[weblacky]

Yo,
I have a hard choice to make, wondered if anyone had input.  In plans to rebuild my SGI Indy R5000 150Mhz system.  I've purchased some upgrades over the years with the hope of installing them some day...but I guess I have too many upgrades and need to chose.

As you know Indy only has two GIO32 slots (meh) and the Indy (and Indigo2 for that matter) having 10Mb ethernet is a joke, heck I wish I could do gigabit but we all know why not.  So 10/100Mb is the next best thing, so a while ago I got a couple Set Engineering 10/100 GIO32 cards.  Problem is I also recently got an IndyVideo with Cosmo compress board set....see the battle?

I know you can install JUST the IndyVideo board and don't have to install a Cosmo Compress board at all.  I've been wondering about this.  I have nearly the highest CPU for Indy and maxed out RAM.  I've capture video before with built in VINO and it works fine.  I'm lead to believe that Cosmo can do JMPEG compression in real-time from IndyVideo (not just from 601 breakout) which takes a load off the CPU, but I lose 10/100Mb networking if I do.

I kind of want to install IndyVIdeo and the 10/100 NIC and just forget about the Cosmo Compress board.  

Anyone have any experience with using the IndyVideo without a compression board?  Doable?  I feel the lack of networking really hampers the machine so I really think faster networking is more valuable than a compression board.


Thoughts?

[Raion]

Simple solution: Moar Indys.

[weblacky]

Haha! You know I have another Indy...but it's supposed to be the PSU testing mule!

[opcode]

I know this is an old thread but most of them are

If you are going to actually use the Indy Video and Cosmo boards be prepared to leave the case off and have some fans blowing in there. Those things get mucho hot! I remember my brother complaining about how he had difficulty converting SGI formats. More Indys is always the best solution but if not, I would go with 100mbit.

[indigofan]

I would counter that as I used to have two Indy's with the Cosmo compress, full motion full rez video in my mind would trump the network card, unless you are pushing a lot of data, well video will be moved for sure, but might just take a bit longer.. Also that config of the Indy makes it's resell value a lot more than with a networking card... More Indy's is always better. Best thing comes in pairs... I have two Indigos, two Octanes which can always serve as a quick hit spare part donor if needed.

[hamei]

I'm going to go with indigofan here; unless you're trying to run Inferno over a nas, 10 mbit ethernet isn't the end of the world. I snuck an old 10 mbit switch into a small subnet in an office once and no one even noticed. In fact, I've happily watched youtube videos over an lte phone-as-hotspot connection. In real life it's hard to tell the difference between gig ethernet and 10 mbit, for a lot of stuff.