New laptop help
Navmaxlp
Posts: 12
I'm relatively new to Daz3D. I had an old laptop that I was using for it (maybe 6 to 7 years old) and it was fine. Renders took a long time but, really I was just playing around to learn things. Unfortunately, that laptop finally died and I need a new one. This is not something I plan to use for anything other that a hobby for enjoyment. I'd like to make some posters for my D&D group mostly and pictures of a story I'm making up for my daughter. All still images.
I had used my Surface Pro 7 a little but now I can't even get Daz Studio to run on it really. I tried my wife's laptop and that's a no go as well. I'm well aware that I'm trying to run this on dreadfully under capable computers. I don't mind waiting for renders and they don't need to be crazy high quality but I would like a nice finished product and something able to help me learn on. In the future, if things go well and I continue liking this, I'd buy a dedicated desktop with proper specs to make things easier but, for now, I need a laptop and a Daz machine in one.
I've got a couple of laptops I've got my eye on but the main one is the Acer Nitro 5 (AN515 57 79TD). It has multiple options. The main one I'm looking at is a Core i7 11800H with Nvidia RTX 3050Ti. It comes with 8GB DDR4 system ram and 4GB DDR6 VRAM. There are others I can consider as well with slightly more system RAM up to around 16GB that fit my budget (under $1k but the further under the better for the sake of my marriage) but they make compromises as well. Some offer lesser CPUs and others offer the RTX 3050 standard with DDR4 VRAM I believe. One seems a little too good to be true and I usually never trust the Prime website I use for buying things but its an HP Victus with a Core i5 12500H, 32GB system RAM, 1TB storage and an RTX 3050 but it indicates 4GB DDR6 VRAM. Here's exactly what it says "NVIDIA Geforce RTX 3050, 2048 NVIDIA CUDA Cores, 1057 - 1740 MHz Boost Clock, 4GB GDDR6 Memory"
I do want to mention that I have the experience and understanding to upgrade the laptop memory to 32GB but, at this point, feel much more confortable purchasing one with more RAM if possible to avoid the hassle. It's not an option that is completely off the table though. If I were to purchase an 8GB system RAM laptop, it would likely be with the intent to upgrade to 32GB at some point inthe future.
So my questions are; am I nuking this out? Am I putting way too much into this and should just pick one and go with it? I try to do as much research as I can prior to making a purchase like this but, sometimes, end up more confused with the amount of data and not enough experience to sift through it all. At the level I'm doing things, I don't think I need the amount of computing power others may need and I certainly don't have the money to throw at this (especially considering how much one can spend in the Daz store) but I also don't want to needlessly limit myself with a poor purchase decision.
Any info, guidance or help of any sort will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
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Comments
I suspect you'll find 4GB VRAM rather frustrating at times, that's a bare minimum. 6GB VRAM on a laptop would be a little roomier for rendering.
I have 6GB VRAM on a RTX 3060 laptop. Works fine for small tasks. I find the keyboard can get too hot for my liking though and as soon as I could, I did purchase a proper Desktop RTX 3060 with more VRAM and RAM, etc.
Thanks for the reply. May I ask how much system RAM you have in your laptop? I'm assuming 32GB
Additional question; the listings I see for an RTX 3060 run right at the $1k range. If I'm unable to convince my better half to agree to an extra $200 for this, would I suffer a huge hit to my experience? Keep in mind I'm coming from an Acer Core i5 6200U with 8gb RAM and a GeForce 940MX with 2GB VRAM.
Given what I was using prior to my laptop dieing, am I going to see a substantial upgrade in experience going to an RTX 3050Ti or an RTX 3060?
If you want to be somewhat comfortable working with DS and rendering in Iray, 32GB's of RAM and an nVidia RTX GPU with minimum 8GB's of VRAM would be the starting point, the rest doesn't matter... Exept of course storage space for the content (4TB external USB is a good start)
Thanks very much for the feedback. I've got a ton of external storage with a 12TB external drive so that should be good. It looks like RTX GPUs with 8GB of VRAM start with the RTX 3070. Those laptops start in the $1300 range. I would love to have one but that's just not in my budget. It'll be a stretch to get into the $900 to $1k range for me.
What are the problems with having limited VRAM? Is it just time to wait for the render to complete? I don't mind working on a project then hitting render and waiting until the next day. Perhaps I'm a bit naive though and don't realize the issues I'm asking for with 4-6GB of VRAM vs the 8GB. As I mentioned, I don't mind doing an upgrade to the laptop system RAM to get up to 32GB later but that might be a few months.
You have convinced me to reach for the 6GB RTX 3060 rather than the 4GB 3050 or 3050Ti so some progress is being made I suppose.
If one doesn't have enough VRAM to (Iray) render the scene on GPU, the rendering drops to CPU and takes hours instead of maybe 10-15 minutes.
On desktops, the RTX 3060 12GB is by far the best budget choice, and going up from that would be the 3080 because no 3070 has more than 8GB's of VRAM
You can get a laptop with an integrated RTX 3060 for $900 - $1200 easy on Best Buy 2 years ago and certainly cheaper now if you shop around.
Notes:
a) Remember an RTX 3060 Mobile IS NOT an RTX 3060 Desktop
b) For that money, you'll need to put out a hundred or so extra to upgrade the RAM yourself to 32GB or 64GB
c) For that money, if you have a large DAZ library you'll need to pay to upgrade or add a 2nd SSD, you'll have to be self aware about your spending habits at DAZ 3D. 1TB may be enough for you but for me after more than 6 years buying DAZ models I've about filled up a 2TB SSD (I keep the installers / installed DAZ Content library on the same disk so it's like having every product twice on the same disk).
My solution to c) is I'm going to buy 2 TB USB 3.1 SSDs and move the DAZ installers to one of them and the installed content to the other. I may possibly put it all on a 4 TB USB 3.1 SSD but if I decide to do that I'll have a 2nd 4 TB USB 3.1 SSD as a mirror. The cost is about $50 cheaper for a single 4 TB USB SSD (Sandisk) compared to the 2 2 TB USB SSDs (Samsung). The USB 3.1 SSDs I'm speaking of are about 1050Mb/s so that's not really a major bottle neck as DAZ Studio cannot process most complex scene manipulations faster anyway (and it's not waiting for disk I/O for most of that time).
Thank you very much. The difference between the laptop and desktop 3060 is a distinction I did not really know about.
You bring up a good point about purchasing a desktop rather than a laptop. I really didn't want to go with a desktop as I need a new laptop but I may be able to do with my Surface tablet alone and purchase the desktop with a 12gb 3060. Comprimises are difficult however and I'm on the fence. If I go with a laptop, I'll likely have to upgrade the RAM to 32GB later and may still need a desktop soon after. Money and marital bliss are the limiters.
Thanks again for the info.
Yes, I've seen 3060 laptops around $900 to $1k. I will check best buy to see if I can get a better deal there. Thanks for the heads up. They're not a site I usually shop on.
My advice would be don't do it unless it is absolutely necessary, in which case I would get a workstation laptop. I'm saying this based on my own experience with laptops, what I do in Daz, and having a lack of patience waiting hours for a render to complete. I don't know how complex your scenes are & how much you can be bothered with optimizing your scene's textures/geometry/etc. to reduce render times, but based on what you've said, you'll want at LEAST 8 Gb VRAM with 32 Gb system RAM.
If a laptop is necessary, you're going to pay more now but it will be cheaper in the long run to get a workstation laptop sufficiently spec'ed rather than buying a lower spec'ed laptop now & then buying a higher spec'ed desktop later.
Imo, laptops are more of a hassle than they're worth compared to a desktop due to how frequently I use a computer. I dislike the batteries & proprietary hardware issues that usually accompany them.
Very valid. You're right. I'll most likely end up spending more in the long run but, after thinking more about it, I need a laptop and want it to run Daz. I can't get around that really. I was very tempted by the desktop but, in the end, I can't. The nice thing is though, in time I'll be happy to upgrade to a desktop and I'll have a decent laptop as well. I'll focus on trying to find an affordable 3060 and plan to upgrade top 32gb of RAM when I can.
I'm sure it's frustrating for someone to ask for advice then say they aren't going to take if but, unfortunately, I'm limited in my options due to budget. I'm just a dude who likes to tinker and i can't rationalize going over budget.
I really do appreciate all the advice and info. It certainly helped me to think this out even if it just helped me become comfortable with my original choice.
Just make sure it has an Nvidia card with at least 8 Gb VRAM & 32 Gb system RAM or you'll probably find yourself rendering off of the cpu more often than not unless you spend extra time optimizing your scenes.
Wait, I think I missed something. If I can't go to an RTX 3070 which seems to be the lowest cost RTX GPU that has 8GB VRAM, it will render from the CPU most of the time? I just can't afford one of those at the moment. Buying an RTX 3060 is even a stretch for me which offers 6GB VRAM. If I'm just going to be limited to CPU rendering, should I just go back to the 3050Ti at $200 less and use the difference to upgrade the system RAM to 32GB?
So, essentially, would it be better to stay at 4GB VRAM and have 32GB RAM sooner or stay with 6GB VRAM and upgrade to 32GB RAM down the road? I'm really confused.
I thought the 3060 has 12gb, not 6gb. The 3060 ti is more expensive, but only has 8gb.
Edit: nm, the 12mb 3060 is only for desktops.
Just for comparison, I've got a 3050 desktop 8GB, and I fall back to CPU when I try to do something complex (e.g. a particularly big scene with multiple characters). And I never fit anything on the card when I had a 1050ti 4GB. You're probably going to have to look at how complex your renders are.
Well that sucks. That's quite an impact. I think I'll just have to get what I can afford and temper my expectations. Down the line, when I can look at desktops, I'll look to make a bigger jump in both RAM and VRAM.
I do want to verify however, this shouldn't affect the quality of the render, just the time it takes to complete it right? I don't know that I'd mind terribly working on something then hitting render before I go to bed.
Here is some DAZ advice on VRAM:
1) Choose hairs that aren't extremely high poly with lots of opacity - i.e. OOT hairs will cause my desktop RTX 3060 12GB to run out of VRAM with just 6 G8 characters.
2) Don't render above FHD (1920x1080P). Find some DLSS / AI upscaling website or Windows app (if there is one yet) to upscale your renders.
That's pretty much it. The scene you need to make is what it is so you can only really avoid heavy hair and excessive large render canvases. If you wanted to jump through more hoops then you probably care too you could learn how to composit a render & lots more, but I think you have more practical things you want to get done in a resonable amount of time. If you are planning on being a professional digital artist you may as well do those things at least a few times to familiarize yourself with such techniques.