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What is a decent amount of RAM for Daz Studio?

DDCreateDDCreate Posts: 1,404
in New Users

I was just hoping for a little technical expertise as I am not the most computer savvy person ever.

I am operating in DS 4.9 I have a desktop computer that has an i7Core(3.30ghz) an NVIDIA GTX 960 4GB GPU and 8GB of RAM. My machine is expandable up to 32GB but I read often going that high is a waste. I use this computer almost exclusively for DAZ. I prefer to render in Iray. Would I benefit from installing more RAM? I do notice sometimes when using the program for a couple hours or so, there is sometimes lag when navigating in my viewport. Any tips anyone has on this would be much appreciated. Thanks!

Comments

  • mjc1016mjc1016 Posts: 15,001
    DDCreate said:

    I was just hoping for a little technical expertise as I am not the most computer savvy person ever.

    I am operating in DS 4.9 I have a desktop computer that has an i7Core(3.30ghz) an NVIDIA GTX 960 4GB GPU and 8GB of RAM. My machine is expandable up to 32GB but I read often going that high is a waste. I use this computer almost exclusively for DAZ. I prefer to render in Iray. Would I benefit from installing more RAM? I do notice sometimes when using the program for a couple hours or so, there is sometimes lag when navigating in my viewport. Any tips anyone has on this would be much appreciated. Thanks!

    For graphics work...3D, photographic, 2D graphics...there is no such thing as 'too high' or 'wasted RAM'.   That said...the Iray 'problem' is not going to be helped by system RAM.  It is the way the GPU memory is used and the evenetual 'filling' of it and then dumping tasks onto the CPU.  If you render and leave the render window open, the scene is not released...even (or especially if you cancel the render).  The Aux viewport, in Iray mode will consume some GPU RAM...and so on.

  • DDCreateDDCreate Posts: 1,404

    Oh i don't have an Iray problem per se, I just wanted to include as much info about what I'm working on and how I work with it to cut down on the "back and forth." You know how it is.

    So what you're saying is go for it as far as RAM? What kind of improvements can I expect by expanding it to capacity? I understand the concept of RAM, just asking how it works in relation to DS performance.

    Thanks again!

  • frank0314frank0314 Posts: 14,330

    The more RAM you have the bigger your scenes can be without lagging.

  • BeeMKayBeeMKay Posts: 7,019

    I often have my system crashing when I do Iray renders with scenes that have just 3 clothed Genesis in it.... I have 16GB. Go and figure.

    You will be able to load larger scenes, and (at least in Iray) render larger scenes.

  • DDCreateDDCreate Posts: 1,404

    Or maybe a regular sized scene with more people/props? By that I mean, instead of a couple BBQ'ing on a deck I could do a family reunion on the same deck?

  • mjc1016mjc1016 Posts: 15,001

    And in general do more, with smaller scenes, without resorting to virtual memory.  So for graphics work, maximising RAM , while it may not offer an immediate, noticeable 'boost', does tend to offer increased stability, more effcient use of resources (less disk intensive tasks) and the ability to increase your content/scene details/etc...plus on the chance that you are close to the limit of your memory currently AND are swapping out to disk, then there will be a boost.

    Keeping more/all of the program and data in RAM is going to be 'faster' than having any of it swap out to disk.

  • frank0314frank0314 Posts: 14,330
    edited April 2016

    What operating system do you have? The only way 32gb would be useless would be if your using Win 7 Home Basic. It can only see 8gb of RAM.

    Post edited by frank0314 on
  • DDCreateDDCreate Posts: 1,404

    Thanks MJC :)

    Frank, I am using Windows 10. I read an article about RAM online on some tech website. Maybe it was posted in 2002 or something because from all the answers here, it appears to be wrong.

    Thanks everyone for the info!

  • mjc1016mjc1016 Posts: 15,001
    DDCreate said:

    Thanks MJC :)

    Frank, I am using Windows 10. I read an article about RAM online on some tech website. Maybe it was posted in 2002 or something because from all the answers here, it appears to be wrong.

    Thanks everyone for the info!

    Well...for things like surfing the 'net, office work and even games it doesn't really do much...yeah you can open a 3000 pg PDF instead of 2500 pg one or something like that.  But for 'real' work...graphics/audio especially, RAM does matter and there is no 'waste' in going all out.

  • SFAMSFAM Posts: 50

    I agree with the "more RAM, the better" concept for most art, 3D, and audio apps.  That idea of wasted RAM usually comes from the gaming world, where GPU is a more important focus for immediate visible power boost.  I would never dream of using less than 16 gb RAM, and since RAM is so relatively cheap, it's an easy investment in your overall quality of render and usage in 3D apps.  Be sure to get the fastest stable RAM your system can handle.  Some good reviews from actual users and benchmarking tests can help in this search.

    All the best!

  • KnittingmommyKnittingmommy Posts: 8,191

    Yep, I'm in the camp that more is better.  I started out using 16 GB when I first started using DS.  I was fine with that for quite awhile, but the more I learned the more I like exploring what I could and I like pushing limits.  I found my limit in December with a render and kept crashing DS when it ran into memory errors.  I upgraded to 32 GB.  At the time, I ran into the Windows 7 issue because I had the Home edition so I ended up upgrading to Windows 10 at the same time.  I don't regret upgrading to the 32 GB.  On occasion, I use every bit of it.

  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 18,333

    So I have 8 GB RAM, an old Intel HD Graphics GPU and frequently cancel out of render to new windows as I try out different settings to learn which work best.

    And I get DAZ Studio crashes all the time from that although if I look at used memory in the task manager of Windows 10 it shows there is often about a GB or more available. And if I start Edge, Outlook, Chrome, or anything that will quickly push the CPU utilization to 100% DAZ Studio will crash, or Edge will crash or oddly, Windows 10 is loathe to crash Outlook (deemed too critical for business communications to crash I'd wager) so I know OS design decisions have been made to crash non-essentials during times when RAM and CPU utilization are deemed too taxing for system stability.

    I also get the crashes as mentioned above by canceling out of one or more render to new window or also usually trying to do more than one render in a session unless I wait an hour or so between the renders. In the past 2 days as I learn what settings I like I have had dozens of crashes. Not very practical for learning and clearly if a DirectX 11.2 capable machine isn't capable what is?

    Why isn't the CPU mode ported to DirectX 11 or OpenGL 3 or 4 where possible for the ATI and Intel GPUs out there? From nVidia's website they say iRay uses nVidia Extensions? Extensions to what? DirectX? OpenGl? Both? And in that case the vast majority of iRay can be done in DirectX and OpenGl and the Extensions via CPU.

    Still I will be buying 16GB RAM so I can at least try two figures in a scene in the next week or so. I guess I could render directly to disk and see if that decreased the number of DAZ Studio crashes but the problem is the render process is already slow enough that it brings learning through trial to a crawl but I'll try that and see if there is a way to view the file rendered to disk via an auto refreshing read-only image viewer 

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