I'm not sure if the EC2 instances support WINE, but apparently you can get windows running on it with
QEMU and Linux. I'm not sure if it's really worth the hassle or just wait for the official windows support (depending on the price!).
jits - It's the approach and complexity of the map which is causing the ramping up of development time in my case. Specifically, I've been working on a new map which relies heavily on careful lighting, custom textures and if prudent tricky brushwork. Getting this to play nicely is a tough job, but im accomplishing it slowly (I can't WAIT to show you guys) with r_speeds being at a high of about 1700 - a stunningly low figure for the visible scene + reflective water, trust me. Ideally I need to know how complex a scene is, polish the VIS carefully, work out the lighting, work on the textures (and alphas), models, etc... in that order. Detailing everything prior to polishing the VIS isn't a task I really relish; the fact that BSP makes detail brushes translucent makes texture work very difficult, especially on the number of small and often complex brushes I'm working with. un-detailing them to fix the textures then redetailing them is a chore, but I guess its what I'm faced with unless I can mitigate the problem with something like 24ghz of processing power from EC2! Be assured though, I'm well aware that the map's VIS in its current form is RIDICULOUS and is the cause of the long compile time - I'm almost at the maximum numportals with half the map's architecture in place, with no detail brushes.
Spook has very kindly offered to donate his killer new rig to help me compile maps, an offer I may well take up for Grave2 as the VIS on that can never be improved (because it's such a godawful layout. Why did people have to like this concept? it's an absolute nightmare). Cheers man, I appreciate it.
One concern I have with the cloud computing solution is that does the virtual server instance actually scale as high as it possibly can? And can the compilers use all that capacity?
- Dag
P.S. as a side note, I'm curious how long Zorch's new map, Abandon All Hope takes to RAD - perhaps if you see this Zorch you could let us know? All those phong surfaces have piqued my curiosity!