RENDER FARMS One reason, perhaps the main reason, for networking Amiga computers is the power that it gives to speed up rendering. An Amiga with a 68040 processor might be able to render a high-quality frame of video in say. Five minutes. By spending a lot of money and upgrading to a 68060 processor, you might be able to half this time. However, for the same money you might be able to buy another Amiga and use this to render frames too. Or you might already have an Amiga with a 68060 - how can you possibly make it work any faster? When you realise that video requires up to 30 frames a second you soon see that even a relatively short movie sucks up time at an incredible rate. Using multiple Amiga computers to render individual frames automatically speeds up the rendering process. Lightwave indudes support for "ScreamerNet" which distributes the work between different networked machines. One central machine, preferably with a large and fast hard drive, eventually collates all the rendering frames for subsequent editing, viewing or whatever Networking also makes it possible use non- Amiga machines, such as WindowsNT based computers, which what they may lack in ease-of- use, make up for in brute force processing power. A DEC Alpha based machine can generate frames extremely quickly, and using the Amiga machine as a "front end" means the uniquely friendly GUI is not sacrificed. PC R1208 pc Port Serial Port (Linux) Serial Port Ethernet Port It s List, reliable and cheap. It's very popular on the P .. and that’s why networking cards are alxHU 150. Ethernet cards are readily available for the Amiga, as long as your Amiga has Zorro slots, that is. This means an A2000, A3000 or A 1000 - or perhaps an A1200 ii you have lilted one into a suitable tower case. ARIADNE Commodore themselves made Ethernet cards at one time, and various American and (ierman cards are still in c ire illation if vou look around. However, il vou want to buy new vour choice is limited to the Ariadne, a dedicated Amiga Ethernet c ard available from Blittersolt in the UK. It simply slots in. And comes with SAX A-11 compatible drivers. If you want to network the Amiga with a second Amiga, vou can then run Envoy and share dt ives and printers with PC Port flpp I e Port flpp I e Port very fast transfer speeds. Ethernet is a standard though, and so it's possible to connec t the Ariadne to a PC Ethernet network. Using TCP IP tools such as •’ 'and Telnet, vou can access files on the* othei machines with ease*. You can even make your own “intranet" and set up a World Wide Web server on the Amiga which the other machines can then access. II vou happen to he connecting the Amiga to a machine running WindowsN I . Vou can run a freelv available- utility called Samba. Samba lets the Amiga appear as a standard client to the WindowsNT machine whic h makes copying files even easier. GOLDENGATE 2 The ( olden( late2 card is a spec ial adaptor card for Amiga’s with Zorro slots, it allows certain tvpes ol P(! Cards to Im- used in the Amiga’s slots. It doesn’t contain any PC processor, only the ironies necessary to handle* memory decoding and interrupts.