Graphics Power For Quick Preview Renders
magog_a4eb71ab
Posts: 769
Hopefully someone can answer this question since its one of the decisions I need to make for a possible dual graphics card setup on a desktop. Recently I've been having better success in getting characters shaped/morphed closer to expected specifications by performing more frequent close-up iray preview renders between morph adjustments(not to mention a taskbar full of screenshots for comparisons). Problem is it takes forever since the renders always get dumped to the CPU due to lack of VRAM on my GTX 765M, despite only having just a single G3 or G8 character loaded on an empty scene with maybe a couple of spotlights & environment lighting.
How powerful(i.e. 2070, 2080, 2080Ti) would a single NVidia graphics card need to be in order to be able to completely(or at least near 75-80%) render a single G8 character, no hair/clothing, within 5-7 minutes in an empty scene? I know zooming out can improve character render speed, but I need to be zoomed in closer & at different angles since I've been finding it a little easier and more acurrate when shaping/morphing, albeit very time consuming on my current 6-yr old laptop.
A Titan RTX is way out of my budget, and the 2080Ti would be pushing it since I already know that I'll need at least a 2070 for gaming on a 1440p monitor. Question is do I go for dual graphics or a single card solution? The thing is I want to be able to perform other tasks(except for gaming) while rendering, which is why I'm considering 2 graphics cards instead of one. While a single 2080Ti would be nice, I wonder what kind of functionality my system will have when the monitor is jacked into the same graphics card Iray is using at full-throttle to render.
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Comments
I've been able to do those sorts of renders in way less than that with my 1080ti so a 2070 or even a 2060 should be able to do it.
I have a 1080ti and can watch video, at 1080p, while rendering, as long as I have spare VRAM. So you could do mostthings except game while rendering with a 2080ti, or even conceivably lower end RTX cards.
If I was buying a new GPU without the 1080ti to pair with it I'd go for the best card I could afford not 2 lower end cards. VRAM is important in a lot of the scenes I render.
I was rendering a single character in Iray preview mode in under a minute with my old GTX970. Do you have other apps running in addition to DS? I create my own characters also and would have 2 windows open with closeups of the front face and side face with my old GPU and had no issues, so you should be fine with any single RTX solutions for this need.
I think a question that needs to be answered here is what other tasks do you want to be able to do while rendering?
I agree with Kenshaw, working with iRay, in most cases its better to have one big GPU over two smaller ones. Running your displays through the same card that is rendering, you will be able to do some things during a render, but others, not so much.
It also will depend on how many displays you are running. If you are like me and run 3 displays at minimum, it can quickly become too much to ask for the GPU to render and power all 3 displays and other tasks too.
Another thing to consider, is that the operating system will reserve a portion of your VRAM. That is another advantage of having your displays powered by a different GPU, your render GPU has all its VRAM available for your render
Thanks folks, that's definitely helpful. I wasn't sure how having a single video card /w the monitor jacked into it would work out for a desktop when performing Iray rendering in Daz. My laptop uses the Intel HD Graphics until I run a game or other app that calls for use of the GTX 765M, so its not an issue I've had to worry about before; especially considering that most of the rendering done on my laptop ends up kicked over to the CPU anyway. So I'm probably better off just going with a single 2080 or 2080Ti if I can swing it.
I usually don't have too much other stuff open/running while rendering. At most I'll have 3 browser tabs up on IE Explorer, 1-2 folders open full of images, and 2-3 png or jpg images open in MS Paint. Anyway, the problem is my video card not having enough VRAM, so even with just a single character in an empty scene, it gets the boot from the card to the CPU. So everything is sluggish on my laptop whenever I render. Eventually I do plan on putting something better in my laptop, but I have to find out what I can put into it. I'm pretty sure it can handle some of the 900M series graphics cards
It depends... usually the system still runs acceptable while rendering. Every once in a while it gets dog slow, I look and it didn't dump to CPU.
And it depends what you're rendering, a 1080 Ti or the 2080 Ti have the extra memory (11GB vs 8GB) which is essential to some folks. I can tell you if you want a multi-card system if you get a lower end card to run the desktop that works fine rendering with Daz Iray, but you need to plug the monitor into a good card for gaming.
It's like taking a sledgehammer to knock down some bowling pins. Don't need that much power for this. :D
I not only use Iray preview a lot, I actively do my modeling in it, and I have a relatively old computer with an GT 1060 in it. Just takes like 30 seconds to load all the materials in Iray pre-render (again, old computer, not a lot of memory), but after that I can move around and do things and it just takes two seconds to update the renderpreview with each action.
If you just want to render a single G8 character with nothing else in the scene, even my middling 1050 Ti would do a pretty clean render at a reasonable resolution in 5-7 minutes.
Laptops generally can have very few components upgraded after purchase. More RAM or changing the main disk are the only reliable ones, along with maybe swapping out for a better CPU from the same generation.
Everything else is likely to be physically soldered to the motherboard (which takes a lot less space than having interchangeable sockets), so except for some rare performance laptops that are specifically designed for such upgrades, you're probably stuck with whichever GPU it was originally bought with.