you know what to look for in a graphics card, so that graphics will look good on the high settings? Like, 1GB of RAM seems like a lot, is it the GPU? What speed?