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Pixar's Render Farm

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382 points brundolf | 1 comments | 02 Jan 21 19:56 UTC | HN request time: 0.22s | source
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mmcconnell1618 ◴[02 Jan 21 20:48 UTC] No.25616372[source]▶
Can anyone comment on why Pixar uses standard CPU for processing instead of custom hardware or GPU? I'm wondering why they haven't invested in FPGA or completely custom silicon that speeds up common operations by an order of magnitude. Is each show that different that no common operations are targets for hardware optimization?
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1. jlouis ◴[02 Jan 21 21:04 UTC] No.25616509[source]▶
Probably because CPU times fall within acceptable windows. That would be my guess. You can go faster with FPGA or silicon, but it also has a very high cost, on the order of 10 to 100 as expensive. You can get a lot of hardware for that.