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Can I damage my PC?

radego01radego01 Posts: 44
edited January 2023 in Daz Studio Discussion

As usual, I don't know which section to write this "problem" in, but considering that it concerns DAZ Studio, I think I'm writing it in the right place. If not, I apologize.

So...

For several months now, I have been intensively working on the creation of my game, which belongs to the "visual novel" category. And yet, I started to realize that maybe I don't treat my computer very well, and I don't realize the consequences that my actions can bring. To clarify, my computer handles the work perfectly; I have no problem. But I'm a bit worried about what happens to the PC while rendering the animations. It takes me about 22 hours to render a 4-second animation (at 60 frames per second). So I simply turn on rendering, let the PC do its job for those 22 hours, then give it a 1-2 hour break and start rendering the next animation. So my question is...

Is it safe to use the PC like this and let it work, or can I damage it somehow?

To be honest, I've never really understood hardware; I've always been more interested in software, and that's one of the reasons why I decided to come here to ask. I'll try to include some information below that might be of interest to someone...

PC:

  1. CPU: Intel Core i5 12400 (6 cores)
  2. GPU: RTX 3060 12GB
  3. RAM: 32GB

(I wanted to add the information about the motherboard and power supply as well, but I can't find the invoice that lists the components, so I'll add them later.)

  1. GPU temperature during rendering: 75°C - 77°C (I never reached a higher temperature)
  2. Power consumption during rendering: 73.70 W - 127.87 W (occasionally a higher consumption appears, but 99% of the time I encounter these values)
  3. GPU Usage: 84% - 99%
  4. GPU memory usage: 61.2% - 86%

I don't know if it is necessary to include information about other components, but the RAM is around 44°C and the CPU 54°C - 60°C

If by chance I am asking a st*pid question and am interested in something that should not bother me at all, then I apologize. As I mentioned above, I don't know much about hardware, and to be honest, I've been quite scared about this whole thing for the last few days. Whoever finds the time to answer me, thank you very much! :)

And not to forget... I wish everyone a happy new year.

Post edited by radego01 on

Comments

  • winddancer6440winddancer6440 Posts: 49

    Temps are not bad, If your concerned , make sure you keep heat sinks clean, and or add water cooling. I have custom water cooling with An AMD Ryzen , they run hot, and am about the same temps. Heat is your enemy, but yours does not seem to be too hot. If you decide to go water cooling, the systems you by already to install last about 6 months to a year before the liquid evaporates. It can be costly but you can make an semi open loop system that you can refill with antifreeze. You will eliminate the running dry issue and will last for years. Nvidia GPU's run hot as well. Even if you go water cooling , finding a GPU water block is not an easy task, If you can afford on when you do find one. Keeping the case and heatsinks free of dust and debree is the best you may be able to do. Last 3060 GPU Water Block I saw was $425.

  • RL_MediaRL_Media Posts: 339
    edited January 2023

    it's a lot less of an issue than it once was. Most modern CPU and GPU will throttle itself if it starts runnin too hot. Your GPU temps look real good, I been runnin my 2080 super as hot as the high 80's for days at a time and it's still kickin. 3070ti runs a bit cooler than the 2080 super did.

    Post edited by RL_Media on
  • 3WC3WC Posts: 1,107

    This is beside the point, but...why are you rendering animations at 60 fps?

  • Pickle RendererPickle Renderer Posts: 236
    edited January 2023

    Two things here:  (1) modern hardware throttles when it gets too hot so you're unlikely to do any damage (the firmware on the card will reduce the card's core clock speed) and (2) you can improve things a great deal by making sure it's clean and dust-free.  I would question your temps somewhat though.  I have a 3060 12GB.  Running Open Hardware Monitor and rendering a simple two figure scene at 4k I get temps around 60C with GPU Core at 99%, at about 130W (your 75C isn't "bad", I would just expect it to run cooler is all).

    I do have quite a large case though (BeQuiet 802) and the card is quite small with plenty of space around it (especially below and to the right).  I'm not using CPU either, so the temps there aren't adding up inside the case.

    Here's another tip.  Do your animation at 30 or even 15 fps.  Download NMKD's Flowframes application.  Use it to upscale the framerate on the animation at x2 or x4, back to 60fps.  That will effectively double your rendering speed (the fastest frames are the ones you don't render, right).  You can also find a good AI denoiser so you need fewer iterations to get a decent looking image (assuming you're not using the one that's with iRay).  That could easily double your framerate again.

     

    Post edited by Pickle Renderer on
  • Pickle RendererPickle Renderer Posts: 236

     

    Thought I'd add this little gif to show you the upscaler's ability.  It's from the Flowframes site.  On the left, the original anim.  On the right, the upscaled, higher fps anim.

     

    Flowframes anim.

  • FishtalesFishtales Posts: 6,119

    Lower the iterations for the render. I start at 100 and work up till the image looks good and the render time is manageable. You don't need perfect high resolution renders for the images when making animations.

  • radego01radego01 Posts: 44

    Pickle Renderer said:

    Two things here:  (1) modern hardware throttles when it gets too hot so you're unlikely to do any damage (the firmware on the card will reduce the card's core clock speed) and (2) you can improve things a great deal by making sure it's clean and dust-free.  I would question your temps somewhat though.  I have a 3060 12GB.  Running Open Hardware Monitor and rendering a simple two figure scene at 4k I get temps around 60C with GPU Core at 99%, at about 130W (your 75C isn't "bad", I would just expect it to run cooler is all).

    I do have quite a large case though (BeQuiet 802) and the card is quite small with plenty of space around it (especially below and to the right).  I'm not using CPU either, so the temps there aren't adding up inside the case.

    Here's another tip.  Do your animation at 30 or even 15 fps.  Download NMKD's Flowframes application.  Use it to upscale the framerate on the animation at x2 or x4, back to 60fps.  That will effectively double your rendering speed (the fastest frames are the ones you don't render, right).  You can also find a good AI denoiser so you need fewer iterations to get a decent looking image (assuming you're not using the one that's with iRay).  That could easily double your framerate again.

    Regarding the temperatures... To be honest, I don't know which values I should have provided as information. The GPU temperature values are from 62°C to 65°C; the hot spot shows the ones I mentioned in the post, but it was probably better to mention the higher values.

    The animations were the thing I spent the least amount of time on.     I started working with it about a month ago, and to be honest, I still don't understand very well how exactly it works. As for the render settings, specifically for animations, I render a maximum of 150 iterations with "post denoiser" and the basic settings it has. As for the quality of the image, I work with a 27-inch monitor, and I see the result as quite good; I had no problems with the quality, so it was sufficient for me.

    That app is a very interesting tip, to be honest.     Sometimes it happens that I make a mistake somewhere and I have to redo the entire animation because of it, and I'm not going to lie - slowly but surely, at this rapidity and time-consuming pace, it stops being fun for me. So I will definitely give it a try, and thanks for the advice.

  • FishtalesFishtales Posts: 6,119

    Render to an Image Series and then you only have to render from where the mistake shows up, fix it and re-render only the images from there.

  • radego01radego01 Posts: 44

    Fishtales said:

    Render to an Image Series and then you only have to render from where the mistake shows up, fix it and re-render only the images from there.

    That's exactly the way I render. But it happened sometimes that I didn't notice and the character had black marks on his head (I think they're called artifacts or something), and then I had no choice but to start over. Of course, I can solve the problem in several ways, but editing 300 images through Photoshop is quite impractical.

    But I will try to render at 15 fps if it is faster. The only thing I still don't understand are the values. If I want the animation to be at least 4 seconds long, how many keyframes should it have at 15 fps?

  • PerttiAPerttiA Posts: 10,024

    radego01 said:

    Fishtales said:

    Render to an Image Series and then you only have to render from where the mistake shows up, fix it and re-render only the images from there.

    That's exactly the way I render. But it happened sometimes that I didn't notice and the character had black marks on his head (I think they're called artifacts or something), and then I had no choice but to start over. Of course, I can solve the problem in several ways, but editing 300 images through Photoshop is quite impractical.

    But I will try to render at 15 fps if it is faster. The only thing I still don't understand are the values. If I want the animation to be at least 4 seconds long, how many keyframes should it have at 15 fps?

    At 15 fps (Frames Per Second), you need 60 frames for four seconds. 

  • radego01radego01 Posts: 44

    PerttiA said:

    radego01 said:

    Fishtales said:

    Render to an Image Series and then you only have to render from where the mistake shows up, fix it and re-render only the images from there.

    That's exactly the way I render. But it happened sometimes that I didn't notice and the character had black marks on his head (I think they're called artifacts or something), and then I had no choice but to start over. Of course, I can solve the problem in several ways, but editing 300 images through Photoshop is quite impractical.

    But I will try to render at 15 fps if it is faster. The only thing I still don't understand are the values. If I want the animation to be at least 4 seconds long, how many keyframes should it have at 15 fps?

    At 15 fps (Frames Per Second), you need 60 frames for four seconds. 

    I'll play with it. Thank you for your response :)

  • Pickle RendererPickle Renderer Posts: 236

    radego01 said:

    That app is a very interesting tip, to be honest. Sometimes it happens that I make a mistake somewhere and I have to redo the entire animation because of it, and I'm not going to lie - slowly but surely, at this rapidity and time-consuming pace, it stops being fun for me. So I will definitely give it a try, and thanks for the advice.

    Yea, you can pay a few $ on Patreon to get the latest version, or get the one without the Patreon sign-up.  The latter has features missing though.  It's pretty cheap actually so I did the former to get it.

  • radego01radego01 Posts: 44

    Pickle Renderer said:

    radego01 said:

    That app is a very interesting tip, to be honest. Sometimes it happens that I make a mistake somewhere and I have to redo the entire animation because of it, and I'm not going to lie - slowly but surely, at this rapidity and time-consuming pace, it stops being fun for me. So I will definitely give it a try, and thanks for the advice.

    Yea, you can pay a few $ on Patreon to get the latest version, or get the one without the Patreon sign-up.  The latter has features missing though.  It's pretty cheap actually so I did the former to get it.

    I downloaded it somewhere, but it didn't want any money from me. Now I don't know if I have the right application or not :D It has a blue-green icon and the name "Flowframes"

  • Pickle RendererPickle Renderer Posts: 236
    edited January 2023
    I downloaded it somewhere, but it didn't want any money from me. Now I don't know if I have the right application or not :D It has a blue-green icon and the name "Flowframes"

    Yea.  It's available at a couple of places.  You can download here if not via. Patreon.  He has an active Discord for help, questions etc. as well.

    Post edited by Pickle Renderer on
  • FishtalesFishtales Posts: 6,119

    radego01 said:

    Fishtales said:

    Render to an Image Series and then you only have to render from where the mistake shows up, fix it and re-render only the images from there.

    That's exactly the way I render. But it happened sometimes that I didn't notice and the character had black marks on his head (I think they're called artifacts or something), and then I had no choice but to start over. Of course, I can solve the problem in several ways, but editing 300 images through Photoshop is quite impractical.

    But I will try to render at 15 fps if it is faster. The only thing I still don't understand are the values. If I want the animation to be at least 4 seconds long, how many keyframes should it have at 15 fps?

    I always do an image render before starting the image sequence so I can check for things like that :) I also run the images through Irfanview evrey so often as they are being rendered to see if there is anything wrong with the actual annimation, like an arm through the body etc.

  • bdell_53_4baf2b3d9bbdell_53_4baf2b3d9b Posts: 277

    Fishtales said:

    Lower the iterations for the render. I start at 100 and work up till the image looks good and the render time is manageable. You don't need perfect high resolution renders for the images when making animations.

    How do I lower iterations? Under the Render tab I selected the render engine to NVDIA Iray but I don't see anything with the word iteration.

    Thanks

  • radego01radego01 Posts: 44

    bdell_53_4baf2b3d9b said:

    Fishtales said:

    Lower the iterations for the render. I start at 100 and work up till the image looks good and the render time is manageable. You don't need perfect high resolution renders for the images when making animations.

    How do I lower iterations? Under the Render tab I selected the render engine to NVDIA Iray but I don't see anything with the word iteration

    Thanks

    "Max Samples" determines the number of iterations your render will have. So if you set it to, for example, 100, it will only render up to 100 iterations. But if I can advise you, I recommend that you turn off "Rendering Quality Enable" and set "Max Time (secs)" to 0. At least that's how I use it, but maybe someone else can advise you something else

  • radego01radego01 Posts: 44

    Fishtales said:

    radego01 said:

    Fishtales said:

    Render to an Image Series and then you only have to render from where the mistake shows up, fix it and re-render only the images from there.

    That's exactly the way I render. But it happened sometimes that I didn't notice and the character had black marks on his head (I think they're called artifacts or something), and then I had no choice but to start over. Of course, I can solve the problem in several ways, but editing 300 images through Photoshop is quite impractical.

    But I will try to render at 15 fps if it is faster. The only thing I still don't understand are the values. If I want the animation to be at least 4 seconds long, how many keyframes should it have at 15 fps?

    I always do an image render before starting the image sequence so I can check for things like that :) I also run the images through Irfanview evrey so often as they are being rendered to see if there is anything wrong with the actual annimation, like an arm through the body etc.

    I started doing that for the last animations as well. You can say that I wasn't very careful with the first ones and neglected to check these things... But you know how, if we don't make mistakes, we don't learn anything. So I always try to take it positively (even if sometimes I feel like killing myself haha).

  • tsroemitsroemi Posts: 2,742

    I thought this was a good question, and I'm reading everyone's responses with much interest myself. Heat is always especially concerning when one is on a laptop like I am. To read ya'll's takes on the temperatures given by the OP is very insightful for me, and I bet for a ton of others as well. Thanks all for bringing it up / sharing your knowledge!

  • Pickle RendererPickle Renderer Posts: 236

    tsroemi said:

    I thought this was a good question, and I'm reading everyone's responses with much interest myself. Heat is always especially concerning when one is on a laptop like I am. To read ya'll's takes on the temperatures given by the OP is very insightful for me, and I bet for a ton of others as well. Thanks all for bringing it up / sharing your knowledge!

    Yea, so with a laptop you have another consideration, notwithstanding the poor airflow that's a feature of all laptops, you have a battery that will get hot with continuous use.  Although I only use a laptop for work, not rendering, you can buy something called a "laptop cooler", strangely enough.  It's kind of a plinth you sit your laptop on with fans for cooling.  I read that the laptop doesn't get much benefit from the fans on the plinth.  It's more the fact you're raising it off the desk and it has air under it that helps temps.

    Again, same with a desktop, keeping it dust free and unobstructed vents will give you better performance.

     

     

  • marblemarble Posts: 7,500

    tsroemi said:

    I thought this was a good question, and I'm reading everyone's responses with much interest myself. Heat is always especially concerning when one is on a laptop like I am. To read ya'll's takes on the temperatures given by the OP is very insightful for me, and I bet for a ton of others as well. Thanks all for bringing it up / sharing your knowledge!

    The tips about frame rate are interesting too. I have never heard of Flowframes but I do use Davinci Resolve which has quite a good process for frame rate changes (Optical Flow). I'd be interested in a comparison.

  • Pickle RendererPickle Renderer Posts: 236
    edited January 2023

    marble said:

    The tips about frame rate are interesting too. I have never heard of Flowframes but I do use Davinci Resolve which has quite a good process for frame rate changes (Optical Flow). I'd be interested in a comparison.

    I'd be interested to compare as well.  Optical Flow v AI.  I'm going to try it out...

    Second thoughts, tried to download the free version of Davinci Resolve and it wants my phone number.  It should be told where it put that in no uncertain terms.

    Post edited by Pickle Renderer on
  • marblemarble Posts: 7,500

    Pickle Renderer said:

    marble said:

    The tips about frame rate are interesting too. I have never heard of Flowframes but I do use Davinci Resolve which has quite a good process for frame rate changes (Optical Flow). I'd be interested in a comparison.

    I'd be interested to compare as well.  Optical Flow v AI.  I'm going to try it out...

    Second thoughts, tried to download the free version of Davinci Resolve and it wants my phone number.  It should be told where it put that in no uncertain terms.

     

    I don't remember having to supply a phone number because, like you, I would not have supplied it. Ahh - but I've just had a look and it has all changed. Well, looks like that's the end of my relationship with Blackmagic. Pity - I really like Resolve. Before I tried that I used the Blender Video Sequence Editor (VSE) and I liked that too so I'll probably go back to that instead of downloading any further versions of Davinci.

  • RexRedRexRed Posts: 1,323

    Your graphics card fans should be set to auto by default but when I do a lot of rendering for long periods I sometimes manually set the graphics card fan on high to keep the temps as low as possible.

    77 degrees is borderline high, I really worry when it hits 80.

    a GPU fan on high should bring that down into the 60s or even lower while under load.

    I use MSI Afterburner to manually change my GPU fan setting.

     

     

  • FishtalesFishtales Posts: 6,119

    I have a cooler pad and the fan for the laptop is on boost and I have loaded a screenshot showing the temperatures at the moment while rendering. Those are normal for most of my renders :)

    Click on image for full size.

  • johndoe_36eb90b0johndoe_36eb90b0 Posts: 235

    Fishtales said:

    I have a cooler pad and the fan for the laptop is on boost and I have loaded a screenshot showing the temperatures at the moment while rendering. Those are normal for most of my renders :)

    Click on image for full size.

    That CPU temperature is way too close to Tjunction, your CPU must be throttling. Also, why is it even used? Does it speed rendering considerably compared to using just GPU?

    I must admit I will never understand people using laptops to do a job of a proper workstation PC in a well ventilated case.

  • Catherine3678abCatherine3678ab Posts: 8,336
    edited January 2023

    Price and availability ;-)

    ... and 'real fans' can help with the ventilation too.

    For my laptop I would also keep checking various areas of the keyboard, too hot and I'd stop the render. One person in the forums didn't believe all about the heat warnings, woke up one morning to a totally fired {as in melted} laptop. Post is somewhere in the forums.

    Post edited by Catherine3678ab on
  • FishtalesFishtales Posts: 6,119

    johndoe_36eb90b0 said:

    Fishtales said:

    I have a cooler pad and the fan for the laptop is on boost and I have loaded a screenshot showing the temperatures at the moment while rendering. Those are normal for most of my renders :)

     

    Click on image for full size.

    That CPU temperature is way too close to Tjunction, your CPU must be throttling. Also, why is it even used? Does it speed rendering considerably compared to using just GPU?

    I must admit I will never understand people using laptops to do a job of a proper workstation PC in a well ventilated case.

    I was probably doing something else at the same time and the CPU was being used for that.

    I started using Laptops a number of years ago when my Desktop statrted shutting down for some reason and I never got around to replacing the Motherboard, it was already on its third :) It was a tower that originally had my Amiga 1200 retrofitted into it with four hard drives and an accelorator and I never put the cover back on, when I converted to Windows it was open to the world for about fifteen years and I could still feel the heat. The Laptop was just convenient for takilng with me, this is my third and they all ran hot and were only replaced to uppgrade the graphics card and memory they are still useable but not for DAZ Studio :) 

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