Hardware question
I am using both Daz Studio 4.6 and Bryce 7. I do believe I need to upgrade my hardware in order to make things go faster. I need some advice.
Overall I would like the renders to go faster, in both Bryce and Daz Studio.
When I use complex scenes in Daz Studo with lots of buildings and structures my computer has some speed issues. Scolling and translations tend to jump instead of running smooth.
When I transfer some scenes from Daz Studio to Bryce, Bryce tends to crash or load "forever". It doesn't matter if I use the Bryce bridge or export/import them as .obj-files.
My specs are now:
Processor: 4 core AMD, 3,8 GHz
RAM: 8GB
Graphics card: Geforce GTX 460.
What changes could/should I do to expericene a significant improvement?
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Comments
I'm not much of a fan of AMD. Me wife has a 6 core AMD and has a ton of problems that I don't with my i7. If your doing really complex scenes the 8GB RAM may be being maxed out. Does you graphic card have any onboard RAM. Are you looking at getting a new system or just upgrade this one?
I love AMD - have 8 core - run super .
@Frank
My primary choice is to upgrade my existing system. My final decision depends on the answers I recieve here.
(If I get the impression that upgrades wont do much I will stick with my existing system for a while longer).
Bryce is only 32 bit - so can't use all of your ram .
So that's why it will crash .
Ram - might add 8 more GB
Bryce is only 32bit at the moment, so upping your specs will not affect it all that much.
Unlike Frank, I am an AMD fan, have used nothing else for a number of years now, and have had no problems.
The best way to improve your performance with Bryce is to use Large Address aware.
http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=112556
I don't use DS, so can't say anything there, but my current system is not too much different than yours and I use primarily Bryce and don't experience too much crashing, as long as I remember to save frequently, and refresh Bryce every so often, to clear the memory stack if I have been doing lots of undoing
@Bigh and chohole
Ok, thx for the Bryce info. Then I know. Just for clarification. Bryce works great as long as I don't transfer (large) scenes from Daz Studio. But if there is a way to cut render time, that would be great.
I love AMD - have 8 core - run super .
My wife loves them to. I just see when we use the same programs doing the same things her acts a fool where mine is very stable and don't ever have a single problem. Her and her friend have ran a bunch of tests to see if it was. They would both get the issue with their AMD and they have me do it on my i7 and don't have any issue. I also don't like the RAM capabilities of an AMD board. I'd be limited to 32GB of RAM where as I now have 32GB and can upgrade another 32GB. My i7 benchmarks in the top ten of processors leaving AMD in the dust. Anyways this is about helping this person out and get em going.
Are you using the 32bit or 64bit DAZ Studio? You have a pretty standard system that you can pick up at the store for about $500 now. It should be plenty but if your going to always do heavy complex scenes then you may want to upgrade
@Frank
I am using 64 bit Daz Studio.
Did you check on nvidia's website to see if you had a driver update for your graphic card? I know mine will act sluggish if i need to update
@Frank
I have updated the drivers just a couple of weeks ago,
In DAZ Studio render Speed is 100% CPU based, with Free RAM needed for larger scene files. Only the Viewport uses the GPU. Also in Bryce it is the CPU that controls Render Speed. So For you a faster processor would speed up renders.
For From DAZ Studio to Bryce it is probably the RAM limit of Bryce causing the load error. Bryce is only seeing Some of your Ram and can not hold the scene file you have sent to it from DAZ Studio.
Thank you jaderail.
If i go for a new system and I want a "Daz Studio-monster" (seems like it would enhance the performance of Bryce as well), what should I aim for?
I suppose the best processor I can afford is a given, and more RAM, but how much? Is 16 GB enough or should I go even higher? And how about the graphics card? What would be great?
I intend to use the computer as a gaming computer as well so If there is a very expensive fantasic graphics card dedicated only to 3D work, that is not an option. But it would be fun to know anyway... :)
Tip: Any PC that is rated as a Gamers PC will do you good. Even a lower end one.
I'm i7 based so can not comment on AMD but any i5 or i7 equivalent should do. The Faster the better, CORES help.
I did all my last work on just 8Gb of Ram so 16 Gb is better but not really need unless HUGE scenes are your goal.
Any GPU with 2Gb ram would help for set up and of course gaming during breaks.
Also keep in mind that Bryce is only a 32bit program so it won't see most your RAM no matter how much you get.
@Jaderail and Frank.
Thank you alot for your patience, knowledge and willingness to help. You are really great.
One way of cutting render time is to save your final version and then close Bryce. THis will completely clear out any superflous info, and it will render a bit quicker when you reboot Bryce to render.
Also sometimes you will find that premium render, at a lowish res will actually render quicker than the default render engine.
And as I said earlier, make your PC large address aware, then it can access a bit more of your RAM.
There have been several posts like this over the last few months. Based on these, and my own experiences, go for:
1) An I7 or similar.
2) At least 16GB of memory (my PC has 16GB and it gets maxed out on big renders.
3) Fast memory.
All of this is dependent on your financial resources, of course. Budget food first.
Finally, to slightly elaborate on a point already made, a 32bit processor can only address 4GB of memory. I can't remember what the maximum addressability of a 64bit processor is but it's a huge number.
Thx all.
I am most grateful for your valueable input.
It's all a vicious circle - improve one part of the system and another bottleneck emerges. Improve that, and ... ;)
If you are just doing 3Delight renders on the machine, then it will depend on if your Operating System (OS) is 32- or 64-bit. If 32-bit then the amount of RAM any program can access is limited so you could have a bathtub of DIMM chips and see no improvement (in fact with some systems you might actually see a decline in performance!).
If your application is 32-bit then it doesn't really matter if your OS is 32- or 64-bit as the application itself will be limited to how much memory it can address. As Chohole says, with some 32-bit apps, such as Bryce, you can squeeze them a little bit by making them Large Address Aware (LAA) which lets them see a bit more memory, but it's a reasonably large proportion, so worth doing.
In the best of both worlds you have a fully 64-bit system (apart from those applications that remain, sadly, 32-bit, like Bryce) so the limits you will have are what is supported, by the motherboard and your wallet.
Memory is generally the wrost bottleneck you can have as being short of memory has knock-on effects to every over part of the system. Run out of memory and your swap/page file usage increases hugely, causing your Input/Output subsystem to slow down. In th emenatime your CPU/OS is busy working out what bits of memory to swap out to make space for the stuff it needs to swap back in, meaning your 'useful' CPU utilisation plummets!
If you have the option, ensure that the RAM that comes with the machine is enough for your immediate needs, but is also 'upgradeable' in situ. I have lost track of such things in the last few years, but - if your motherboard can take 4 DIMMs and you want 8GB of memory, do NOT get 4 2GB DIMMs. If you ever upgrade memory you'll need to toss them all out and start again. If they do 8GB DIMMs see if you can one of those, else get 2 x 4GB, then you can double your memory with another 2 without throwing out your original RAM.
What is enough RAM is the question - various figures have been mentioned. If it's a 32-bit system 4GB is notonly enough it is all your OS can address. For a 64-bit system I'd say 8GB is pretty much a good starting point. That will allow you to construct reasonably complex scenes. Again, more is better for 64-bit applications - you'll run out of money (as would most/all governments) if you tried to buy enough RAM for a 64-bit OS to reeeeeeeaaaaaaaallllly stretch out it ;)
A good CPU will, obviously, help in both render speed and in responsivness of applications in general. I have no clue of AMD, and precious little of Intel, but with Intel i7 is better than i5 which is better than i3 (for a given clock speed). The later versions of the chips seem to have more cores/threads (I was very happily surpised to find my new i7 had 12 cores/threads!).
Disk tend to be the slowest component of a system (apart from the wetware ... ;)). A 'perfect' system in my view would have 'small', fast disks for OS and larger (but still smallish) disks in a RAID configuration for data and applications. Things, sadly, tend to be far from perfect! A disk (or disks) of a decent size and access speed will be pretty much as good as any other (I will now standby to repel the pitchfork and torch wielding villagers who are screaming 'heretic!'). Main thing is to have a backup policy AND STICK TO IT!
Graphics. Here we diverge from 'plain' 3Delight. Most modern graphics cards will be fine for DAZ Studio as they are, as I understand it, only used for the user Interface and thus only need to conform to a certain level of OpenGL that has been around for quite a while. If you decide to go 'off campus' and make use of alternative render engines such as LuxRender or Octane (I just mention those two since they have direct 'bridges' from within Daz Studio) then you would need to think about the graphics card a liitle harder. Octane is GPU-only. And more than that, only CUDA-based GPU which means an nVidia card. Rendering takes place all on the card so the amount of VRAM the card has willl affect what can rendered (note, having 2, cheaper, cards each with 2GB of VRAM does NOT add up to 4GB!) LuxRender has three modes of working, CPU only, GPU only or a hybrid of both. If you plan to use the GPU-based aspect you'll need a graphics card compataible with OpenCL (that's CL, NOT GL!).
To the OP, it seems your processing and graphics hardware is acceptable, your RAM maybe a little low but I have seen worse work so... What about your MoBo? Are your drivers up to date?
Given the information you've supplied, I'd go for a RAM upgrade but you shouldn't be experiencing to many problems with what you have, provided your drivers are good and your MoBo is decent. Also, I would look at your cooling system [is she running hot?] and what power-supply are using? What kind of OS you running? Do you have your OS/Bios settings optimized for max performance [high power consumption] or do you have energy saver on?
When was the last time you did soft maintenance on your computer [i.e. junk file removal, registry optimization, defragmentation, etc.]? How loaded is your HDD? What kind of HDD you using?
Graphics work is very memory intensive stuff and will throttle the heck out of your pc. There really is a lot more to slow computer responses than just processor, gfx card, and RAM to be honest...
[EDIT] Your hardware is only as good as the MoBo it's jacked into. Also, is your hardware pre-installed or aftermarket? If pre-installed is it a Dell, Compaq, HP, Emachines, or Gateway computer? I ask because they tend to almost-all be notoriously underclocked by default for some reason. Most AMD and Nvidiea chipsets have clocking controls built into their driver softwares. I would check to see that you are getting the most out of what your have before adding/replacing anything. This also matters on your income and disposable funds on hand as well as technical savvy. If you're a moron [not insinuating you are, more-or-less for giggles] I wouldn't suggest messing with core clock timing. Yet, I'm sure you have a friend or relative that is a nerd like me and is capable of handling such tasks. If you aren't afraid of blue screens and randomly beeping towers, then by all means have at it.
Just attacking some other things that may be holding you down that are commonly overlooked.
[EDIT2] LOL Sorry I am scatterbrained and at work [so distracted on top of it]... Are you just looking to model/render 2.5D images or are you looking to animate and perform other memory intensive tasks? I forgot to ask that before also...