You can run DOS, FreeDOS, and most versions of Windows in a virtual environment The two that I like are Oracle's VirtualBox (it runs under another operating system ... like Win7 or Linux) and will let you create and run many copies of a virtual machine (up to the limits of your hardware) I have also been using XenServer (Also open source from Citrix) ... it is a virtual hypervisor that runs bare to the metal and will support a very rich and complex mix of other OSs running under it. I have an old 8GB Dual 4core Xeon server I converted to a XenServer You can allocate processors and memory to virtual machines in any of these environments and run many copies of Fractint at a time. I like the XenServer since I can run a remote console from another machine to see how things are running and because of the low overhead of the hypervisor. On 1/3/2015 12:11 PM, david wrote:
On 12/30/2014 08:40 AM, JackOfTradeZ@comcast.net wrote:
. Does anyone have experience or ever use the "Disk Video" mode? I am currently rendering an animation based on 8th order Julia set; it is "circular" and I wanted a "square" video screen, like 1024x1024 or such. I could find none in the usual *.cfg files. But I retrieved the "big" file from the FractInt distribution zip, and it has a 2048x2048 mode, which is good [large high resolution - what I want], but it is a "disk-video" mode only. I gave it a try and it is FAST !!! Only thing is you can't see the image rendering, just a screen with some information updating. Small sacrifice. And it runs in windows !!! [XP and 2K]. And it can be a "window", not full screen; I just see the GIF files being created in the directory one by one. I can multitask also while it is running, although performance sometimes choppy. All I do is double click my BAT file and let it rip - awesome!! I CAN'T BELIEVE I just discover this after using FractInt almost 20 years now !!
Fractint is rich with features, one reason why it's still my choice despite the competition.
It doesn't appear to use the video adapter [graphics card, hardware] directly, just CPU rendering. I let it run for several hours and noted no significant temperature increase either on CPU, chipset, or NVidia card with my hardware monitor.
The thought just occurred to me that maybe you could run multiple Fractint disk-video sessions, and if your OS is smart of allocating CPU cores, each session could be running on its own core. So today's multicore CPUs could really blast through generating multiple fractals.
Merry Christmas, Happy HoliDaZe, and a Fractal New Year everyone! JoTz
happymerrynewchristmasyear!
-- -David "The History of every major Galactic Civilization tends to pass through three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Inquiry and Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why and Where phases. For instance, the first phase is characterized by the question How can we eat? the second by the question Why do we eat? and the third by the question Where shall we have lunch?" - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)