Loading...
> >

GPU Recommendations

DDCreateDDCreate Posts: 1,398
edited August 2020 in New Users

First I'd like to say I'm REALLY sorry for posting this. I'm sure the forums are lousy with this question and I did some looking around but it's not easy to search the forums.

I know that there are different considerations depending on what the person is using it for so here goes my thing...

I make web comics (approx 100+ pictures per) and it currently takes me about an hour to render each picture. I render in Iray and use a GTX 960 4GB GPU. In my settings, I have both CPU and GPU selected. I'm pretty sure that my GPU bottoms out pretty quick though and the CPU(i7) takes over but I'm not sure. My scenes tend to be indoor and never exceed 3 characters. Well, rarely because I'm trying to NOT overload anything and maintain a certain picture clarity.

In my uninformed opinion, I can render faster and with better quality if I had a GPU thats got a little more rock and roll than my current card. For me, it's about function. I'll pay $1000 if what I'm getting is worth that but obviously I don't want to spend more than I need to. If a 1060 is half the price of a 1080 and the difference is negligable I'd go that route obviously. I've been looking and I see a lot of GPU's that say RTX not GTX. Is that new? Should I avoid those? Do I WANT those?

Any advice would really be appreciated even if it's just a link to the thread that has answered this question 9 dozen times before.

 

Thank you!

Small tidbit...I just did an experiment. I turned off the CPU so it would render with the GPU only. One character, clothed, bald head, NOTHING else in the scene and the attached pictures is the finished product that took about 3seconds to render. Nothing. It seems like my GPU didn't even try.

rdfg.jpg
3840 x 2160 - 127K
Post edited by DDCreate on

Comments

  • skinklizzardskinklizzard Posts: 218
    edited August 2020

    this thread here

    https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/341041/daz-studio-iray-rendering-hardware-benchmarking/p1#Section 2

    has comparisons of most of the current cards and setups, not sure how on point the prices are but it should still serve as a good reference.

    RTX is the new thing with nvidia cards, they have new cores in addition to the cuda cores and have built in raytracing, current Iray is optimised for these cards. so if they are in your price range then yes you want them, although depending on how soon you need something there rumblings of the new series of RTX cards coming or being announced somewhere between the end of august and earlyish september so you may want to wait.

    If you do want to pick up a card now anyway, I'd suggest going for one of the 8 gig vram cards at least, the 2070 super looks pretty decent for its price but you might want to do some research on that.

    Post edited by skinklizzard on
  • DDCreateDDCreate Posts: 1,398
    edited August 2020

    Thanks skinklizzard! I appreciate the info. That's what I was looking for. Any ideas on why my current GPU doesn't want to do anything without the CPU enabled too? Have I been rendering with my CPU for the last years? Have I been living with a dead GPU carcass in my case?!!!!

    Also, here is a concern that may or may not be legit. I spend $600 on a new GPU and my scene is STILL to big for it to handle and I still only render on CPU. Is that how it works? The GPU tries and if it can't handle it, it screws off for coffee and the CPU does all the work?

    Post edited by DDCreate on
  • skinklizzardskinklizzard Posts: 218

    yea unfortunately thats the case, if your gpu doesn't have enough vram for Iray it passes it on to the cpu and just sits back and watches, it gets even worse if you happen to exceed your system memory.

    I believe there are renderers out there that can shift things around between available memory and not just dump it all to cpu but not native to daz studio.

    There are products available here that can both optimise and give you a prediction of how much vram your scene will need to render, I don't know much about them myself so someone else will have to point you in the right direction for those.

    with proper memory management when rendering you should be able to fit some decently heavy scenes into 8 gigs though.

  • DDCreateDDCreate Posts: 1,398

    Well, that's good to hear. I don't go for sprawling, gothic universes or anything. My current set is 2 people in an office setting. Some furniture and decor but that's about it. And that's par for the course for me so if 8GB can handle that, I'll be in good shape. Thanks again for the info!

Sign In or Register to comment.