Daz3D on a Laptop: Minimum Tech Specs?
zombiewhacker
Posts: 684
Greetings all. Thinking of getting a laptop, either new or previously used. Unfortunately, I can't afford a state of the art laptop so I'm wondering the minimum specs are for running Daz3D smoothly. (Ditto for Poser if I decide to go that route as well.)
Thanks.
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System requirements for DAZ Studio near the bottom of the page :
https://www.daz3d.com/get_studio
You should find the minimum tech specs for the various Poser versions on Smith Micros's website.
That's not entirely accurate for running it. I've ran it on less processor speed, and it worked fine HOWEVER: It's not recommended, and my processor was always running hot when I did it. A good example of how I used to use it was with an Acer Aspire Timeline 4810TZ (came out roughly 6-8 years ago). Now mind you it did run, but the rendering if more than pics took forever. And to do a 10 second movie clip (30 frames, x 10 seconds, roughly 300 frames, would take hours to render. Like I would go to sleep for the night, get up and it'd still be rendering or would crash from overheating.
Yes, please note I asked what the minimum specs were for running Daz3D smoothly. I plan to be trying my hand at animation so this is essential.
Also, since laptops use an onboard graphics chip (as opposed to an add-on card) I need to be 100% sure that the laptop hardware is even compatible with what Daz3D requires.
If you are planning on using a laptop with an onboard graphics chip, then you would need to pay particular attention to the OpenGL requirements which are stated as version 1.6 minimum. I think you would need to think about getting a graphics card as well.
DAZ Studio uses OpenGL for the viewport display, and the CPU for rendering.
Hi Zombiewhacker,
I run Daz Studio and Carrara both exclusively on laptops. I have both a Windows based laptop and a MacBook Pro. The two biggest contributors to running Daz (and Carrrara) have been RAM and number of threads. I would not recommend you have less than 8 GBs of RAM, and more is better. My Windows laptop has 16 GBs and my Mac has 8 GBs. Both are Core i7 Quad core processors with Hyperthreading, which gives me 8 threads for rendering. Granted, I am still very much a beginner, but the longest time one of my scenes has taken to render (in Carrara anyway) is 30 minutes. Most of my renders only take around 15 mins on this setup. Both of my laptops are 2 years old, and so are nowhere near top of the line.
If you get at least a quad core CPU, (Intel based choose an i7 with a model number of 3XXX or higher, almost any multi-core AMD will work too, just make sure it is multicore) the OpenGL requirements will be handled fine with the included graphics. Good luck!
Rich S.
You can add on a graphics card to a laptop? I didn't know that.
Thanks for the info.
Sounds like I'm in for a world of hurt, though, since the most I'll be able to afford will be an i3 or the equivalent. Also, when you say renders, do you mean animation or stills?
I use DAZ only on a Labtop.
It's a 5 years old Dell Inspiron (N5010) i7 with 1,73GHz and 4GB RAM.
It run smooth but not very fast
(if I have saved enough money I go for an Alienware18 with Dual AMD Radeo R9 M290X graphics with 4GB GDDR5- AMD CrossFire technology; 32GB RAM and 4.4GHz Quad Core... but that is a few month away)
You can add on a graphics card to a laptop? I didn't know that.
Hi Zombiewhacker,
Some laptops (such as Alienware, Origin, and some Asus) have MXM sockets which do allow for graphic card upgrades, but these tend to be higher-end and expensive laptops. Most of the laptops you find in the $700 or less range do not have this feature. If you want a beefy graphic card (which does not really help in rendering speed unless you use an add-on render engine such as Octane), you will need to pick a laptop with one already included.
Good luck!
Rich S.
Howdy R25S,
There are a couple of relatively inexpensive updates you can do to your Dell to improve rendering speed. If you are running a 64-bit OS (and if you are not, you should), you should upgrade to 8 GBs of RAM. You can easily do this for around $50, and this will help with rendering time. With only 4 GBs, you system is likely swapping to disk during the process, which will really slow it down. Additionally, if you are running a 32-bit OS (Windows XP, or 32-bit Windows 7 or 32-bit Windows 8.X), DAZ will hit a RAM limit of 2 GBs (this limitation is inherent in all Win32 32-bit applications), so adding the RAM won't really help.
Good luck!
Rich S.
Hi LinkRS;
I'm running WINDOWS 7 Pro 64 Bit
Updating RAM would be an option but since I have Mainboard (and/or mainprocessor trouble - system shut-down without any warning) and it cost around 700€ (around 920$) to fix it; I'm looking foreward to buy a new one... (because the whole Labtop cost only around 800€ - and this was 5 years ago)
with a much better grafic-card (actually it is an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 - wich isn't the best for fast rendering, I think)
Thanks for the info.
Sounds like I'm in for a world of hurt, though, since the most I'll be able to afford will be an i3 or the equivalent. Also, when you say renders, do you mean animation or stills?
Right now, I only do stills. I haven't tried an animation yet :-). An i3 will probably take longer in rendering but as long as you get enough RAM, it should be OK. If you have an i3 and only 4GBs you will be hurting :-) A Core i3 (3XXX or higher) is a decent entry level processor, and just to give you an idea, the entry-level Alienware Alpha "console" has an i3 in it. The biggest problem with an i3 is the low number of threads (compared to higher level CPUs) and the onboard graphics. Both of these will make it slower (the onboard graphics in the Viewport, and the thread count during rendering).
I don't remember for sure, as I have switched to using Carrara most of the time now, but I don't think that DAZ uses all available threads for rendering anyway, so in that case you probably wouldn't even notice the difference between an i3 and an i5. Perhaps someone else can comment on that aspect?
Good luck!
Rich S.
Yuck :-( System shutdown like that sounds like what I call a "thermal event." The system is overheating so it shuts down before it causes anything to fry. Either that, or it is a power issue (bad power supply). Since the graphic card is just used for viewport rendering, the ATI card won't be an issue for your final renders, as that is all CPU based. I would just suggest that your new one has at least 8 GBs of RAM and is still running 64-bit OS (Windows 7 is fine, no need for Windows 8). If it only comes with 4 GBs, upgrading should be inexpensive on your own. If you are planning on doing large scenes, there is value in more than 8 GBs, but for normal day-to-day computing 8 GBs is plenty. Good luck!
Rich S.
DS uses all available threads,
don't know the difference between i3 and i5...
I have an i7 (4 physical cores = 8 threads) and DAZ uses all 8 threads during rendering (wich makes it nearly imposible to use any other application during rendering)
Thanks R25S and fixmypcmike :-)
The primary difference between any i-series Intel CPU is hyper-threading (as well as core count and cache size). An i3 will not have hyper-threading, and an i5 may have hyper-threading. An i7 always has hyper-threading. So that leads to the question "what is hyper-threading", and this is simply the ability for a single processor core to spawn two threads instead of one, acting as two cores. So a dual-core hyper-threaded CPU will spawn 4 threads, a quad-core hyper-threaded CPU spawns 8 threads, etc....
:-)
Rich S.
thanks for explaning LinkRS...
but I didn't mean that I do not know how it technically works... I mean that I do not know how many cores/threads an i3 or an i5 offers and how much of them DAZ is using... sorry for not explaining this correct
Fortunately I already have another older computer that I do all my other work on. So if DAZ ends up hogging all my resources on a new laptop, so be it.
A follow-up question:
I appreciate the fact that both are important, but which is more important where DAZ is concerned: CPU or RAM?
The cheapest i3 laptops I've come across usually don't offer more than 4 GB of RAM, whereas the one bargain laptop I found that did offer 8 GB or RAM only has an "Intel Celeron N2920 Quad-Core Processor" which to me translates as "lame on steroids."
RAM will mainly affect how much you can fit into a scene; CPU will mainly effect how fast it can render. I would tend to favor RAM over CPU if forced, even though it would take longer to render. Heat is also an issue, though -- I don't know offhand, but maybe someone would know whether the Celeron is more or less likely to overheat a laptop.
RAM will mainly affect how much you can fit into a scene; CPU will mainly effect how fast it can render. I would tend to favor RAM over CPU if forced, even though it would take longer to render. Heat is also an issue, though -- I don't know offhand, but maybe someone would know whether the Celeron is more or less likely to overheat a laptop.
In most cases (would have to know the models to be sure) you can easily upgrade the RAM in a laptop after you purchase rather inexpensivly. However, the reverse is not true, in most cases you cannot upgrade the CPU after purchase. In my opinion, it would be better to get the faster CPU, and then upgrade the RAM yourself. You can even do the RAM upgrade at a later if funds are tight, but chances are you would not be able to upgrade the CPU later.
Rich S.
As I know, there a a few labtops (but only a hand full) on wich you can change the CPU... but most of the time you have to change the whole Mainboard.
I would prefer CPU before RAM, too - because RAM can be updatet easy.
Thanks everyone! Maybe when I've narrowed down my choices I'll post links to see which laptop you guys think is the better buy.
Update:
While I still haven't gotten a new laptop (yet), the good news is I can now at least afford an i5, (as opposed to an i3).
One laptop in my price range is the HP ProBook 450 G1 15.6, with 8GB of RAM (upgradeable to 16 GB) and a decent 750 GB HD.
My question is the graphics card: according to specs, it's a AMD Radeon HD 8750M and an Intel HD Graphics 4600 with 1GB of RAM (whatever that means). No idea though whether this machine supports OpenGL.
The Intel HD is the built in graphics on the i5. The AMD Radeon is a full graphics card (though its a mobile version), both are good enough for Studio's OpenGL requirement.
Does this really have to be a laptop? You could get a desktop for 100 Euros less with three times the rendering speed! :-)
Thanks for the info.
All the laptops I've seen here in the states have been consistently cheaper than their desktop equivalents. Maybe the opposite is true in Europe, but not here. :down:
Defining an "equivalent" desktop can be a tricky business. :-)
This sounds like the specs. you mentioned:
http://www.amazon.com/HP-ProBook-i5-4200M-LED-backlit-Anti-Glare/dp/B00HGLGT9W
...but on the first page of "i5 desktops" at tiger direct:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=8991887&CatId=2627
At a saving of more than $180...
The desktop cores are about 40% faster and you get 2 extra cores, that's at least 3 times the rendering speed.
The saving in price should be enough to get a decent size monitor. :coolsmile:
Can I friend you? :-)
Yeah, that's pretty much the same HP laptop I was looking at... except I can get mine at a local big box store for $599, so the savings would be negligible.
Still, that that Tiger Direct model looks like a great buy. One advantage the HP laptop has, though, is it comes with Win7 installed plus a Win 8 CD and license. That's a great advantage flexibility-wise.
I'm sorry, but laptops simply aren't cheaper here in the states than the desktop equivalent. For very little more than the laptop you linked to you could buy the following:
http://www.amazon.com/Asus-M32AD-US026S-ASUS-Desktop/dp/B00ND1K9A4/ref=pd_sim_sbs_pc_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=0YG04FECX4HS3G2H15NV
and a 24" monitor:
http://www.amazon.com/Asus-VS248H-P-24-Inch-Full-HD-LED-lit/dp/B0058UUR6E/ref=pd_bxgy_pc_text_y
The laptop has a mobile CPU which isn't capable of sustaining its claimed speed for any great length of time and leaves you with nowhere to go.
A halfway-decent desktop will let you go much further with RAM upgrades and you could pick up a reasonably-priced graphics card later on.
Better yet, if you can find another couple of hundred dollars, you're into i7 territory.
And for someone talking about using all 8 threads, create a shortcut to DazStudio.exe and change the target as follows:
C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /C START /AFFINITY 0x7F DAZStudio.exe
That will run Daz on 7 of your 8 "cores" (threads really), leaving you with a still-usable system!
Take the plunge and go with windows 8, its been OK since it updated to 8.1, honest :-)