2010/11 budget cap really only restricts personnel numbers.

[raindancer]

Point Taken Ali ! But today's Super Computers do work in Geo Physics, Earth Mapping, Nuke explosion simulations and so on.
Dont think designing F1 cars really require Super Computers Ali.

Actually... a simple arithmetic exercise shows that they do.

A modern desktop computer does approximately 2 billion operations a second.  A Supercomputer does more than a trillion.

The point of the CAD is to see how a car performs in real world conditions... a computer game might get away with a couple hundred polygons making a car, and a vector simulating wind, but to do that in F1, to make the world a set of vague rules, instead of real conditions, is a waste of time.  Basically, for real time results, you can make a super computer 1000 times more detailed, which is nice if you're trying to adjust a winglet a millimetre.

However, they don't have to do real time.  They can let a programme run for two weeks, and then see what happens.  Just try letting a home computer run one intense programme for for two weeks and see what happens.  Suddenly a supercomputer can provide results that are literally a billion times more accurate than you could hope to do on a PC.

And this technology does 'trickle down' to real world car design.  So while it's not needed per se, it does make the world a better place.

Brute processing power is not what is required for most applications. CAD was originally meant to cut down on development time and costs by doing things faster than humans. For instance take the case of an architect designing a house without the aid of computers. It would take between 6 to 8 weeks just to get the design, some more time to test it and than finally iterations when it is actually being built.
Most CFD's run SG machines and so on. Super Computers are really used to input millions of variable data and and simulate a real life situation.
For instance the reason countries like US, UK and a few others want a ban on Nucleur Testing is because they have massively parallel processing super computers capable of simulating a bomb and analysing the results. They no longer need actual  tests to do that. This means they save millions of dollars on testing and these machines are not available to a lot of countries, so they have to test.
Car design and simulating car performance is really not an application requiring super computers in the conventional sense. Moreover todays super computers are blade servers running parallel activities and delivering results.
A Good Blade server can be purchased for $3000.

[Alianora La Canta]

To give an idea of what processing requirements designing a F1 computer these days are, Williams' CFD supercomputer does 10 billion calculations to calculate a car part (according to the October 2009 edition of F1 Racing) - and they still complain that they have to assume a simplified turbulence calculation because it's not cost-effective to get the upgrade to the computer that would tell them if the calculation was accurate (because it's 100 times bigger than what they have). So at the moment F1 design requires a better computing power than the teams can afford to get. Because the power the computer systems produce is nowhere near enough, there are still major assumptions being used.

[John S]

To give an idea of what processing requirements designing a F1 computer these days are, Williams' CFD supercomputer does 10 billion calculations to calculate a car part (according to the October 2009 edition of F1 Racing) - and they still complain that they have to assume a simplified turbulence calculation because it's not cost-effective to get the upgrade to the computer that would tell them if the calculation was accurate (because it's 100 times bigger than what they have). So at the moment F1 design requires a better computing power than the teams can afford to get. Because the power the computer systems produce is nowhere near enough, there are still major assumptions being used.

Hence McLaren, and others, feel the need of their magic paint amongst other things.

[raindancer]

Ali ! I think you should leave it after I have made a comment. BecaUSE i KNOW WHAT i AM TALKING ABOUT HAVING SPENT 22 YEARS IN COMPUTERS

[Ian]

Huh, thought we were all allowed to make a comment on here raindancer, don't you know it's considered rude to shout.

[Alianora La Canta]

raindancer, please calm down. I did not mean to cause any offence, simply fill in some details that explain F1's current position with regard to CFD (note I put in a reference from an article quoting an actual F1 team, who would presumably be in a better position to explain their computing requirements than either of us). F1 rigidly follows the Pareto Principle, not only with regard to time, but every other resource it can get its hands on. Computers happen to be just another resource for F1 teams to exploit in their eyes.

[FW14B]

Ali, how would you reckon Williams' supercomputer would compare to someone like McLaren's, given the differences in budgets between teams?  Also, do BMW Sauber get to keep that massively expensive one BMW brought in? 

[Dare]

Calm down raindancer,everyone is entitled
to their own opinion.

[John S]

  Also, do BMW Sauber get to keep that massively expensive one BMW brought in? 

I suppose if its at Hinwell then Sauber gets it, mind you with advances in computing power still continuing apace Albert II the BMW super computer may now be less cutting edge than a couple of years ago.

[FW14B]

Very true, yesterday's super computer is today's desktop.  Didn't seem to do BMW a lot of good though, given how much they hyped it up!

[Ian]

Ali, you go ahead and carry on posting, if I have a question on something it's you who I'll ask. 

[FW14B]

Ali, you go ahead and carry on posting, if I have a question on something it's you who I'll ask. 

True, if I have a specific question about something, I more often than not ask Ali in the post for an answer!

[John S]

Ali ! I think you should leave it after I have made a comment. BecaUSE i KNOW WHAT i AM TALKING ABOUT HAVING SPENT 22 YEARS IN COMPUTERS

If you can't see what Ali is talking about Raindancer perhaps you will agree Adrian Newey  knows what he is talking about, the following is a quote from a press conference at the RBR 2010 car launch. Unless I have this all wrong he seems to quite clearly say that proper CFD work in F1 requires a awful lot of computer power, time, and possibly a highly intensive program as well.

"CFD is an electronic simulation of a real environment, but it still has pitfalls - not least that every single run in CFD for a given attitude of the car, or ride height, or whatever it might be, is a discreet run. Whereas in the wind tunnel, what we call a normal run, will have 20 or more data points in it. In other words, that is equivalent to 20 runs in the CFD.  That is a limitation of size really, so your CFD cluster has to be that much bigger to do that many runs."

[raindancer]

Never meant shout Apologies. YOu wont believe it but my caps lock key malfunctioned at that precise time. I got a new keyboard now.

[raindancer]

Folks Relax this is not about Ali or me. All I was saying is most people talk about brute force when talking computers and that is what I was refering to and not contradicting anyone least of all Ali.
Ali I was only commenting on comparing billions of operations /sec as computing speed. Floating point operations / Second or FLOPS as they are know signify the number crunching ability of the computer in short brute force.
There are different types of computers and they today use processors paralelly to deliver on multiple tasks. Gigaflops, Tera flops, Peta , Exa and so on only go on to tell you the number of FLOPS a computer can do.
Moreover in building computers various technologies and architectures are being used compared to the olden days of CISC or RISC machines. SPARC and massively parallel computing has taken root in the world and application usage requires more than purely number crunchers. The ability of the computer to run programs, handle video , Audio and so many other inputs are crucial for building Super Computer architectures.
I Agree with Adrian who is talking more from a Wind Tunnel perspective.