Should i upgrade my RAM to 16GB?
My 3D Spin
Posts: 608
When working with DAZ now even the simplest of scenes has my Disk usage up at 100%
and makes DAZ unresponsive for a long time. Before i could do big scenes with up to 4 figures
without a problem, But now 2 figures makes it impossible. Dont know if its DAZ itself or Microsoft
updates that does it. Should i upgrade the computer to 16 GB RAM instead of the 8 GB RAM i have,
and will that make any difference? Also my memory runs really high on simple scenes!
Getting so fed up wit working with DAZ Scenes and not knowing if i should End Task in
Task manager or not when i do a scene...
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Comments
Physical memory is about the worst bottleneck you can have as it feeds back, as you have seen, via disk I/O for swap. All things being equal more RAM will help, but you may also just find that the 'bar' has been raised enough to do 3 full characters within a scene and you have issues when adding a fourth - very much down to the complexity of the scene (geometry and textures). If using Iray you may also want/need to look at your graphics card if you intend using that.
There are a couple of scripts (at least one 'advertised' here on the forums) to help reduce texture map sizes before rendering, which may also help.
It would help, but not knowing what your GPU and CPU are it's hard to know how much. RAM is helpful for the viewport and scene setup and other things, but GPU memory if what you need for actual rendering and if that is lacking a strong CPU is then needed.
The issue that you are experiencing with your computer becoming sluggish after increasing your RAM is certainly not normal behaviour, Dave. If your use of the computer does not take advantage of the additional RAM, then not experiencing any performance increase would be expected. A performance decrease would indicate some other problem. A couple of questions relative to your upgrade:
1. Did you completely replace all the memory in the computer, or did you add extra modules to the existing ones? In other words, if you had 2 x 8 Mb sticks installed, did you add an additional 2 x 8 Mb sticks to get a total of 32 Mb?
2. If you increased the RAM by adding two more modules, where the two new modules identical to the existing ones?
3. If the two new modules were different, were the speed and memory timings (SPD) different, and if so, how?
The thing is: Before i could do large scenes with several actors without a problem. But now even the small Scenes causes DAZ to
be non responsive all the time and when i cancel a render it goes all white for several minutes and becomes sluggish! So i have to close it
with the Task manager - Otherwise my computer is ok and works normally. Should i maybe reinstall DAZ and hope it behaves
like it did before?
4. Did you combine them with each other in the correct slots so matching sticks are used for dual channel speed or did you mix them up and the system had to roll back to single channel?
Something is wrong if the disk usage is 100% all the time. As to what has changed for you to have dropped from 4 characters to 2... Are you using different scenes and clothes from before?
Might be worth running a few general/game bench marks to confirm the system is running OK outside Daz. Then yes if you know Daz was performing much better before, I'd check you dont have the quality setting in preferences set to max quality, dont have Iray permanently set in the viewport, then reinstall Daz.
But, yeah, more ram will definitely help stopping a computer using disk space for extra mem.
If it were me, the first thing that I would do is take a boot device (USB stick, optical disk, etc.) with MemTest86 on it and boot the computer from that. That will go to a memory diagnostic test that will comprehensively analyze the memory to ensure that it is operating correctly. It will take a long time to complete all the tests once, usually an hour or two. If any errors are encountered, they will be reported. If you complete one pass or complete set of tests without errors, you can let it run for more (it will continue indefinitely until you close it down), but my experience has always been that if there are serious problems, they will appear very early on. Even on error will be indicative of a problem. If multiple start appearing, you might as well shut it down - you have an issue with one or more of the RAM modules. Unfortunately MemTest cannot tell you which of the modules are at fault - you must either remove each, one at a time until the problem ceases, or, better, remove them all and reinstall them one at a time, running new tests for each change you make. It can be time consuming in the worst case scenario, but it is the only way to either determine that the memory modules are not the source of the problem, or that one or more is, and replacement is required.
You said that you installed four new 8 Gb DDR3 modules, but you didn't mention if they were identical. Were they? Same brand, same speed, same timings?
Also, if you are really interested in trying to fix the issue, I think it is time to share the system specs. Processor, motherboard, power supply, operating system, etc.
The question is, what changed? Can you still open and render one of the old scenes that "didn't slow things down" without problems? Have you monitored RAM usage with Windows task manager as you build a scene (it will show how much RAM you are using). As I've mentioned before, and as some others have noted here, if your exceeding your 8Gb RAM, Windows will begin to use your hard drive as "RAM", and your system will become painfully slow (essentially unresponsive). There is a lot of the newer content that is extremely resource intensive, meaning it will "eat ram" much faster than earlier items did.
For example, I'm working on a new render right now that only uses about 3Gb of RAM when I start it up (in texture shaded mode), if I change the view port to Iray, then start a render with Iray, memory usage for DS jumps to 14Gb! This scene has one G8F (Danae HD), wearing one outfit (Sci-Fi Pilot Outfit for G8F), one vehicle (Light Armored Vehicle), and one pistol. My guess is that you are using newer items than before, and they are using more memory than your older content did, and as a result you are running out of system RAM and windows is using your hard drive to make up for the needed RAM. Many G8 figures use more texture maps than G3, and will require more memory.
Simply monitoring RAM usage using task manager (included with windows) will tell you without a doubt if you are indeed running out of system RAM. If you are, then your options are to either reduce the memory used in the scene by using one of the resources available to do so like Scene Optimizer (or do it manually yourself), get more RAM, or only use content that is "memory friendly".
Depending on the BIOS, a memory check may occur during the power-on self test (POST), which will take longer for 32GB than for 16GB. But it should not be an excruciating delay.
The thing is i can render a scene okey-But when i cancel or the rendering ends the computer just goes in to unresponnsive so
sometimes i cant even save the render. It just freezes. Why would it do that when the render is finished??
"Why would it do that when the render is finished??"
Probably because, in addition to everything else that is being held in memory, if you have the render settings set to render to a new window, your render itself is now also being held in memory. I would suggest that you change your render settings to render to a file, instead. Just set up a folder somewhere on your hard drive to store your rendered images and point the render settings to that location. Afterwards, any renders that you do will prompt you for a filename, then render the image and save it directly to your render folder - no need to save it afterwards.
for starters 8GB isn't much for DAZ Studio these days. Hell I was having the same issue as you are with 16GB (big Scenes) now I have 32 GB and all is well with the world.
I had it crashing in that way at the end of renders sometimes when I had unstable ram clocks. You may never notice it gaming, but do you get browser tab crashes ocasionally?
No this unresponsivenss only happens with DAZ.
Edited to fix quote
Upgrade to 16gb it can only be a benefit IMO.I also set Affinity in Task Manager to only use 3 of 4 cores I have, so I can still use the PC for other things while rendering.
Where in the Task manage do you set the Affinity?
Edited to fix quote
Open Task Manager; it usually opens with the Processces tab at the top.
Switch to the DETAILS tab
Right click on DAZStudio.exe in the lis below. In the window that appears click on Set Affinity.
It will then show the PC cores available on your machine. Deselect one and click OK.
Thanks. will this free up memory and disk usage when rendering? And will the rendering tak longer time?
Edited to fix quote
I don't know if you have a GPU installed or if you're using just CPU so I can't say.
Affinity basically limits the amount of CPU power DAZ will use. I only have CPU and setting affinity to use 3 of my 4 cores frees up enough RAM [I have 16gb] to browse the internet. It obviously slows rendering a little, but given my PC/GPU shortcomings it's not a big deal.
Just run a test scene with Affinity and see how you fare.
Unfortunately, setting the affinity will not affect (reduce) the amount of RAM used, it will only affect how heavily your CPU is used, allowing you to do other things while rendering. It also will only help if your rendering using the CPU, not if your using a GPU. Keep in mind that if the problem is you are running out of system RAM and Windows is using swapping to the disk to make more RAM available, this may not help either, because any process you want/need to use that has been taken out of real RAM and placed on the hard drive will need to be reloaded from the hard drive to make it available, as well as something in system RAM will need to be moved to the hard drive to make room for the requested data. I'm fairly certain this is what you are experiencing.
You asked earlier why this would only happen when the render finishes, it's probably because you are right on the edge of your physical RAM available, and when the image is done rendering data is moved from GPU memory back to system RAM, thus causing your system to start using swap-dlsk and causing your system to seem like it is "locking up". When this happens, everything you try to do will only slow things down even more because you are making windows try to swap even more data from disk to RAM with every attempted action.