Laptop for Daz (and perhaps Poser)
James_H
Posts: 1,046
I'm thinking of buying a new laptop for Daz work. What would experienced users recommend. I usually use PCs, but I would consider a Mac. Any suggestions appreciated. Cost is a consideration, but I am at the dreaming phase.
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I use a Dell Alienware desktop for Daz Studio, Poser and Carrara and I am very happy with it. It is advertised as a game machine and since the latest games need powerful processors and graphics cards and lots of memory it is good for 3D applications as well.
I have never used Alienware laptops but I think they have the same high performance approach to their design. They are not cheap and I don't think they are very small or light but they are worth looking at.
I use a DELL M6600
The M6700 is the newer model.
http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/precision-m6700/pd
I wanted a machine with a large screen, graphics card, and processing power.
Truthfully, the best machine you can get for rendering is a desktop. But I like it.
You want a quad core processor. Many games aren't optimized for multi-threading therefore many low to mid range priced 'gaming' laptops have only dual core processors.
My opinion only: laptops are not the best solution for rendering because of how fast they heat up compared to desktops with big fans. I use mine as a backup renderer only, and on a cooling pad.
If you must render on a laptop, get an Intel quad core. A duo is not enough, and AMD has fallen behind in hardware quality of late (their octo renders like an Intel quad according to many reviewers). If you want the quality of Alienware with a less ostentatious design that doesn't scream "Steal Me," I've had Sager recommended to me. I might go with that next time, as this Toshiba has been annoyingly high-maintenance with its wifi tending to fail at inopportune times compared to other machines in my house (SO many Microsoft Fixits I've been through now). I wanted to save money. It may have been a false savings.
Get the best onboard graphics and ram you can afford, but those are secondary to the processor if you're rendering in 3Delight (they matter more to different render engines).
Set up the scene in a laptop and render in a desktop. That's what I do.
A quad core or better laptop with dedicated video card and not integrated (one that shares system memory), at the very least 8 GB RAM, essentially a good gaming laptop which are generally impossible to find or insanely overpriced and out of date at retail stores. You'll have much better luck finding a newer, cheaper and more powerful system through mail order or direct web purchase. but expect to pay a lot more for it vs an equally or less powerful desktop system 'cus smaller parts mean higher price.
Oh yes, I was just assuming buying online. You're not going to get the best available pricing or features in a store.
I'm quite satisfied with my Macbook Pro (non-Retina), with added RAM.
Thanks for all the ideas here. How do the new MacBook Pros stack up for Daz? Probably too expensive, but I can dream.
I have a Sony that handles DAZ Studio just fine. I have a quad core and it has 8GB of RAM and nVidia graphics card
Back at the end of April I bought an HP Envy DV7 for around $900 from a local big box retailer. It has Intel i7, 8GB RAM, and Nvidia graphics (in addition to Intel HD 4000). With a 17" monitor it's more of a desktop replacement than a 'laptop.' It has a drive bay open if I choose to add a solid state drive. The standard hard drive is about the only thing that really slows me down anymore.
At this point I wouldn't want anything less than an i5 with hyperthreading or a true quad core i5. You should probably avoid laptops with AMD processors. I'm typing this on my year old HP Pavilion g4 with an AMD A6 processor. They call it a 'dual core,' but it's really two 'skinny' cores and one ALU with performance on par with a single core Intel chip with hyperthreading. I've rendered the same scenes on this AMD laptop as my Intel laptop, and the i7 @2.4 GHz (turbos up to 3.1 GHz) is about five times faster than the A6 @ 2.7 GHz (turbos up to 3.2 GHz). So, based on this observation, I can second what Sickleyield says about AMD octocores (8 'skinny' cores) being only about as fast as Intel quad cores with hyperthreading.
Oh, and Windows 8 isn't as bad as all the negative hype surrounding it. I haven't seen the need to get the 8.1 service pack yet and probably won't bother with it.
I'll occasionally hook my laptop to our 47" TV to watch tutorial videos. Now that we have an internet ready TV I don't have to do that anymore
I use an Acer laptop with intel i5-3210M 2.5ghz with turboboost to 3.1 Ghz, It has an Nvidia GeForce GT 650M video card, but it also has an integrated video card. I was checking out the video control panel and discovered that you have to actually choose which card your program is using. for the last year it has been using the integrated video card instead of the Nvidia as it was set to auto manage. When I checked in DS it listed my video card as the integrated one, but now it is listed as using the Nvidia,
Since I just changed it now I haven't had a chance to render to see how much difference it makes
Macs tend to be a little more expensive and not as many 3rd party software will run on it natively, though with the Intel CPU you have some flexibility with DOS emulation and Windows virtualization, or straight up native windows (the version of which is dependent on your OS)
Honestly my Dual Xeon Mac Pro is a tad clunkier in DS than my i7 running Windows 7 but the Mac clobbers it at rendering (Dual CPU's)
The NVidia control panel that you write about doesn't affect 3delight or Luxrender rendering speed. What it decides is which chipset, NVidia or Intel HD, will handle your program's screen output. For example, your web browser doesn't need to use the more powerful NVidia GPU, so it is displayed by the integrated chipset for power savings. However, programs that handle 3D content like DAZ Studio and most games will perform much better (and use more power) on the NVidia GPU. When it comes to actually rendering a single image in DAZ Studio, it is all about processor power. In hybrid rendering mode, Luxrender can use the GPU in addition to the CPU, but this won't be set by the NVidia control panel.
The NVidia control panel that you write about doesn't affect 3delight or Luxrender rendering speed. What it decides is which chipset, NVidia or Intel HD, will handle your program's screen output. For example, your web browser doesn't need to use the more powerful NVidia GPU, so it is displayed by the integrated chipset for power savings. However, programs that handle 3D content like DAZ Studio and most games will perform much better (and use more power) on the NVidia GPU. When it comes to actually rendering a single image in DAZ Studio, it is all about processor power. In hybrid rendering mode, Luxrender can use the GPU in addition to the CPU, but this won't be set by the NVidia control panel.
Sorry not so techie in this department, are you saying its good that I changed it so DS is using the Nvidia or not? I assumed it wouldn't make much difference with speed of the render but that a better video card would produce a better quality render, along with good lighting and render settings
Sorry not so techie in this department, are you saying its good that I changed it so DS is using the Nvidia or not? I assumed it wouldn't make much difference with speed of the render but that a better video card would produce a better quality render, along with good lighting and render settings
Is it good to set DAZ Studio to the NVidia GPU? Yes. You can put more characters and other objects into your scene and still have a good framerate while posing and placing things.
Does it affect the speed and quality of final renders? No. That is based on software (the "best" setting in the DS render panel uses 3delight) and your CPU (in your case, Intel Core i5).
A better GPU will result better responsiveness of the Studio interface as a whole but RAM is still required to render all those new bodies you can add to your scene without turning your viewport into a stop motion experiment and the CPU determines the speed in which it can be done.
A better GPU will not affect 3Delight, or non GPU LuxRender renders but will assist in the speed of OpenGL renders, which are generally fast to begin with but it's essentially a viewport render with the quality of what you're looking at on screen and not widely used for final output due to it's limitations (great for games though)
The old adage is your computer is only as fast as your slowest component and while GPU is the weakest link in Studio performance it's still an important one so don't skimp if you don't have to, you don't need to blow $500 clams on a high end card but you don't want to bog yourself down with a cheap board that was rated for spreadsheets that slows down your ability to work 3D.
Yeah as others have said, don't skimp on GPU, while not such a big deal for rendering (which is still mostly CPU work), a budget GPU will make viewport performance in any 3d app unbearable.