Help with required Video Card

terry.wanless

Hi,

I am not that great with technology so I get a bit confused as to what I require in regards to a system that will render.  I understand that more is better but I don't have the budget for that.

What I currently have is a Geforce GTX 1060 3G video card and my system has 8G of ram.  I see by looking on the forum that this is just not good enough to do any rendering and when I try some work okay but alot just crash my system, well not crash they just lock it up.

I tried to find something I could afford and the best I can get to, video cards are so expensive now, is GTX 1660 6G.  It is $729.00 and I am expecting I need to add another 8G ram to my system so I am looking at $800 which is the top of my budget.

My processor is i5-9400F CPU @ 2.90 GHZ 

Can someone with a bit more computer knowledge tell me if buying this is going to be useful or is it just wasting money as the overall card and CPU still won't be enough to do rendering.  And with rendering I am just talking pretty basic stuff like 1 to 2 characters and maybe a house scene etc.

And another question, I can't work out what products I can use.  What I mean is I bought some hair from OOT and they are great but I seem to use one and it renders okay on the system I have now, but then another with just a standard model it just freezes the system.  Users talk about seeing the VRAM required before you push render in the scene info but I can't see this information.  I see faces etc but I don't understand how to read this to tell me the VRAM needed.

And last one, does everything you do need more VRAM, example you have a base mode and you use morph sliders, does that change the VRAM required.  I am just looking at everything I need to avoid doing to blow out the size of a basic character.

Any help very appreciated.

Cheers,

Terry

fred9803

An Nvidia RTX video card is the best idea for Daz Studio Iray rendering., but not important if you want to render in DS 3DL or Filament. You don't mention which way you want to render. VRAM also not so important for 3DL rendering because it won't be using you GPU. DS's Ddelight render engine is simple to use and much faster than Iray, but unlike Iray produces arguably less realistic images. Which is fine depending on what you plan for your art.

The story gets much sadder if you intend to use Iray for rendering. Sadder in terms of money. You'll need something like a RTX 3060 as minimum and at least 16GB of sysRam for starters. So sorry we're talking about big bucks for entry level.... $1500 or more for GPU + RAM, and a MB and CPU that won't bottleneck the GPU. And probably an upgraded power supply. First work out what type of artwork you would like to make so you won't waste money on hardware you may not need. There's a comparison and review here about 3DL and Iray.

PS... I forgot to mention that Nvidia GPUs are very hard to obtain right now and massively overpriced if you can get your hands on one.

terry.wanless

Hi Fred, thanks for taking the time to answer.

I would have liked to use Iray to produce nice renders, I wanted to do models and use them in cooking scenarios, not animation as I knew that was beyond mine and the computers limitations, just still images.

I had a look at the video card you mentioned and they are possible to get here, alot are out of stock, a RTX 3060 12G is $ 1400, and I would pretty much then need a full new computer so that is way beyond my budget. I will look at the link you provided but I am thinking that 3D modelling is just beyond my budget at this time. 

Thanks again,

Terry

Endlessdescent

Terry if you are still looking for a GPU an RTX 2xxx can handle DAZ studio just fine but will be a bit slower. 

I ended up buying a RTX 2070 Super on eBay for about $400. At the same time sold my GTX 1060 SC for about $200 so probably got the new card for about $2-300 total. Not a bad trade. You may want to check there. 
Buying used PC hardware is kinda scary but you have 30 days buyer protection which is a little comforting. 
The market for GPUs is just bad right now. 

FSMCDesigns

Honestly, I would add more DDR to your system before getting a new card. With that low of a CPU, you are not going to get good results unless you get a new video card with a TON of ram and obviously that isn't in the budget. Unless you have a card with lots of RAM, your scene will most likely default to the CPU, so might as well prepare for that first. Getting more system ram will allow for using DS and iray with rendering in CPU mode, will be slow but should work.

As for the resources of scenes, every asset is different depending on who designed it. Most of the newer OOT hairs are very resource intensive. a scene with 2 clothed figures and a house environment can bring any system to it's knees depending on the assets used. One thing that helps is a tool called scene optimizer. Texture sizes/amounts and mesh denisity are the 2 biggest resource drainers and this plugin will help with some of that.

terry.wanless

Hi again and thanks for the further responses.

I spoke to my partner and we read as much information as we could over the weekend about different video cards and systems available but neither of us are really computer literate to understand too much of the detail and the benchmarks etc.

My partner really wants to do continue down this path so we are still looking at options.  My partner works within the prison system and she wants to make instructonal guides for people who lack basic knowledge to care for themselves, eg cooking, bed making, cleaning etc. There is no return on this so I would call it a hobby but some of the purchases could be tax deductables. 

So with all that we are looking at going a bit further and maybe pay off a new system altogether. I am pretty handy, well not 100% clueless, but have never really looked at building a computer from scratch so I have stayed away from ebay and purchasing individual components.  I have watched instructional videos and it looks basic, but I would probably just want someone to build it so I get the warranty etc. 

We found this system and I have attached the specs.  What she is looking at is mainly still images and maybe some small animations, pouring, stirring, lifting etc.  I understand the differences can be extreme based on the model and environment used, well I have read they can be extreme but haven't got that far yet. I looked at the scene optimizer and that looks like a great tool and one I would look at getting.

Could someone look at the system and just give a general view if this would be okay, I mean would we get a few years use from it in the Daz environment, and again I understand heaps can change and new stuff always come on the market.  It is a big cost these days and I don't want to get something that is a bit out of date before we start.  I know there is much better available but we went to the best we could afford to pay off.

Cheers and thanks again for the help so far.

Terry

 

fred9803

The power supply looks a bit light and you could do with more RAM but that looks like a good system to me for Iray. Wait for more opinions because I'm no expert either.

PerttiA

No need for liquid cooler, double the RAM to 32GB and 550W PSU might be a bit small, I would also get a 4TB external USB Harddrive for ther DAZ content, you will fill the 1TB SSD in no time and in general it is a bad idea to install/save anything but the OS and the applications on C drive.

terry.wanless

That would be good if I can get rid of the liquid cooler because when I clicked on it I saw it is $199.00.  I could then use the money to add more RAM as suggested to 32GB, the extra there is $ 149.00 so I have $ 50.00 to look at the power supply change.

I did think it was small as I see most discussions people talk 650W or higher.  I wasn't real sure though and since this is a company with a good rep here I thought they must of got the power supply sufficent.  Should I look for a 650W or higher ?.  I guess I need to know which power supplies are compatible with the box ?.

With the HDD's, I have 2 now, a 2TB and an 8TB, both internal, I was just going to put them in the new box if that is not an issue or bad idea ?.

Thanks to everyone for the help so far, much appreciated.

Cheers,

Terry

** I was just back at the site and I was looking at power supplies and the 650W power supplies are all cheaper then the 550W that they put in the original box.  I don't understand the information in the descriptions so I have attached 2 images of the 550W ($139.00) and the 650W ($79.00) if anyone can help out with that, cheers again **

PerttiA

650W should be enough and with your old HDD's no need for a new one.

PerttiA

The 550W is more expensive due to Efficiency Rating "Gold" and for being modular construction (connectors on the PSU instead of fixed wire bundles)

ps2000

Go with the 550W psu. It's a quality one (gold rating and from asus). 

It has more than enough power to supply this system with a RTX 3060 GPU. It's also a lot more efficient than the cheaper and only 80plus white rated (the lowest rating by the way) cooler master psu. 

Also you can't go by the wattage alone. I would bet that the expensive asus 550w psu can supply more power than cheaper 650w psu from cooler master.

Considering cheap psus without rating the denoted wattage is most of the time only wishful thinking. So avoid those like the plague. They can destroy your pc.

I also think that the condensators are of higher quality in the asus and the general built quality should be better.

You would only need a psu with a higher wattage if you built in an additional gpu (but has the mainboard even an additional slot for that?) or a stronger gpu.

But the next better thing for DAZ iray than an 12GB RTX 3060 would be a 24GB RTX 3090 for 1.500 bucks. 

And considering your budget that won't be an option. 

 

terry.wanless

Thanks to everyone for their input on a question that gets asked often.  I spoke to the store this morning and ordered the machine with the 550W psu, less the liquid cooler, and added 16GB more RAM as suggested.  About 2 weeks for delivery so I will look to do some of the tutorials in this time.  

Cheers Again,

Terry