Third Largest Supercomputer... at Weta Digital

Designadrug writes "This story at the BBC details how the worlds third largest supercomputer (conditions apply) lives at Weta Digital - the company that provided CGI effects for The Lord of the Rings movies. The article also goes on to discuss the 500 TeraBytes of data generated for the films and how the epic Battle of Pelennor Fields almost defeated the film itself."

At least...

[Hangin10]

At least assembly isn't required...

Post-project emotional crash

[NSash]

He is confident... "King Kong is covered in hair," he said, "we could be animating that."

Is it just me, or does that sound more desperate than confident?

Re:File system ?

[noelmarkham]

e interesting to know what kind of a file system they use one something like this...

My vote goes for FAT16.

Well..

[manavendra]

...third largest supercomputer on the planet if you count the number of processors: 3300.

..
The ones that beat Weta are the Japanese Earth Simulator (5120 processors) and Los Alamos National Laboratory's supercomputer (8192 processors).

Doesn't mention the actual processing power. Neither does it mention the individual processing power of each processor. Or what technologies were used to create the digital characters. Or how this "third-largest supercomputer" works...

Oh and it was fun to read Houston's comment: "We needed another 1,000 processors and we had nowhere to put them" - Someone must have surely commented "Houston, we have a problem!" :-)

So anyone can build the largest?

[BondGamer]

If I collected 5121 computers (486s) and connected them all together I would have the largest supercomputer in the world?

That must be nice. . .

[noewun]

"Yeah, IBM? Yeah. . . Apple told me there was a four week wait for my G5. Could ya crank out a couple for me? Thanks. Hugs to all. . ."

Re:Well..

[wheany]

"Houston, we have a problem!"

I'm sure he hasn't heard that one before.

Why King Kong

[R.Caley]

When he could do beowolf and bring down /. under a rush of nerds posting the same joke?

The Largest Super Computer Was Here...

[tobechar]

...In the 80's.

I am a T-1000 Model.

I have a neural-net processah in a metal alloy exo-skeleton, covered in living tissue.

Honestly now, these video rendering super-computer can't touch a T-1000!

And not only...

[GeekDork]

... would the hair be animated, the hairs would be fighting each other!

Based solely on processor count

[jsin]

I'm sure that there are landfills that beat this setup...

DVD set

[erroneous]

Personally, I'm looking forward to the 2005 release of the 100000-DVD-set with all 500TB of extra footage and of making of documentaries.

Look out! Here comes new zealand!

[nfabl]

2 posts ago they were building stonehenge, now they have the 3rd largest supercomputer in the world.

I for one...

Re:conditions apply

[cK-Gunslinger]

1) Tomorrow + Tomorrow + Tomorrow + Tomorrow + Tomorrow + Tomorrow = 6 days.

2) Longhorn + DNF!

(Score: +1, Obvious)

No, you'd have a land-fill.

[Anonymous Coward]

(general lamness to defeat the lame filter)

Re:conditions apply

[parksie]

Second question, what could I use that much processing power on my wrist for?

A handwarmer?

Re:conditions apply

[Anonymous Coward]

I would insert it in my anus.

Re:conditions apply

[Basehart]

"I started off in '81 with a ZX81 (they had a different name in the US, but I can't remember what it was now)which had 1Kb of onboard memory, or a 16Kb add-on pack."

You were lucky.

When I were a lad we'd have to carry over three thousand tons of coal around in our back pockets, heated to the required temperature by a two hundred ton blast furnace we had to grip between our legs, just to get the welcome screen to come on!

Rumor has it...

[Ingolfke]

That the system is collectively known as "the precious".