Any Way To Use A Weak CPU With Daz Studio?
LenioTG
Posts: 2,118
Hi everyone!
I currently have to use a Ryzen 3 1200.
I don't have any problem using only my RTX 2060 for rendering, and the viewport is smooth.
But when I pose a character, it's a nightmare. It's very laggy (both in 4.11 and 4.12), and the CPU usage spikes to almost 100% while I do so.
It happens with every character (I use Genesis 8), not just with some of them.
The RAM usage is under 50%, and everything else is alright, so I guess the CPU is the bottleneck.
I don't have other software opened, and at idle the CPU usage is around 4%. I have this problem only when I pose a character.
Is there any way to mitigate the problem?
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Comments
I'm curious as to how you are posing your character. I had an unusable DAZ because of laggy view-port. In the end I resulted to posing everything using just the Node Tool. Anything else would cause DAZ to slow to a crawl. Probably not the same problem you have but try using some other tools and see if anything improves.
Since DS is primarily single threaded I strongly doubt the R3 is that worse than my old R7 1700 that ran DS just fine.
First make sure that display optimization is set to best under preferences->interface.
If that doesn't help things you should look at what processes you have running in the baxkground, stop as many as you can.
Finally all Ryzen chips can be overclocked, assuming you don't have an A320 motherboard, so you could OC the chip and get some more speed out of it.
I have the "Display Optimization" set to Best.
I don't have other major processes in the background!
I can't OC, since I have an A320 mobo
It doesn't change using different tools!
It's not major processes, although that can be an issue, It's also the number. Do you have various software updaters running? Those can cause issues. Do you have AV or malware software running? Have you done a virus and malware scan recently?
You bought an A320 or is this a prebuilt? I n either case you can easily upgrade the CPU. You can get new Ryzen 1600's for around $100 and new 1700's for $160. Either of those would drop right into you system and come with better coolers than the one that came with the 1200.
You should also go to your motherboard manufacturer's website and download and install the most recent bios for your motherboard. Also you should go to AMD's site and grab the newest drivers for your A320 chipset and CPU.
As was stated above, your motherboard can easily be upgraded to any Ryzen 1000 or 2000 CPU (and if the manufacturer adds support in a bios update you could even go up to a Ryzen 3000 CPU)
Depends in which mode you do your posing. Is it in OpenGL shaded mode or Iray preview ?
You should have no problem with your cpu
I can pose in both modes and my cpu has no spike whatsoever. In OpenGL my CPU usage is very low and in Iray preview the CPU is around 20%
Check that you don't have mesh smoothing with interactive update active on some cloth and that all your mesh are at base resolution
In draw settings you can also put subdivision update to delayed and manipulation binding to optimized
If you really still have problems, you can switch the manipulation drawstyle to wire or solid bounding box
If you're trying to pose in Iray preview mode, you can set the response threshold to 8 as a first step
I would be very careful about this. A320's are very bad motherboards. AMD has been very specific about not supporting Ryzen 3000 on them and to the best of my knowledge no one has gotten it to work.
Even before upgrading to Ryzen 2000 make sure the motherboard's BIOS, UEFI, is fully up to date. Many 300 series motherboards shipped without support for Ryzen 2000 andtherefor will not work with them without a Bios update.
Most motherboard manufacturers publish a list of supported CPUs and the required firmware version for each. This will take 100% of the guess work out of purchasing a new CPU. Just make sure to update the firmware before uninstalling your current CPU.
The idle usage is very low, I doubt it's about other processes or malware.
Daz uses more than one core, 8 if I remember correctly, and those spikes regard each of the 4 cores, and they are synced with the posing moments.
I'm on holiday, this is my secondary PC and I can't upgrade it right now! I'll bring here a Ryzen 5 1600 when I'll upgrade it in my main PC.
I have the latest BIOS!
So this is useful, I'll check it out!
I'm posing in OpenGL.
Do you have a Ryzen 3 1200 as well? With my Ryzen 5 1600 I don't have problems either.
So I shoul check "mesh smoothing, mesh at base resolution, subdivision update".
Guys I won't update right now, I know that's the definitive and easiest solution.
Just out of curiosity, but let's not go OT please, my motherboard (A320M-GDS AsRock) supports Ryzen 3000 with its BIOS 5.90.
I guess it may happen some times, but for my workflow having to add the hair each time would be even worse than the current situation!
So, I already had delayed update and optimized manipulation binding.
The mesh resolution number was "white", so I guess that influenced. (I hadn't changed anything myself)
Now the posing requires around 1 second for each movement (still far from pleasant and "real-time", and the CPU usage goes to around 60%.
OK then you're on the right track but you didn't say anything about mesh smoothing.. If mesh resolution is OK, then it is the only thing left that can use the CPU after posing. Disable both mesh smoothing and interactive update on all wearable (@shootybear : hair is also wearable, could be an explanation for you too)
You know mesh smoothing is active if after trying to pose you get a little information at the left bottom (it's very quick)
A good performance test to be sure is to try to pose a nude Genesis
There is also something I forgot (we always focus on DS). Check your Nvidia control panel in the 3D settings and set preference to emphasizing for performance
That may not bring anything but who knows
PS : if I can pose with a 5 year old 2 core notebook, almost anything should work
Nude Genesis moves fine!
I've put all to the minimum (SubD, mesh, collision iterations...) and the characters are much more posable. There are still some slow-downs, but the CPU usage went down!
With 0 collision iterations I have more "see-through" on the clothes, but I can fix them on Photoshop!
Once you're done with posing you can put everything back before rendering you know? No need to photoshop
NB : I don't understand why you have to go to that extent. Don't tell me a 5 year old notebook 2,7 Ghz CPU is better than a ryzen 1200?
I don't know!
Maybe the OS is "flooded", but I have no wish to format it right now! xD
Here's a thought.
Have you gone to nvidia's website and grabbed the newest drivers for you RTX 2060?
Yes, I'm using the latest Studio Drivers :)
Maybe I'm just accustomed to a better system overall!
UPDATE: I've come back home, and I'm back using my Ryzen 5 1600 instead of my Ryzen 3 1200.
It was the mesh smoother, but with a more powerful CPU I had never even noticed that!
So yes, if you modify your models you can avoid that problem, but having a powerful CPU is way better in any case.
I had never thought that the CPU could be so important for Daz Studio!
The 1200 is a very weak CPU. It is a 4 core/4 thread part clocked at 3.1 Ghz. the 1600 is 6c/12t clocked at 3.2. So its faster and has more than twice the parellel processing power.
Mesh smoother, especially with collisions set on can hit the cpu pretty hard. I noticed a huge difference when I got my 2600. I used to try to remember to turn all colissions off while doing the major setting up, then turn it back on at the end, but I always forgot to turn it back on lol.
If CPU is so important in Daz Studio, I can't wait to get a 3600!!
Those things are incredibly more powerful than previous generations...I don't know how they managed to do that!
Ryzen 3000 is more faster because of two things. One is improvements in the design of the chips that results in a higher IPC, in simple terms the CPU does more things in one single tick of the clock (measured in microseconds) and the chip is physically smaller so there is less distance for the data to travel inside the chip (yes, these very small distances significantly affect performance and reducing them results in faster speeds).
Interesting, thanks :)
Just for the sake of completeness, I was able to use daz studio 4.10 just with a 4G ram celeron and a 1G nvidia card on a very low-end laptop. And it worked fine within some limits. All you have to do is to use the scene optimizer addon and keep your scenes within the vram. Then the main hog in the viewport are subdivision and mesh smoothing but you can handle them as @Takeo.Kensei is suggesting.
I mean you will never solve your issues by brute force. Upgrading cpu anf gpu of course helps, but your best option is always to optimize first.
If I can save time, I can make more content, and so get back the money to buy that hardware, avoiding the boring part! :D
I don't optimize anymore, since I upgraded to a RTX 2060 I haven't had VRAM issues anymore.
I've already solved the issue with that more brute force. It's a problem I don't even notice with this CPU, it only became noticeable when I had to use that weak one! :)