I really really liked the workstation that Wendell and Logan built. I think the dual cpu motherboard they found is perfect for a post production environment. This is now my dream machine when I get the budget to build a 4000 dollar rig.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Tyudcr1uLY
That being said, I was wondering what you guys thought about an equally beastly machine serving a massive minecraft world that I've been creating. Here's the sexy house I want to put everything in:
I'm not talking about one of your 12 year old friends playing Minecraft. I'm talking about having a massive play file where well over 100 square miles of world has been explored with 5 or so villages of 10-20 players spread out. I'm already maxing out my quad core and my play file has about 5 square miles mapped out. My idea of playing Minecraft is being the king of a giant freaking world. Don't you realize Minecraft worlds can nearly render to infinity? How do you think infinite data gets stored? In imagination land?
I'm eventually going to have to research how exactly the data is processed when it's served out. The best way to build will probably be rack-mount servers. I wonder if it renders everything that's going on or if that's client side activity.
This server is going to be like, I'm going to have a group of admins where I'm this Yeti god and they're like regional Gods. And each admin will get to be the god of their own colony. Now they'll be far enough away from each other that they can't easily get to one another, but if one were to make the journey with say an army or something, then the different villages could possibly do harm to one another, but we'll hopefully be able to mitigate issues like that in our godly board meetings.
Ugh... Minecraft does not support multiple CPUs or multiple GPUs, so you're stuck with whatever best single components you can get. I'd go for a single 4930k and a single 290X or 780. Then, spend the rest on watercooling.
The LD is a great choice of case, but I'd prefer a Case Labs. Still, LD is a great guy - I like to support great guys with great products.
Man that sucks. Well at least we wont be tempted to go over budget.
Yeah I can see why you would prefer a Case Labs. I didn't realize when I found the LD case, but I'm completely sucked into custom cases now. They have that solid sexy feel that make you completely forget you were ever thinking about getting a Mac. So ok, single 4930, badass water cooling. I wonder how much RAM you can throw at Minecraft before it's overkill.
If I'm correct most of the world is actualy saved/loaded directly to/from the world file instead of ram, so getting a fast ssd or a lot of ram and use a ramdisk would be my advise on storage.
As minecraft is limited to a single thread, your best option for running ultra large maps is to run multiple servers each with individual chunks of the world.
Use multiverse or something similar, so that when you approach the edge of the world it hands you to another server. There are pluggins that will enable you to pass chat between all the servers as well.
Depends on what side you are looking for, if you where biluding a server side ws for minecraft to host you are not limited to the same way as loging in to a server and playing a game,then you are limited to minecraft's (stupid java one core usage)