Simulation Time: How Can I Speed It Up?
deankut
Posts: 298
Does it drive anyone else nuts, how long it takes even the simplest assets to "simulate?" Am I doing something wrong? I use the default settings and choose start from original pose (I think – can't check b/c it's simulating right now.)
Help! Please! 
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Remove/hide as much of the scene as possible that isn't involved in the simulation, most importantly hair. Do only one object and the stuff it collides with at a time, each dForce object has the option to freeze simulation which keeps it out of later runs.
Also a faster GPU will help, assuming youare using a GPU for the simulation.
But there is a lot going on in a physics sim and it takes a while. Be glad it isn't a fluid dynamiccs sim instead. Those take a long time.
I've done all you said and I have a new 16" MacBook Pro with the best CPU, etc. But when you say GPU, my computer has an AMD Radeon Pro 5500M 4 GB Intel UHD Graphics 630 1536 MB. Is there something I need to do in order for it to access the GPU vs. the CPU? I know in the settings there used to be "use GPU/CPU" but I don't think it's there anymore. Like I said earlier, it's still "simulating" right now and I can't check. It's been simulating for the last 45 minutes.
In addition to what's mentioned above, wherever possible I set 'Start From Original Pose' to off. There are skirt/dress & some movement positions where this is not possible. But if that setting is set to off, it can halve or better than halve the simulation time.
I am a mechanical engineer by trade & often have to deal with finite element analysis, when we need really accurate answers we do dynamic analyses (like found in the clothing simulator) and there it can take hours & hours to do things 'dForce Simulation' does astonishingly quickly. OK not with the same precision, but the concept and analysis methods are there, and it is so fast in comparison to full blown FE analysis.
Thanks, @richardandtracy. I'll try that.
@deankut "I've done all you said and I have a new 16" MacBook Pro with the best CPU, et"
I think the sad truth is that as long as you are on a Mac, Studio will be slow relative to performance on a PC.
Good suggestions, but isn't there something else going on here? Many programs (and games) can do cloth and hair simulations in real time. Just as an example, in Marvelous Designer, you can grab a piece of clothing and let it fall "naturally" in real time, plus it doesn't cause the clothing to explode as sometimes still happens with dForce. Another example, Blender, a free modelling and animation program, also has realtime cloth simulation. The list could go on. It makes me wonder why dForce is so slow by comparison. Is there something special about dForce which is not true for other cloth/hair simulators? Would someone from DAZ3d care to comment?
In the simulation settings tab open the advanced pane and there should be a drop down listing all your available OpenCL devices. I'm not sure the iGPU has an OpenCL driver. You might have to stay on the CPU whioch will be slow.
I have limited experience with Blender and none with marvelous designer. The Blender physics sim is not remotely real time. Blender spins off a thread(s) to do the work and updates it as the thread reports back but it is quite common tyo have it take a while to finish. As to any differences in speed different software, different coders, different levels of optimization.
Comparing DS or blender or even maya to any specialized program, the specialized program going to win 99.9999% of the time. Blender is a bit of an anomoly due to it's open source nature of course, but even so. Blender sculpting is pretty good, but it's no replacement for zbrush if you have it.
Which should I choose? (Sorry it took me so long to answer.)
I think the radeon would be the fastest one, but a i9 is probably going to be pretty fast too.
UGH! This is what I get when I try to use that one. Any clues as to what could be wrong?
You likely need newer drivers.
Wasn't there something like a cuda driver package some people had to install? Like those on macs or those with only AMD hardware or something like that?
CUDA is an Nvidia thing but there are AMD drivers.
Get it here:
https://www.amd.com/en/support
I tried the CUDA download, but it said it wasn't up to date. So, I'm assuming it isn't available for Catalina. :( Thanks for trying to help, guys.
CUDA would not help you. You have AMD graphics.
Get a new driver from here:
https://www.amd.com/en/support
I'm confused. I have a 16" MacBook Pro. I don't use windows boot camp. That website says something about windows. Even the Apple website says to "open" boot camp. What am I missing here?
By your screenshots if you're simulating something like Linday dForce hair and starting from memorized pose, on a MacBook with a rather low CPU frequency it could definitely be simulating for an hour.
There a little drop-down to the right of the Simulate button. One of the entries is "Simulate Selected". Boy does this speed things up! Just select things first that may be important in your simulation, and it's much better.
My system: Latest Mac Mini, integrated graphics.
I've always found it best to be in full control of your simulated objects. Anything that has simulation I will freeze and do each in turn as required, usually turning off mesh smoothing which can greatly increase simulation times as well. It all depends on what you're doing, whether it's dforcing over a static figure, something from a memorized pose, more complex where you need a timeline to massage the draping the way you want or introduce objects to manipulate the dforce item a certain way. But I learned long ago to always freeze the objects once I was happy with the result and move onto the next.
I did some research and it looks like Apple changed how they do things. You need to get the latest update for your OS to get driver updates. But you should be able to use the 5500M for OpenCl unless Apple locked it out completely for their Metal thing.
Thank you for helping, guys. Much appreciated.