Anderson,
The freesurfer processing stream (aka, 'recon-all') does not use a graphics card for processing (yet, we hope to implement some GPU stuff someday), so your cluster doesnt need any graphics cards, other than those for actual display usage (tksurfer, tkmedit, etc.).
Nick
On Mon, 2009-01-12 at 23:31 -0200, Anderson Winkler wrote:
Dear all,
We are considering to buy a blade system, and FreeSurfer would be one of the applications to run on it. We know that a 3D graphics card, with support for OpenGL and built-in memory+GPU, is recommended. What we are not sure is whether it is mandatory for all the FreeSurfer routines, of if that is necessary only to render data in the screen, in particular, with tksurfer.
If it is used only for display purposes, and not for real processing, then we may consider having graphics card only in a few separate nodes, that the users could access with an X-server (or maybe VNC with OpenGL support).
Does it all makes sense, or do all and every computer must have their own 3D card for everything?
Thanks in advance!
Anderson
Freesurfer mailing list Freesurfer@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu https://mail.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/freesurfer
Hi Anderson,
at the moment we don't do any GPU programming, but are actively looking into it and may have something in the not-too-distant future, so I think you are ok with no graphics card from our perspective. We do use some of the computational routines in vtk though, so you'll need that even if you aren't doing any rendering.
cheers, Bruce
On Mon, 12 Jan 2009, Anderson Winkler wrote:
Dear all,
We are considering to buy a blade system, and FreeSurfer would be one of the applications to run on it. We know that a 3D graphics card, with support for OpenGL and built-in memory+GPU, is recommended. What we are not sure is whether it is mandatory for all the FreeSurfer routines, of if that is necessary only to render data in the screen, in particular, with tksurfer.
If it is used only for display purposes, and not for real processing, then we may consider having graphics card only in a few separate nodes, that the users could access with an X-server (or maybe VNC with OpenGL support).
Does it all makes sense, or do all and every computer must have their own 3D card for everything?
Thanks in advance!
Anderson
Hi Anderson, I don't remember if I showed you here in Sao Paulo our Freesurfer processing.
I think you could have a cluster or for better power consumption a Blade Server to run several recon-all at same time (don't forget to reserve at least 1GB Ram per core)
To visualize your data you can use a normal Linux workstation with Nvidia or ATI GPU.
As Bruce told you the GPU issue is something the FreeSurfer community want but it's not so easy to implement in this situation.
Best Regards,
Pedro Paulo Jr. ----------------------------------------------------------- Pedro Paulo de M. Oliveira Junior Diretor de Operações Netfilter & SpeedComm Telecom
On Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 23:31, Anderson Winkler relkniw@bol.com.br wrote:
Dear all,
We are considering to buy a blade system, and FreeSurfer would be one of the applications to run on it. We know that a 3D graphics card, with support for OpenGL and built-in memory+GPU, is recommended. What we are not sure is whether it is mandatory for all the FreeSurfer routines, of if that is necessary only to render data in the screen, in particular, with tksurfer.
If it is used only for display purposes, and not for real processing, then we may consider having graphics card only in a few separate nodes, that the users could access with an X-server (or maybe VNC with OpenGL support).
Does it all makes sense, or do all and every computer must have their own 3D card for everything?
Thanks in advance!
Anderson
Freesurfer mailing list Freesurfer@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu https://mail.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/freesurfer
Yes, Pedro, this is the idea.
We have been using FreeSurfer in a cluster, but in that setting, every node have their own graphics card (like I think you have at USP). For the new system, however, the blades don't even have PCI or AGP expansion slots, so to display, now that we know that GPUs at the moment are not compulsory for FS, we may then plan to connect using separate nodes.
I have another question though, about the GPU processing that the developers are looking forward to: any idea on when GPU might become a requirement, or how essential it might become? That's because what is going to a brand new system may quickly become obsolete for FreeSurfer if the GPU stuff comes along soon.
Thanks a lot!
Anderson
Pedro Paulo de Magalhães Oliveira Junior wrote:
Hi Anderson,
I don't remember if I showed you here in Sao Paulo our Freesurfer processing.
I think you could have a cluster or for better power consumption a Blade Server to run several recon-all at same time (don't forget to reserve at least 1GB Ram per core)
To visualize your data you can use a normal Linux workstation with Nvidia or ATI GPU.
As Bruce told you the GPU issue is something the FreeSurfer community want but it's not so easy to implement in this situation.
Best Regards,
Pedro Paulo Jr.
Pedro Paulo de M. Oliveira Junior Diretor de Operações Netfilter & SpeedComm Telecom
On Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 23:31, Anderson Winkler <relkniw@bol.com.br mailto:relkniw@bol.com.br> wrote:
Dear all, We are considering to buy a blade system, and FreeSurfer would be one of the applications to run on it. We know that a 3D graphics card, with support for OpenGL and built-in memory+GPU, is recommended. What we are not sure is whether it is mandatory for all the FreeSurfer routines, of if that is necessary only to render data in the screen, in particular, with tksurfer. If it is used only for display purposes, and not for real processing, then we may consider having graphics card only in a few separate nodes, that the users could access with an X-server (or maybe VNC with OpenGL support). Does it all makes sense, or do all and every computer must have their own 3D card for everything? Thanks in advance! Anderson _______________________________________________ Freesurfer mailing list Freesurfer@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu <mailto:Freesurfer@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu> https://mail.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/freesurfer
Freesurfer mailing list Freesurfer@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu https://mail.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/freesurfer
Anderson, Yes, blades don't have pci slots.
The GPU usually is an addon to speed up calculation. I won't expect it would be mandatory for processing in recon-all. ----------------------------------------------------------- Pedro Paulo de M. Oliveira Junior Diretor de Operações Netfilter & SpeedComm Telecom
On Tue, Jan 13, 2009 at 11:58, Anderson Winkler relkniw@bol.com.br wrote:
Yes, Pedro, this is the idea.
We have been using FreeSurfer in a cluster, but in that setting, every node have their own graphics card (like I think you have at USP). For the new system, however, the blades don't even have PCI or AGP expansion slots, so to display, now that we know that GPUs at the moment are not compulsory for FS, we may then plan to connect using separate nodes.
I have another question though, about the GPU processing that the developers are looking forward to: any idea on when GPU might become a requirement, or how essential it might become? That's because what is going to a brand new system may quickly become obsolete for FreeSurfer if the GPU stuff comes along soon.
Thanks a lot!
Anderson
Pedro Paulo de Magalhães Oliveira Junior wrote:
Hi Anderson, I don't remember if I showed you here in Sao Paulo our Freesurfer processing.
I think you could have a cluster or for better power consumption a Blade Server to run several recon-all at same time (don't forget to reserve at least 1GB Ram per core)
To visualize your data you can use a normal Linux workstation with Nvidia or ATI GPU.
As Bruce told you the GPU issue is something the FreeSurfer community want but it's not so easy to implement in this situation.
Best Regards,
Pedro Paulo Jr.
Pedro Paulo de M. Oliveira Junior Diretor de Operações Netfilter & SpeedComm Telecom
On Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 23:31, Anderson Winkler relkniw@bol.com.brwrote:
Dear all,
We are considering to buy a blade system, and FreeSurfer would be one of the applications to run on it. We know that a 3D graphics card, with support for OpenGL and built-in memory+GPU, is recommended. What we are not sure is whether it is mandatory for all the FreeSurfer routines, of if that is necessary only to render data in the screen, in particular, with tksurfer.
If it is used only for display purposes, and not for real processing, then we may consider having graphics card only in a few separate nodes, that the users could access with an X-server (or maybe VNC with OpenGL support).
Does it all makes sense, or do all and every computer must have their own 3D card for everything?
Thanks in advance!
Anderson
Freesurfer mailing list Freesurfer@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu https://mail.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/freesurfer
Freesurfer mailing listFreesurfer@nmr.mgh.harvard.eduhttps://mail.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/freesurfer
Hi Anderson,
we don't anticipate having the GPUs be required ever at this point.
cheers, Bruce On Tue, 13 Jan 2009, Anderson Winkler wrote:
Yes, Pedro, this is the idea.
We have been using FreeSurfer in a cluster, but in that setting, every node have their own graphics card (like I think you have at USP). For the new system, however, the blades don't even have PCI or AGP expansion slots, so to display, now that we know that GPUs at the moment are not compulsory for FS, we may then plan to connect using separate nodes.
I have another question though, about the GPU processing that the developers are looking forward to: any idea on when GPU might become a requirement, or how essential it might become? That's because what is going to a brand new system may quickly become obsolete for FreeSurfer if the GPU stuff comes along soon.
Thanks a lot!
Anderson
Pedro Paulo de Magalhães Oliveira Junior wrote:
Hi Anderson,
I don't remember if I showed you here in Sao Paulo our Freesurfer processing.
I think you could have a cluster or for better power consumption a Blade Server to run several recon-all at same time (don't forget to reserve at least 1GB Ram per core)
To visualize your data you can use a normal Linux workstation with Nvidia or ATI GPU.
As Bruce told you the GPU issue is something the FreeSurfer community want but it's not so easy to implement in this situation.
Best Regards,
Pedro Paulo Jr.
Pedro Paulo de M. Oliveira Junior Diretor de Operações Netfilter & SpeedComm Telecom
On Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 23:31, Anderson Winkler <relkniw@bol.com.br mailto:relkniw@bol.com.br> wrote:
Dear all, We are considering to buy a blade system, and FreeSurfer would be one of the applications to run on it. We know that a 3D graphics card, with support for OpenGL and built-in memory+GPU, is recommended. What we are not sure is whether it is mandatory for all the FreeSurfer routines, of if that is necessary only to render data in the screen, in particular, with tksurfer. If it is used only for display purposes, and not for real processing, then we may consider having graphics card only in a few separate nodes, that the users could access with an X-server (or maybe VNC with OpenGL support). Does it all makes sense, or do all and every computer must have their own 3D card for everything? Thanks in advance! Anderson _______________________________________________ Freesurfer mailing list Freesurfer@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu <mailto:Freesurfer@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu> https://mail.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/freesurfer
Freesurfer mailing list Freesurfer@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu https://mail.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/freesurfer
freesurfer@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu
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Anderson Winkler -
Bruce Fischl -
Nick Schmansky -
Pedro Paulo de Magalhães Oliveira Junior