Good computer or specs for using this stuff?
blargyblue
Posts: 0
I want to buy a PC hopefully for $800 USD or less.
I would like to know what I really need to run all of this stuff. Maybe work on things all day, without memory freezing up my computer. Maybe work on more than one program at once if I had to. Or have tutorials open while I learn things.
Which computers or computer specs are necessary?
Are there trustworthy online computer stores for this?
Thanks.
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In my experience DAZ needs a lot of memory. I started with DAZ on a 32 bit Windows system with 2 GB of RAM. I was only able to render very, very small scenes on that system. I think a minimum usable system would be a 64 bit OS and 4 GB or RAM. I would recommend 8 GB as reasonable system. I have a 16 GB system now, and I have used all that RAM rendering big scenes (10-15 characters with clothes, hair, big set). I’m sort of wishing I had 24-32 GB now. How much memory you need depends on how big the scenes are you want to do.
The DAZ UI uses OpenGL. You need a system with a good implementation of OpenGL. In my experience the built in Intel graphics cards in many laptops and low end PCs do not have a good implementation of OpenGL. DAZ will crash frequently using some of those systems. The speed of your graphics card is not that important. DAZ uses software rendering, so there is no reason to spend a lot of money for a top end graphics card for DAZ. A good middle of road card is fine.
The faster your processor the faster you will be able to render. The DAZ 3Delight render engine can use all the processors for parallel rendering, so the more cores you have the better.
Thank you so much.
DS does need a lot of memory, but I differ with Mark on what constitutes "a lot". Small disagreement, but I'm fussy, LOL!
More on that below.
I'm going to start off by telling you that my recommendations below will go WAY OVER your $800 target. Sorry, but I gotta be me! :red::cheese:
CPU:
Intel i7 processor. 4, 6, or 8 cores, with Hyperthreading. 2.4 GHz clock speed (or faster).
Alternate: Intel Xeon E5 processor, with 4, 6, 8, 10, or 12 cores. 2.4 GHz clock speed (or faster).
Supercalifragilistic Alternate: A dual Intel Xeon E5 processor system based on Ivy Bridge E (IB-E). Okay, that's like $3,000-$5,000 right there, but it will be able to render before you grow old waiting for it.
The upshot: Whether this is a hobby or a business for you, it's all about rendering. Stills, yes. If you want to render videos, you'll be rendering 24-30 or more images for each second of video. This takes time.
I say muscle up with more cores, more threads. Period. I would recommend the following: No i3 processors unless you only render stills and you don't mind watching your fingernails grow. Only the highest available i5's and i7s processors if you are buying Intel. If you are buying an AMD system, then you'll need to find something comparable. Intel processors based on the new "Haswell" platform use a lot less electricity at rest.
Memory:
32 GB minimum. 64 GB is what I have and would be my personal minimum recommendation. If you work a lot of overtime or have thousands of dollars to spend, then get a dual Xeon system (or a server AMD system), and you may be able to get up to 128 GB RAM or more, depending on what the motherboard supports.
Upshot: Memory is an unsung hero these days. But it's going to suddenly become even more critical than ever because with the HD mesh capability and associated models, your system will need to be able to manage an order of magnitude more data in memory. To support these new resolutions, you will not only need a 64 bit OS, you'll need scads and scads of memory to manage all this data.
Graphic Card:
Go fast. I like the AMD HD series, but they just released a whole new family based on the what..."Hawaii" chip? Nvidia GPUs are good too, and they support CUDA.
The upshot: You actually don't need a super-fast GPU to do editing and modelling, but SOME renderers are capable of using spare processing power of modern GPU chips during rendering. So why not make your money count?
Disk Drives:
You don't need super-fast disk drives, but I like SSDs. Consider pairing one up with a big spinning drive for your data.
OS:
You will need a 64 bit OS to address any memory over 2 GB. So it's long past time to get off Windows/XP. It's also time to get off Windows/Vista 32 and 64 bit. Windows 7 is superb and would serve you well if you have it already. Windows 8 is the future and is already a great performer. I just use the free Classic Start tool to avoid the dumb start screen and metro apps.
Monitor:
I cannot stress the importance of a QUALITY monitor. I recommend IPS screens from ASUS or Dell.
Monitor Calibration:
Monitors, printers, and other visually oriented don't all agree on colors. Red is red on my monitor, but might come out pink on your monitor or lavender on my printer. Yuck! Time to fix this!
This is something that I am working on now; researching quality monitor calibration tools. Colormunki and Datacolor Spyder are two popular options. I am leaning toward the Datacolor Spyder kit that allows you to calibrate not just monitors, but also printers, iPhones, iPads, Android devices, and even cameras and lenses! I don't know if it can work with scanners; will have to research that.
Summary:
You probably can't afford/don't desire to do everything I suggested above, and that's cool. Yes, some of this stuff is exceedingly expensive, such as a dual E5 server system with 24 cores/48 threads. But if what I wrote makes you skip the lowly i3 processor because you realized you want to do motion video, or makes you get a GPU with more "oomph", then you will be happier and not so frustrated with the slowness of rendering on a brand-new system.
Good luck and let us know what you decide on!
----
Intel i7 6-core/12 thread processor
64 GB DDR3 memory
AMD HD7870 GPU
Windows 8 64 bit
...a few TB of SSD and HDD space.
...a few MORE TB of HDD space for backups.
I build my system with rendering in mind and I am quite happy with it.
The Hasswel i74770K is performing great so far and I am using 20gb of ram.
When money is better I hope to make that 32gb ram.
A system like Subtropic mentiones is better of course but as if now I am restricted by budget.
My best investment was the SSD drive where the OS is installed.
Pc starts and shuts down in an eye blink!
Also the 2 monitors I have now, ensures a much smoother and faster workflow for me.
I definitely gave up buying computers already assembled ready for sale, it is like buying a Trojan horse. When the configuration seems to be efficient, probably the power supply (ups) is a generic that does not deliver the promised Ws, running the risk of burning the whole setup. Here in Brazil, there is an invasion of ups useless, of poor quality, which last up to three months, and burn.
Buy parts by parts, even you, and then lead to one technical assistance to assemble the computer is the best thing to do.
32 gigs of DDR3 memories is ideal for Daz / Poser / Vue.
the ideal is 32 gb of ram coupled with one ssd (because an ssd uses technology similar to the memories of the ram, and ssd is up to 10 times faster than a hdd common)
If you have a system with 32 gb of ram, but using a standard HDD (7200rpm), this hdd will not be able to answer the height of memories, your system will be limited to the speed of the hard drive.
E. .. mark128: "10-15 characters with clothes, hair, big set, with 16 GB system ... Probably used between 45% and 47% of its entire memory of your system.
Wait so...even though I have 32 gb of ram it wont use it all? ._.
I will render a scene and have a look at what my pc makes of the ram it uses...
EDIT
First about the CPU cores: I have 8 cores and it uses them all up until 98%
Now to the RAM, Idid a little test with different scenes and the heavier the scene, the more RAM it would use.
The heaviest scene I had with multiple figures used up to about 80% of my Ram.
If I had a smaller scene it would go as low as about 60%, but never under 50%.
I have 20Gb at the moment (2x8GB and 2x2GB. The 2x2GB came out of my older pc).
Hi again!
Remember, Estroyer, if you begin to use any of the new HD morph/geometry capabilities, your use of RAM will grow by an order of magnitude. Even you at 20GB (and maybe even me with 64 GB) could hit the ceiling for our systems. It's very possible that we'll need to manage and limit how many HD figures we use in any scene or video or even you and I could run out of memory.
I think this is truly a fabulous and exciting problem to have. At the rate technology is advancing, my next workstation system (in about 4-5 years) will likely have 2 or 4 CPUs, more cores total than me and five of my friends can count on our fingers and toes, and 128 GB RAM.
Today I got the awesome news I'm getting my hands on a Quadro GPU, I feel as giddy as a 6 year old at xmas XD
Indeed, the HD figures are of a whole new magnitude and although I haven't yet purchased the one that's out now, I may get the male version which I expect to be out as well.
I really want to see how the pc performs with using GPU rendering instead of CPU.
To answer the question of the OP, I don't know where you're from so I can't give you any good advice on stores.
For $800 you will be able to get a very decent system, even if you have to buy a monitor with that budget.
I would recommend the new Haswell line for CPU and focus less on the graphics card to spend extra on the RAM. (If you're not into gaming that is).
Me, I come from a background of working with AutoCAD and 3DS Max on older Dual core processors. So I'm quite used to "getting up and walking away" while the computer processes. When it came to major projects; such as a short film we did as a project we did it as a network render over 48 computers split between two rooms... hahahaha.
As others have said, though... focus on the biggest, baddest CPU you can afford.
Or, just get one that's better then your current one and /dont/ get rid of the current one. I get around the "multi-tasking while rendering" issue by using my better (Quad core AMD FX with 8GB) to run DAZ when rendering and doing other things on one of my lesser spec machines.
I would also add, that while a beefy CPU is very helpful, make sure it can be kept adequately cool. My quad is Liquid cooled and happily cranks along for hours at full load without turning the room into an Oven.
In keeping with your $800 limit, you should be able to find a system that will do. Watch the sales in stores, and on-line at Newegg.com and TigerDirect.com Keep in mind that $800 is about as low as you can go for all the features I mention below. Add-on extras (memory, graphics card, storage) in the future could cost you a few hundred more in coming years.
As stated by a few of the posts above, you don't need a super graphics card but you do need a good one that supports the OpenGL standard well. If you need to get a better graphics engine, then a desktop is recommended because you can add a nice one when you have the money. NVidia cards are generally recommended for OpenGL work. Cards in the price range of $100 to $200 will do. $400 cards are overkill for DAZ Studio. Get your system and try it for a while. If the graphics engine is inadequate you'll find out quickly then you can worry about adding a better graphics card.
Laptops are risky. They often don't have an adequate graphics card and you usually can't add a different one. Laptops often use low power memory & CPU chips which may limit your computational horsepower too.
Desktops are more customizable and capable of growing to fit your needs. They are easier to cool, are intended to run for hours & hours, and easier for lay-people to modify (and generally a bit less expensive)
You do want a lot of memory. At least 8GB. 12GB is better. 16GB or more is better still but unless you're creating wall sized posters with a dozen human characters, that may be overkill. If your initial computer only has 8GB make sure it has the ability to expand later and is not physically limited to 8GB.
You want a quad-core CPU. An Intel" i3" is not recommended. An Intel "i5" will do (but use Google to check out the specific version of i5. A couple of the low-end Intel i5 CPUs are "dual-threaded, dual core" which is NOT the same as a true "quad-core"). An Intel "i7" is better. Also, you want your processor speed to be 2.6GHz or better.
You want at least a terabyte of storage. Many systems come with 1TB drives. You can always add another drive later either internal or external. If external, you want to make sure your USB bus is USB3 (not USB2) although USB2 will work just fine for most things if you're patient when transferring vast volumes of information.
As far as brand,... I recommend that you stick with HP or the major Japanese manufacturers (Sony, or Toshiba) . Avoid Acer and eMachines and other low end Chinese and Korean brands.
If you're not geekish, I don't recommend building your own system or having a customized system built. You lose the security of corporate warrantee and help desk and you have to buy your OS too.
All this having been said, I do recommend for DAZ Studio work that you try to find a system that has Windows7 or Windows7-Pro installed instead of Windows8 or 8.1 There are still a few deals out there where you can buy with Win7 installed and the option to move up to Win8 or vice-versa.
If you feel the littlest bit advertursome and a tiny bit geekish then if you buy an off-the-shelf desktop and then add a bunch of stuff to it (i.e. gobs of memory, high power graphics card, more internal disks, high power audio card, TV tuner, and bus powered external hard drives then you probably want to replace the factory power supply with a good quality, larger wattage one.
Good ... Here in Brazil we do not lose the warranty by buying parts with, and lead to one technical assistance for mounting the computer, do not.
When you buy a cabinet empty and buying the parts separately, you get the guarantee by piece
example: I bought a ssd a seller, and I have the warranty and invoice issued by him;
however, my 32gb of ram corsair xms, purchased from another vendor, and consequently the warranty and invoice is with him.
The warranty is for parts, allows you are free to open the case and add the items, or withdraw, add coolers etc, etc..
When you buy yourself a case ready to use, just plug it in and use, the case comes with a seal, which is removed before 12 months, you lose your warranty.
At least so in Brazil ...
Probably your scene which consumed 80% of their 20gb of ram, was a scene with more than four million points;
your scene that consumed only 60%, not less, as I said ... One should take into account that at least 15% already in use by your system without even being rendering anything to render = 45% + 15% or ... use the system more or less percentage etc. etc..
the fact is that even without being in surrender, or another task, the fact that the machine is connected is already in use% of memory.
I wanted know what you decide on...?