Now that 2.5 is realeased, i’m sure you guys are already considering new features for the next release.
Here is one feature that is extremely high on my list that I hope will make it in a not so far release.
I would like that Deadline automaticly always pick the fastest machine first when many machine are free.
Eaxample: I have 4 machine waiting, 1 single 1Ghz cpu, 2 dual 2Ghz cpu and one kick ass dual dual-core 2.4Ghz.
I submit a job containing only one image, if the slowest machine is the first to scan for a job, this crappy machine will take my job and my kick-ass quad-cpu will stay there sleeping…this is bad.
I could create pool with fast machine and pools with small machine… I already have this, but what appens is that no-one wants to take the small machine…they all want the big ones. Now I would need to create more pools (for eaxample: smallest,small,med,big), but what will append is that users will never take the smallest, small and med pools… so i’ll lose a lot of cpu power.
The solution would be to hit the users with a stick … but this wouldn’t solve anything 
The Idea for the real solution:
When a machine is scanning for a job, it should be able to know if there are other machines ‘idle’, if so it should check if there is a fastest machine available, if there is in fact a festest machine, it should send a command to that machine to check for a task, and wait some more… or any other method that would give the same result
Thanks
Sylvain Berger | Technical Director | Alpha Vision
Hey Sylvain,
Good idea!
For the next release, we are looking to bring Pulse back, and a feature like this would work better if controlled from a centralized application. Having the slaves themselves check if other slaves are idle (which would require a scan of all other slaves) everytime a job scan is performed would probably do more harm than good, but if Pulse kept track of which machines are connected to it, it can sort them based on their cpu speed and hand out the tasks.
I can’t promise this will make it into the next release (our first goal is just to get Pulse stable and reliable), but I can definitely see this feature making it into a future release.
Cheers,
Ryan Russell
Frantic Films Software
http://software.franticfilms.com/
(204)949-0070
Great Ryan that’s great news.
I can’t wait for Pulse to be back online as well.
Sylvain Berger | Technical Director | Alpha Vision