What’s the “ideal” hardware for Daz?

Since I am using Daz Studio to generate renders used in my work environment (higher ed), my supervisor invited me to write up a request for a dedicated rendering computer. I’m hoping that forum folks here who are more knowledgeable than me can suggest the “ideal” specs (RAM, CPU, GPU, etc.). So … suggestions?

Gratefully,

Chris

Comments

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 100,555

    Well, you still need a budget - the ideal system would have multiple Awhatever cards, with 48GB (or is it 96) apiece, paired via nVlink, with maxed out RAM to support them and the biggest possible SSDs for content. I should think you could easily get into five figure territory.

  • cheardcheard Posts: 74

    Thank you, Richard. I am only guessing at budget right now, but I think under $5k is likely.

    Is there a “best” GPU-to-CPU RAM ratio? I thought I read about that somewhere, but now cannot locate that information, if indeed I didn’t just imagine it.

    Gratefully,

    Chris

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 100,555

    The general advice is that you need three times as much system RAM as GPU Ram if you want to be able to fully use the GPU RAM - but if you expect your scenes to be smaller then you need proportionally less.

  • Hi there and sorry for jumping here in, but I have a similar question regarding upgrade of my current PC for DAZ rendering.

    Currently I have a PC with a Ryzen 3700 8-core, 32 GB of RAM and a RTX 2070 S 8GB graphics card. Since I use Genesis 9 with PBR skin shader, DAZ 4.22 Pro I have recognized that even with only the G9 HD + a HDRI as background the VRAM is not enough and the render is switching to CPU.

    So my idea is to upgrade to a graphics card with at least more VRAM, also I want to update to a 5950X 16-core AMD CPU.  I'm afraid that even 16 GB of VRAM could soon face the same issue when starting renders with 2 characters inside of a living room for example with some surfaces, textures, lights, etc....  So I think about a RTX 4090 with 24 GB of VRAM.

    Does this also mean I have to extend the RAM to at least 64 GB? I will also need a power supply with 1000W or at least 850W for sure and maybe even a bigger tower chassis, but this is not the question I have.

    Most interesting to me is, if a RTX 4090 with 24GB of VRAM is sufficient for most of the commonly shown renders here? Or is there a tool available to check a scene for approx. usage of VRAM before the render engine is starting, so that it would be possible to reduce and delete some of maybe not so necessary items in the scene?

     

    Thank you,

    Peter

  • PerttiAPerttiA Posts: 10,024

    pbergmann_c6b73c8588 said:

    I'm afraid that even 16 GB of VRAM could soon face the same issue when starting renders with 2 characters inside of a living room for example with some surfaces, textures, lights, etc.... 

    The 16GB version will have about three times as much VRAM available for Iray rendering than the 8GB version has. That is because the OS, DS, the scene and necessary working space, are eating about half of the VRAM on a 8GB card.
    In practice, an 8GB card is pretty useless with the latest versions of DS, using relatively recent assets.

    If you want to utilize the full VRAM on a GPU, three times more RAM is a good rule of thumb.

  • PerttiA said:

    pbergmann_c6b73c8588 said:

    I'm afraid that even 16 GB of VRAM could soon face the same issue when starting renders with 2 characters inside of a living room for example with some surfaces, textures, lights, etc.... 

    The 16GB version will have about three times as much VRAM available for Iray rendering than the 8GB version has. That is because the OS, DS, the scene and necessary working space, are eating about half of the VRAM on a 8GB card.
    In practice, an 8GB card is pretty useless with the latest versions of DS, using relatively recent assets.

    If you want to utilize the full VRAM on a GPU, three times more RAM is a good rule of thumb.

     

    Oh, thanks for this insight, this was also my feeling, that my 8GB 2070S is not very useful anymore for DAZ renders. A new RTX 4080 S with 16GB could also be an option, at least its not so expensive compared to the top model.

    On the other hand the new GPU should do its job for the next 2 - 3 years at least, so around 500 € more for the top model is worth to think about.

    Thanks,

    Peter

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