Will new mega-core CPUs help with Daz Studio?
bshugs@hotmail.com
Posts: 176
I'm wondering if the new line of AMD and Intel CPUs will have any impact on Daz Studio's general performance. I'm not talking about render times, which I expect will be noticeably improved if you enable CPU rendering. I'm wondering about things like:
- Applying Geoshells and LIE presets.
- Creating Groups, which seems to take forever.
- Running scripts such as Touch of Dirt, which deserves 'mad props' for telling people that Daz might become "unresponsive" while it works it's magic.
- Turning Limits on/off for multiple nodes.
I wonder because even when Daz Studio becomes unresponsive during any of these evolutions, my CPU usage rarely jumps above 50%. I'm using an i7-4790, so 4 cores and 8 threads. Are these functions just poorly suited ot multithreading, or is Daz just not breaking jobs up across multiple cores?
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I not sure that any of those are multi-threaded, so the determining factors are base clock speed adn memory speed not number of cores.
You have enough computer. What you need is more ram and if you want speed a SSD. Just don't have your content on a SSD. Instead install a real Hard Drive in your pc or use your old C drive for your data and content and leave your main programs like daz and poser on the ssd. You will see the speed increase you are looking for.
Daz Studio's use of multiple cores is dependent on what you are doing.
As you stated above, CPU based rendering will use all of the CPU resources it can get it's hands on. The same is true about Dynamic cloth simulation with the Optitex engine. Not sure about other Daz Studio plugins though. Now with the new generation CPUs as a side effect you are going to be running faster DDR4 memory, and depending on your system you may be running that memory in quad channel mode for even faster speed.
Why don't you want the content on the SSD? I've been using an SSD for about a year, and I have everything on it. It loads really fast.
If you are just reading from SSD it will last for a good long time. I update content and textures and make all kinds of changes. I know that writing to SSD's shorten their life span. I also have a huge runtime. If your runtime is small and you don't tinker but just use what Daz produces then leaving everything on your SSD is OK. Just remember to backup you data, because when an SSD dies it is gone and there is little hope of recovery like a HD. My runtime is too big for a SSD, that is why I suggested this. If you don't have alot and only use few programs it is not an issue. To tell the truth I've had some SSD's die on me and even though they are fast I don't trust them like I trust a good old metal disk with magetic media on it. The SSD dies and I reinstall windows and my programs on a new SSD and my data and runtime is still on my HD waiting. Just my 2cents
It's fine using an SSD for content; presuming you can afford a larger one of course.
I prefer it as mechanical drives make a noise, and SSDs don't. I've been using them for about three or four years now. Rarely used stuff goes onto mechanicals I use for backups, which are only plugged in when backing up; this also has the benefit of protecting my files from some sneaky malware encrypting everything.
... Considering how long SSDs last, you're unlikely to wear them out as long as you don't do multipass secure erases for example; even after they can no longer be written to, they can still be read from.
Well, I have redundancy. My runtime is 62 gig, my studio folder is 40 gig, my library is 144 gig and my install manager download file is 94 gig. I have a duplicate set up on my laptop (also SSD), and I backup to an external mechanical drive. So even if my SSD crashes, All of my stuff is still backed up. I keep every scene I've made in backup too.
Going away from original post here, but does anyone use RAIDs? I was think of setting up one since HDD are so cheap now. Also, anyone use backup network storage drives? I heard they can be too slow. Tired of making backups on my USB external drive.
I use the free version of Syncback to do a daily differential mirror onto a series of external 1TB drives in sequence.
The drives are newish USB3 portables but the machine is still only USB1. After the initial, very slow backup, the differential backup only takes about 25 minutes for about 750GB of data. If I had USB3 at both ends it would probably be about 5 minutes.
I'm planning on building a new Ryzen machine...The Ryzen thread ripper has both 12 Cores/24 threads and 16/32 versions for about $800/1000 respectively...So yeah, it will handle extreme multi-tasking! You can be rendering in DAZ while gaming and encoding video!
Thank you for the feedback. I currently use an i7-4790 wtih 32GB (DDR3-1600) and my library sits on a seperate HDD. I've got a GTX 1060 and GTX 1080 (both stock).
From what I've read, it sounds like for the GUI (as opposed to Rendering) the additional cores won't be a big help. The places where Daz Studio hangs will still hang, such as when Grouping two Genesis 3 models. Upgrading to a new Mobo/CPU/Ram combo might help as it would allow me to switch to DDR4, even if the additional cores would only kick in during rendering. Perhaps the additional PCIe lanes would help with moving data to/from the graphics cards.
Loading would certainly benefit from a SSD. I have the application on my boot SSD, but not the content. I've got that on a seperate HHD. I don't think I could afford to buy a SSD for everything - in part because I tend to horde everything I can find from the freebie sites like ShareCG.
FWIW, I recently noticed that the cloth sim plugin, VWD, uses all 16 CPU's of my Ryzen 7 1700 when doing a cloth sim. As a result, I can vary parameters and rotate the view in real time while it's doing a sim. Nice.
Yeh, was planning on a multi core system above i7.
I'm considering the Threadripper 8 core or the 16 core; 8 cores is a great value system when considering the access to quad channel memory and 64 PCIe lanes.
It does, just not sure I can justify to myself the cost.
I'm still trying to justify a second GPU, but not sure if it will make enough difference. I have a GTX 1070, and I'm eyeing the GTX 1080's in the $500 range right now, but I'm not convinced it will improve my Studio/Iray performance that much.
Anyone have a feel for it?
Thanks.
Been checking the bench marks for the TR 1900x and it kills i9 over blender's and pov rendering and video production! I imagine it will do quite well with a GTX 1080 iray/CPU render! The major reason that I'm looking to go the TR route is due to future proofing as upgrading the Ryzen 1800 to the TR would require a new mobo/cooler/ram upgrade, as the 399 is stand alone, better to upgrade from the Ryzen TR 1900x as you would only need to upgrade the CPU...
I guess I should wait a bit for a sale on the TR+Mobo, at least a 25% sale would justify the purchase as my build is going to run $1.7+k for the Case/CPU/Mobo/RAM...$147 in taxes included otherwise; it's $1.5+k!
yes, it will dramatically improve rendering time in iray. mostly linearly.
BUT there is some difficulties:
- first, Nvidia recommends to use only identical cards. Gtx 1070 and 1080 are of course very close, so it should work, but it's not recommended. You should test and be prepared to bring back the second car to the store if it doesn't work (if windows is instable, iray is complaining and so on).
- second, Video memory from the two gpus are not combined in a huger video ram stack. The scene needs to be entirely in BOTH gpus. If one card can't manage the whole scene, it will be not used for rendering. So, two (or more) cards will not able you to render huger scene than today, only faster.
- motherboard and cpu. You need enough Pcie lanes for both cards. 16x pcie lanes are not that important for the actual part of rendering, but it will help to start the render. I guess one gpu in 16x (most modern pc), the other in 8x lane will be more than enough.
- hidden costs, two GPU at full load will increase (double?) your energy consumption and may be too expensive in the end. Also you have to manage the heath inside your computer (maybe better fans, or liquid cooling or a new case).
But yes, it will greatly improve rendering time.
oomu, I'm with you on all of those, though I think there's a bit of misconceptions in the PC community regarding energy consumption and costs.
If you look at your electric bill, you're probably paying something like 10 cents for 1,000 watts running continuous for 1 hour. That's just a ballpark, yours may vary.
So if you are running a render and the computer is using 200 watts, and you run straight for 10 hours a day, the costs will be something like 20 cents per day.
Now if you do that for 100 days per year, that's a total of only $20 per year.
Peanuts.
Even if you did five times that, or 1,000 watts for 10 hours a day, that's only $100 per year (assuming 100 days per year at that rate).
So when I hear about energy costs, I tend to shrug it off as a non-issue.
Daz Studio only uses 1 core in my experience monitoring resource usage, I get the same slow downs with my 6-core processor that is overclocked to 4ghz doing the things you listed. Multiple cores are only used when rendering and with rendering 3delight will benefit more than Iray.
Daz Studio itself maybe, but there are addons and plugins and scripts that are multithreaded.
Big example that I like using is the Optitex Dynamic cloth engine uses all 24 of my CPU threads while simulating a drape.
Ho , I just told that as a consideration which may happen. But really, I thought more in term of investiment in the computer (new alimentation, liquid cooling or whatever can be needed if you try to stack two nvidia titan XP ;) )
Still, I was informed by my "electricity company" (I'm not sure of my translation here, I'm french by the way) my consumption changed a lot between before and after I started to make rendering all the time. Of course, it was not simply one new GPU but suddenly my whole computer working most of the time with new ideas and models.
You're right I may exxagerate the costs of electricity from my computer. I should take time to do some proper measures.
I just went from an ancient i5 2500(not k) with 12 GB DDR3 RAM to a brand new i5 with much higher numbers, faster MOBO and 32 GB DDR4 RAM. The only thing I have noticed a difference in performance is when compressing with 7zip, handbrake, and benchmarks. Everyday use such as daz, zbrush pthotoshop etc, there was no noticable gain really. Same going from 960 to 1070, the only thing I really noticed a difference on is VRAM limit. Render speed is almost the same.
Your written English is excellent. "Electricity Company" makes perfect sense.
Cheers,
Alex.
If you are using Iray in GPU mode, you should get a huge render speed jump going up to a GTX 1070 from a 960. In your Iray settings try un-checking the CPU, making sure that OptiX Prime is checked, and Instancing is set to speed.
As far as your CPU going from a fast quad core (w/o hyperthreading) to a newer fast quad core (w/o hyperthreading), you are not going to see much of a performance jump for day to day usage. The extra RAM will help alot with multitasking, and the newer generation CPU with faster RAM should make posing, morphing and camera movements more responsive in larger complicated scenes.
If you still have both computers, you should make sure the Daz Studio settings are the same. Load the same scene on both machines (a scene that you know will fit into the VRAM of your GTX 960 but complicated eough to take some time to render). Then hit render on both systems at the same time and see how much quicker the new setup renders. You will probably be suprised at how big the difference is in render speed, and how much better Studio runs on the new setup.
Even now that I have both the 960 and 1070 in my rig, renders still take 20 minutes to a few hours like they did back when I just had the 960.
That's interesting. I have a 980ti and a 1070ti in my rig and my render times are significantly faster when both cards are engaged. When I dropped the 1070 in I re-ran some older renders just to see the difference and there definiately was.
I would use the 960 to run the monitors and the 1070 to run Iray. Make sure you download MSI afterburner and turn on the fans on whatever video cards you are running Iray on to 100%. Otherwise you are cooking your video cards and shortening the life of your expensive video card. Remember the fan profiles made by nvidia are for pc gaming not rendering, also invest in higher airflow fans for your pc case or if you can't do that open the sidepanel and point a regular fan at pc to cool it down.
Yeah, I run aggressive fan profiles, for everything, case, PCU, and my cards. Got a big case with 4 fans, and top vents, both my GFX cards got two fans on them too. I have never even hit 80 yet on my cards, usually the high point at rendering is 70 in the summers. I do run my monitor on my 1070 though, if changing it wasn't such a pain, I might have run the monitor with the 960 except when gaming, but it's kind of a hassle to keep switching those screw in plugs lol. Been running a render for about 45 minutes now, my 1070 is at 64 and my 960 is at 60.