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best render settings?

lclairelclaire Posts: 28
in Daz Studio Discussion

My principle computer is an iMac M1, but I have been mad impatient trying to render on it, given the Mac/NVIDIA feud, etc. — it typically takes an hour or more. I was fortunate to get a Acer Predator Helios 300 PH315-54-760S laptop (Intel i7-11800H, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 laptop GPU), and I figured it would be a big improvement in rendering time, plus not tying up my principal machine.

I was disappointed that my test render took almost as long — 50+ minutes. I have been assuming that I have probably not set something up correctly, and wondered if someone would give me the best settings and issues to look out for.

I'm new at this and have just been stumbling along, but I suddenly have a paying gig. I could use some help from someone with more of a clue. I'd appreciate your help so much!

Comments

  • thd777thd777 Posts: 943
    edited October 2022

    Hello!

    There are several possibilities and I would need more info about yopur hardware and scene content to tell for sure. One possibility is that you have not set up the RTX 3060 GPU in render settings - Advanced tab. Make sure it has a check mark. Also make sure you ahve a recent graphics driver installed. If the GPU is checked the driver not too old, then you are likely running put of GPU memory  (Your scene does not fit in  the GPU). The laptop RTX 3060 usually has 6 Gb which is not a lot.

    Ciao

    TD

    Post edited by thd777 on
  • TaozTaoz Posts: 9,940
    edited October 2022

    If the scene is too large so it doesn't fit into the video cards VRAM it will normally (depends on settings) drop to CPU rendering, could that be the problem? 

    Post edited by Taoz on
  • lclairelclaire Posts: 28
    edited October 2022

    No, I have not set anything up — that's what I meant. Thanks for the suggestions about the GPU. I bought it new last month, and specs are 16GB DDR4, 512GB SSD. I believe you're right that it has 6GB GPU memory. (Anything I can do to upgrade, short of buying another machine?}

    I am typically rendering only one figure at a time, with clothing and lighting, no background, so I didn't think the scene would be large enough to create a problem. But maybe I'm wrong. I am rendering for print, so I'm asking for a higher resolution.

    Is there more info that you need? Thanks so much for your help. I don't often have occasion to use a PC, and I'm more or less new to DAZ, relatively speaking, so between the combination of hardware and software, sometimes I hardly know what the right question is.

    Post edited by lclaire on
  • TaozTaoz Posts: 9,940

    You could install GPU-Z (free), it gives you all kinds of info about your GPU, like how much VRAM is being used:

    TechPowerUp GPU-Z (v2.50.0) Download | TechPowerUp

  • dawnbladedawnblade Posts: 1,723

    Also uncheck CPU in render settings-Advanced, for both Photoreal and Interactive. That way your CPUs won't slow you down, and only your 3060 will be used to render. Now, if your render stops quickly without an image showing, you've run out of VRAM, so you'll need to either use Scene Optimizer or remove stuff from your scene.

  • generalgameplayinggeneralgameplaying Posts: 517
    edited October 2022

    I have a similar laptop, Intel i7-12700H with IRIS(R) Xe(R), Nvidia RTX 3060. and 6 GB isn't a lot (...).

    Also tried different CPU settings and CPU vs. GPU on a specific scene and learned that there hardly was any difference, whatever i tried. In the end i assume it was using the GPU despite showing near 0% on both CPU and GPU (windows 10 pro). CPU load limit didn't make much of a difference, though i don't remember how few cores i tried. So i limit CPUs near the physical number of cores (not threads) anyway, and set DAZ back to GPU+CPU. Unchecking either of CPU or GPU hardly made any difference on my tests, maximum boilded down to a bunch of seconds vs. 6 minutes of render time. Of course that may have been a scene that was in no way representative of "everything".

     

    I have tested some simplification script, which appeared to be interesting, but i have not done systematic comparisons (yet), So i'm afraid, i can't contribute much here, other than that that kind of hardware is not a magic bullet. 

     

    I am not using the gaming driver, type is dispalyed as "DCH"

    Post edited by generalgameplaying on
  • PerttiAPerttiA Posts: 10,024

    The taskmanager doesn't show cuda activity at default setting, and in general it gives information that isn't true with dedicated GPU's - Download GPU-Z instead.

    Using both the GPU and CPU has often resulted in slower rendering, it is best to use just the GPU and let the CPU take care of other tasks.

    6GB VRAM is quite restrictive as with W10, it has just about 2GB's of VRAM left for the geometry and textures on the scene - One G8 figure with clothing and hair may already be too much.

  • lclairelclaire Posts: 28

    I thank you all for your answers. I was under the mistaken impression that because PCs were compatible with NVDIA and Macs weren't, PCs were the way to go for reendering. I do wish I'd talked to y'all first before I bought this damn computer, but I guess that will teach me.

    Are you or anyone you know in the market for a practically brand new Acer Predator Helios 300? LOL

  • lclairelclaire Posts: 28
    edited October 2022

    <-- My randomly assigned avatar represents my actual face today.

    Post edited by lclaire on
  • PerttiAPerttiA Posts: 10,024

    PC's are compatible with Nvidia GPU's, but one has to have enough VRAM for the scene one is rendering and the larger images one renders the situation just gets worse.

    With the newest products, I would consider 32MB's of RAM and a supported Nvidia GPU with 8GB's of VRAM the minimum and minimum gets one only so far.

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