Crowd-sourcing computing power to build a supercomputer

[darylwong]

Hey guys! 

 

I'm looking for some opinion on a platform I built and maybe where you think I could apply that concept to. 

 

I built a platform that crowd-sources computing power from regular PCs supplied by users in exchange for profit. Users share their computing power to my platform using my app, and they get paid for work completed on their computers.

 

The crowd-sourced computing power is currently used for cloud rendering on Blender3D, and looking to incorporate other softwares. But I'm on the fence as to whether rendering is the best use case I should develop it towards. 

 

Let me know what are your thoughts! <removed by moderation >

 

 

Cheers,

Daryl

Edited October 14, 2020 by LogicalDrm

[jaslion]

This is just sheepit but paid.

[kelvinhall05]

5 minutes ago, darylwong said:

whether rendering is the best use case I should develop it towards. 

No, F@H.

[darylwong]

Yea basically, but I figured if it's paid it opens up the possibilities to non-blender/design users to supply computing power.

[AbydosOne]

5 minutes ago, darylwong said:

platform that crowd-sources computing power from regular PCs supplied by users in exchange for profit

So.... bitcoin?

 

I doubt that there's any way that the individual profit for this sort of venture would outweigh the cost of electricity, let alone hardware wear.

[darylwong]

1 minute ago, kelvinhall05 said:

No, F@H.

Thought of that, but because it's free I can't incentivize users to continue supply computing power

[darylwong]

1 minute ago, AbydosOne said:

So.... bitcoin?

 

I doubt that there's any way that the individual profit for this sort of venture would outweigh the cost of electricity, let alone hardware wear.

Sort of, except you earn at an hourly rate, depending on your computer I'd say the average i5-i7 earns anywhere between USD0.10 to USD0.25 per hour. There is a similar platform called Golem that does more or less the same thing, but users get paid in their cryptocurrency. 

[Tristerin]

Im incentivized by a forum badge, food for thought

[Drama Lama]

10 minutes ago, darylwong said:

built a platform that crowd-sources computing power from regular PCs supplied by users in exchange for profit.

So like F@H ( or Boinc ) but you get money?

[darylwong]

Just now, Tristerin said:

Im incentivized by a forum badge, food for thought

yea I'll keep that in mind. thanks! But would you say profits for your computing power is better or waste of time?

 

[darylwong]

2 minutes ago, Drama Lama said:

So like F@H ( or Boinc ) but you get money?

Yea exactly. It's not a shit ton but it's money I guess. I'm keeping the pricing super duper low at the time because I'm hoping to compete with the renderfarms, so there is room for it to increase. I'm still finding that balance

[AbydosOne]

8 minutes ago, darylwong said:

Sort of, except you earn at an hourly rate, depending on your computer I'd say the average i5-i7 earns anywhere between USD0.10 to USD0.25 per hour.

4 minutes ago, darylwong said:

But would you say profits for your computing power is better or waste of time?

 

I'm sorry, I get a dollar for leaving my computer on overnight churning away at 100%? That falls under "waste of time/energy" to me. Just the electricity alone would be something like $0.03-$0.04 an hour.

 

EDIT: my internet is $0.11/hour, FWIW.

[PeachGr]

if i was to do that, i d better spend my time and money to Bitcoin, i guess gives more money
Also if you pay for computing power, i guess users have to be able to make money after paying for electricity

[darylwong]

Just now, AbydosOne said:

 

I'm sorry, I get a dollar for leaving my computer on overnight churning away at 100%? That falls under "waste of time/energy" to me. Just the electricity alone would be something like $0.03-$0.04 an hour.

Cool i'll keep that in mind, thanks! At what price point would you say it becomes more meaningful?

[Tristerin]

5 minutes ago, darylwong said:

yea I'll keep that in mind. thanks! But would you say profits for your computing power is better or waste of time?

 

I wouldn't do this for .10c or .25c an hour for sure.  It wouldn't be worth the (to me):

 

Heat generated during that hour that my AC has to absorb in cooling costs

Electricity generated as higher end systems will consume 500+ watts during use

 

 

I would do it for a forum badge/s at the place I like to hang out online though.  

 

[darylwong]

1 minute ago, PeachGr said:

if i was to do that, i d better spend my time and money to Bitcoin, i guess gives more money
Also if you pay for computing power, i guess users have to be able to make money after paying for electricity

Yea I do see your point, AbydosOne mentioned the same. What are your thoughts though, at what earning rate does it become attractive to you, realistically?

[PeachGr]

1 minute ago, darylwong said:

Yea I do see your point, AbydosOne mentioned the same. What are your thoughts though, at what earning rate does it become attractive to you, realistically?

i will just say above bitcoin. That's a way to ensure that you are not re-arange the user's pc, to spend it to bitcoin

[porina]

1 minute ago, Tristerin said:

Heat generated during that hour that my AC has to absorb in cooling costs

Different people are in different environments. We're moving into northern hemisphere winter, and I'm starting to leave PCs on just for the heating it provides, doing some work in the process. A PC doing heating through work is more useful than a dumb electric heater. If you get paid for it, that could help some. Of course, it gets more complicated for value calculation if you have gas or a heat pump system available for heating.

 

What that work is depends on the individual. My systems are on a mix of World Community Grid and/or Rosetta@home in the hopes they might provide reaching some end to covid sooner, or doing prime number finding for personal interest. Would I "sell" my systems? Maybe. Other companies have tried this in the past, calling it a "computational furnace". I don't know if they still exist.

[darylwong]

3 minutes ago, Tristerin said:

I wouldn't do this for .10c or .25c an hour for sure.  It wouldn't be worth the (to me):

 

Heat generated during that hour that my AC has to absorb in cooling costs

Electricity generated as higher end systems will consume 500+ watts during use

 

 

I would do it for a forum badge/s at the place I like to hang out online though.  

 

Yea it's kinda neither here nor there isn't it. Okay i'll keep that in mind, but at what price point would it make sense for you to share your computing power? The more powerful your systems, the higher the earning rate of course. And there is an option of how much CPU you'd like to supply so it just runs in the background without affecting you using your PC.

[Kilrah]

Probably about double what you mentioned I would say. And there should be a good stream of jobs, don't want to leave the PC on 24/7 and have it be used by your software for an hour every 3 days.

Electricity is about $0.25/kWh here.

 

BTW your nebula node download link is broken.

[darylwong]

Just now, porina said:

Different people are in different environments. We're moving into northern hemisphere winter, and I'm starting to leave PCs on just for the heating it provides, doing some work in the process. A PC doing heating through work is more useful than a dumb electric heater. If you get paid for it, that could help some. Of course, it gets more complicated for value calculation if you have gas or a heat pump system available for heating.

 

What that work is depends on the individual. My systems are on a mix of World Community Grid and/or Rosetta@home in the hopes they might provide reaching some end to covid sooner, or doing prime number finding for personal interest. Would I "sell" my systems? Maybe. Other companies have tried this in the past, calling it a "computational furnace". I don't know if they still exist.

Yea I do agree, the value of supplying on my platform does change quite drastically from country to country, and that's something I'll have to work out.

Oh hey me too, Rosetta@home mostly. And i tried contacting pharmas to provide them with free computing power, hoping to help with covid but to no avail unfortunately haha. 'Computational furnace', cool I'll look into it. Thanks!

[darylwong]

3 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

Probably about double what you mentioned I would say. And there should be a good stream of jobs, don't want to leave the PC on 24/7 and have it be used by your software for an hour every 3 days.

Electricity is about $0.25/kWh here.

 

BTW your nebula node download link is broken.

Hey yea the download link is down, so sorry about that. Because I'm using some free hosting service and I hit the limit of downloads while doing some testing today. My apologies. Thanks for checking it out though! Appreciate it. 

 

Okay double is definitely do-able, possibly even 2.5 to 3x that depending on the demand side of the things. But speaking of the demand side of things, I'm still finding Blender users and it's no easy feat, so I won't dare say I can promise a good stream of jobs just yet. If you've got a friend using Blender, maybe let them know to check it out? Would love any feedback, criticism or otherwise.

[Tristerin]

11 minutes ago, porina said:

Different people are in different environments. We're moving into northern hemisphere winter, and I'm starting to leave PCs on just for the heating it provides, doing some work in the process. A PC doing heating through work is more useful than a dumb electric heater. If you get paid for it, that could help some. Of course, it gets more complicated for value calculation if you have gas or a heat pump system available for heating.

 

What that work is depends on the individual. My systems are on a mix of World Community Grid and/or Rosetta@home in the hopes they might provide reaching some end to covid sooner, or doing prime number finding for personal interest. Would I "sell" my systems? Maybe. Other companies have tried this in the past, calling it a "computational furnace". I don't know if they still exist.

Oh I understand a computational furnace - its how we supplement the heat at my shop (Jonesburg Autobody) with our mining rigs. 

 

That's why I stressed "I" wouldn't

[darylwong]

11 minutes ago, PeachGr said:

i will just say above bitcoin. That's a way to ensure that you are not re-arange the user's pc, to spend it to bitcoin

Okay noted, above bitcoin. I'll look into that, thanks for that!

[Kilrah]

You only mentioned CPU, but as it's Blender I guess it can use the GPU too?