Hardware requirements / advice?

bleybourne_772d5802c5

Hi guys,

Sorry if there's information about this elsewhere, but I can't spot it.

I'm currently speccing up a new PC. My old one really wasn't up to the task of rendering scenes with Daz, so I'm hoping to fix that with my new PC.

I'm looking at an i7 3770 CPU, and an NVidia 670 2gb GPU. First question - does Daz use the power of a GPU and its memory at all, or is it all CPU and system Ram?

Second question - for gaming, 8gb is really the maximum amount of RAM you'll need (at present), since most games are 32bit and only use 4gb maximum anyway. But what about Daz - I'm considering whether I want to put 8gb or 16gb in there - will it make a large difference to my renders, or is 8gb considered to be adequate?

Final silly question - I'm going to use a split SSD/HDD in this system, SSD for OS and HDD for data. But would having my Daz library on the SSD make a big difference? Or is it more about the Ram once I have loaded objects than the speed of getting them from disk?

Thanks in advance for any advice/assistance.

Cheers,
Brian.

Scott Livingston

The GPU is relevant when putting your scene together, but not during renders (at least not 3Delight renders).

8GB is probably "adequate," especially with the other specs you mentioned...but I do think going to 16GB will make a difference, and possibly a big one.

Not sure about the last question.

Jaderail

bleybourne said:

Hi guys,Sorry if there's information about this elsewhere, but I can't spot it.I'm currently speccing up a new PC. My old one really wasn't up to the task of rendering scenes with Daz, so I'm hoping to fix that with my new PC.I condensed this for space but I'm happy you asked. I'm specking out a new PC as well.

bleybourne said:

I'm looking at an i7 3770 CPU, and an NVidia 670 2gb GPU. First question - does Daz use the power of a GPU and its memory at all, or is it all CPU and system Ram?The i7 3770 will be a big help when it comes DAZ Studio renders, the speed and power will be what matters. The GPU will help (and the OpenGL features it supports) and it will improve your Viewport (setting up renders) and give much better results for Fast renders done in any of the OpenGL render formats.

bleybourne said:

Second question - for gaming, 8gb is really the maximum amount of RAM you'll need (at present), since most games are 32bit and only use 4gb maximum anyway. But what about Daz - I'm considering whether I want to put 8gb or 16gb in there - will it make a large difference to my renders, or is 8gb considered to be adequate?

For DAZ Studio RAM is king, the more the better, also the faster the better (Of course that will depend on the Mother board bus speed). That said it really depends on how much you wish to add to a scene. I've not broke my 8Gb system but I have pushed it very close to max with just 4 figures, a prop set and a load of textures and shaders. 16Gb would be better if it's in your total budget.
Final silly question - I'm going to use a split SSD/HDD in this system, SSD for OS and HDD for data. But would having my Daz library on the SSD make a big difference? Or is it more about the Ram once I have loaded objects than the speed of getting them from disk?

Not really, speed of loading would be the only upside. The total RAM for objects loaded to the scene, textures, morphs, shaders, lighting and other content used in the scene will require only RAM and the CPU at render time.
Thanks in advance for any advice/assistance. Cheers,
Brian.I hope you find this of some help.

bleybourne_772d5802c5

Awesome, thanks for the responses. Given that RAM is relatively cheap these days, I will probably go for 16gb. I'm not very good with Daz (mostly around lighting, my renders always look plastic, but I'm told better lighting will fix that) and my current PC is too slow at rendering, plus it crashes about 50% of the time mid-render, so I haven't really been able to practice much. With the new system and a ton of RAM, hopefully I'll be able to get more into it.

Thanks,
Brian.

Jaderail

You will, most of my posted renders in my Art Studio thread (Buried now) were done on this i7 8Gb PC.

mark128

bleybourne said:

I'm looking at an i7 3770 CPU, and an NVidia 670 2gb GPU. First question - does Daz use the power of a GPU and its memory at all, or is it all CPU and system Ram?

I have I7 3770 CPU @3.4 Ghz. DAZ seems to run well on it. I have a lower performance NVidia GT640 with 1gb, but I'm not a gamer.

Second question - for gaming, 8gb is really the maximum amount of RAM you'll need (at present), since most games are 32bit and only use 4gb maximum anyway. But what about Daz - I'm considering whether I want to put 8gb or 16gb in there - will it make a large difference to my renders, or is 8gb considered to be adequate?

It really depends what you want to do. I got 16gb of Ram, and I have needed it for some big scenes, but these scenes are bigger than what most people render, 12-16 high res characters with hair, clothes, set, and props.

Recently, I purchased the Bar Interior set (http://www.daz3d.com/bar-interior). Wow does this set need Ram to render. I just finished rendering a scene with one character and some the bar interior (no windows) and DAZ was using 14gb for the render. I have tried some other camera locations that show more of the interior, and 16gb was not enough RAM to render the scene. On the other hand a slightly different composition only used about 8-9 gb to render. RAM memory usage seems to fluctuate a lot using this set depending on camera angle, but I have not really figured out what is causing the memory usage. The DAZ description warns you need a big computer for this set.

The memory usage on this set is not representative of most other sets. The Bar Interior does not use a lot of ram to load and pose, just when rendering. Another big set that uses a lot of Ram is the Forest set, but I have never run out of Ram trying to render a scene in that set.

I would now recommend getting 32 gb RAM. If you wanted to only get 16 gb now, I would make sure you can upgrade to 32 gb later. If you are getting Windows 8, then the 64 bit version is suppose to support 128 gb. I have windows 7, and got the Win 7 professional that will support up to 192 gb. The home basic Win7 64 bit only supports 8 gb. The Win 7 home premium only supports 16 gb. Make sure you get an OS that supports more than 16 gb.