the 8/16/32/64 GB RAM argument
StratDragon
Posts: 3,251
argument settled.
Screenshot 2021-12-19 104520.png
234 x 212 - 7K
Post edited by StratDragon on
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2025 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
Unless I zoom in in my browser I can't see what it says. The image doesn't open.
my bad!
What was the argument and how does the image settle it?
I got 128Gbs is there some wrong with this?
the argument for 32 or 64 gb RAM. my render hit 32.5 and I tend to optimize and add in post work.
So are you saying that better stats are... better?
My current rig is 5 years old (ish); it has 64GB and I've have never ran out of RAM; I have had renders use as high as 58GB.
My next rig - likely next year will certainly have 64GB and likely 128GB.
I certainly wouldn't reccommend less than 32, but: balance your system and get what you can afford.
I've been running on 16gb since I began rendering and. . .desperately need to upgrade. A lot of my system needs an upgrade. My ideal was 32gb but I might bump that up to 64gb.
If you have a 3090 or a Titan RTX, then you're gonna want 128gb of system.
8 Gen 8s, outfits, environment, props, and lights.
Memory on GPU all used 12Gb
GPU load 100%
CPU used 100%
Memory on System 65 Gb all Used.
Why I went to 128 Gb of memory.
The real question is how much time does youre render's optimization consume.
My PC has 64GB of RAM which felt very over kill with Octane. Octane isn't a glutonous memory pig from the land of insufficient light. You have unlimited RAM for textures with Octane.
I've used Octane and Reality more than Iray\3Delight. IMO Iray isn't very good and products often have preset textures for some other flavor of Iray and you're often left guessing what shader set up the vendor used/tweaked. Using stock Iray has the advantage of mostly kinda generally doing what you want without too much texture/shader work on the render. This is good. The down side is playing guessing games with shader adjustments which makes render tweaks time consuming and incredibly slow.
Octane was a butt load of work for shaders up front, but they worked, and did what you wanted. Tweaks and test renders were super fast and easy. (IMO this makes up for Iray's inability to tweak renders quickly.) Revamping an Iray render to Octane was generally time consuming. (I put in a good 6 hours on one render so I know of what I speak.)
This render was done with 2 GTX 1660s that only had 8GB of RAM. The scene pushed 11.5GB of RAM, and I'm certain that my current setup with 1X RTX 3080TI with 12 GB of RAM, with 64GB of system RAM would simply choke and die on this in Iray.
https://www.daz3d.com/gallery/#image=988816
I have 32GB RAM and have had scenes that got close when CPU rendering but nothing has ever exceeded that yet so I think 64GB is good but 128GB is probably excessive.
saying IMHO that 32GB my not cut it as a viable baseline when building or buying a rig especially as newer assets need more and more overhead.
oppoppo
Render test that I made some time ago;
Case a) One lightweight G8 character with lightweight clothing and hair
Case b) Four similar G8 characters plus an environment
Case c and d) started increasing the SubD on the four characters to see at which point the rendering would drop to CPU
Using W7 Ultimate with i7-5820k, 2070 Super (8GB) and 64GB RAM
Case c) The last one that fit the 8GB VRAM, needed 38GB's of RAM to render.
I'm currently getting by fine with 32.
Yeah, it isn't that bad, but when I updated from 32GB to 64GB, the responsiveness of the system while rendering did improve noticeably
I have 256 gigs and I still notice slowdowns now and then :)
In my experience a rule of thumb for DAZ Iray is 3 to 1. Therefore a 12GB VRAM graphics adapter is best paired with atleast 36GB (64GB) of CPU RAM and 72GB (128GB) of CPU RAM would be best for a 24GB VRAM graphics adapter. By this measure an 8GB VRAM graphics adapter can get by on 24GB (32GB) of CPU RAM.
However if you are building a new PC and can manage the budget starting at 64GB RAM is probably a reasonable investment if you think you will keep the computer long enough to upgrade the graphics adapter within 12 to 36 months.
I don't think the "who has the most VRAM" marketing battle will really take off for atleast another couple of years. Real-time ray-trace rendering is still in its early days for Game developers and blockchain computing/mining is not as worried about size of VRAM as they are about parallel processing and GPU speed.
So Nvidia is not in a hurry to make their graphics adapters with 48GB VRAM. The 3D artist rendering market is a VERY VERY tiny portion of their card sales.
Not bad advice
...one advantage Octane has over Iray is out fo core rendering. which is really helpful if you don't have a card with a whopping amount of VRAM. Blender's Cycles has it as well.
That said I'm still somewhat behind the curve as finance are tight that I have to make the best out of what I have for now: 24 GB system memory and a 12 GB Titan-X.(also have a 12 GB 3060SC but couldn't get my MB (X58) to support it even given adjustments I made.
I have an update specced out (which will be W11 compatible), however it means getting the funds up for it:
Intel i9 10900KF CPU 10c/20t
ASUS Prime H570+ MB
64 GB DDR4 2666 memory (2 x 32 GB leavng tow slots open for later memory upgrade)
Noctua NH-D15S CPU Cooler
Samsung 980 500 GB M.2-2280 NVME Boot drive.
I have:
3070 Threadripper
256GB DDR4 RAM
RTX3090
ROG Zenith Alpha II motherboard
My renders barely pull 20GB of RAM, and bluje screen my PC if I run the CPU as a fall back option. The RTX 3090 runs as hot as if it were crypto mining but at only 8% utility using 9.7GB of GPU memory. What am I doing wrong because by rights this PC should be annihlating anything I throw at it and Daz is instead demolishing my PC...
Change one of those graphs to CUDA to see the work that is being done by the GPU - th defaults do not cover Iray activity
Presuming you aren't using watercooling, is the case well cooled, with good airflow? That's the most important thing when it comes to air cooling. If the air inside the box is too hot, even the best CPU/GPU coolers won't help much.
so basically, what ever you have, you will always need more
There must be a "Murphy's Law" that covers that situation.
Isn't that the truth
You're all quoting how much ram and vram you have, but I don't hear anyone saying what's in the renders and how long it's taking. It seems to be the one thing no one is mentioning and that would be good information to know. Quotes don't mean squat without all the information.
Ive had Studio using around 56GB.
My next build, which is soonish, as this is now 5 years old or more will be 128
Too many variables really.
I've had single character scenes with a few props use 18+ GB of my 3090.
I hate optimising - takes too much time very often. I have been known to do it tho, although if I have an issue in Studio, I take it to Blender.