Performance expectations from a 6GB GPU?
StratDragon
Posts: 3,273
After 9 years (wait what!?) I upgraded my GPU from a GTS250 1GB to a 1660Ti 6GB . Mostly plan to use this for Blender 2.8 which I now have to relearn but apparently massive interface overhaul and left button select by default (it's been 9 years yo.)
So I'm using DS4.11 and while I can preview surfaces and tweak them nearly realtime I do notice pretty much everything I do render; one or two V4's, one or two M4's (clothed!) and some scenery seems to be falling back to CPU. Activity Monitor shows CPU's going full steam. In preview mode the GPU is getting used, I verified with GPU-Z.
My specs will be below my questions.
My questions:
Is this normal?
The CPU device listed in front of my GPU for photreal devices and it doesn't move. Should it move? If I unselect it and render GPU only in Photoreal it looks like it's about to do something, then renders a black screen and stops.
Does V4 have significantly more polly's than Gen8 which I haven't used yet?
is there a way to lower the texture size automatically on some elements of the scene when it goes to render?
Why doesn't the IRay preview mode kick off unless I move the camera from where it was?
Is there a way to calculate a scenes memory use before I render?[edit, found it https://www.daz3d.com/scene-optimizer]
Is the CPU doing the heavy lifting when I'm moving the camera around in textured preview or does the GPU handle that?
I'll likely have way more questions when I get to play with this a little more
System:
MacPro 5,1 64GB RAM
Windows 7/ Samsung SSD
Studio 4.11
Nvidia Drivers from 7.23.19 (most recent)
Samsung displays (1) 1600x900 desktop (2) 1200x1920 Viewport, (3) 1920x1080 Menus
MSI GeForce 1660Ti 6GB DDR6
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Comments
This does not sound right at all. 1 or 2 Generation 4 figures should easily render in 6 GB of VRAM. Whilst V4 does have more polys than G8, this is only relevant if G8 is not sub-divided, which it normally is. In any case polys are far less relevant the texture files for eating up you VRAM, and Gen 4 figures typically have less texture files (eg Genesis 3/8 have separate files for arms/legs, and typically have more files for SSS, normals etc that most Gen 4 figures do not have).
Scene Optimizer is used for reducing the VRAM requirement, but I perfer this: https://www.daz3d.com/iray-memory-assistant for finding out how much VRAM your scene will need to render.
Having 3 monitors hooked up might take a lot of VRAM up. Size of the render does make a difference too, if I try to go above 3k long side, even the simplest scenes seem to drop to CPU for me. Also have a 6gb gpu as my main render cards.
Download either GPU-Z or MSI Afterburner. Either can be used to monitor the usage of the CPU and the amount of memory being used.
GPU-Z is easier to get going with - install it, load it up and then click the Sensors tab at the top. You want to keep and eye on "GPU load" and "Memory Used". Start with a simple scene - maybe three primitives, one with reflection and monitor the GPU whilst rendering. This will let you know that it is definitely being used. Turn off the CPU under Photoreal devices in the Advanced section of Render settings - it will add very little to your rendering and will still be used if a scene won't fit into GPU memory.
I used a 6GB nvidia 980Ti for a couple of years and the 6GB was enough for most projects in Daz Studio. I still use the card and can usually squeeze a scene so that it renders on both cards, so you shouldn't be having problems with the 1660Ti. By default, V4/M4 do have more polygons than Genesis 8 until you start using sub-D in Genesis 8, but even so, a couple of Generation 4 figures should not be a problem for your system.
If you get the problem solved, I would recommend MSI Afterburner (you don't need to have an MSI card) just for its monitoring properties. I never use a 3D rendering program without it loaded up to show me temperatures, GPU/CPU usage, memory usage, fan speeds etc.
Please post back with how you get on.
@Havos
whatever you prefer didn't show in the thread. Thanks!
@TheKD
I will try. Thanks!
@Dim Reaper
I have GPU-Z, didn't think of Afterburner being anything but an OC tool.
I will check out out, thanks!
I've got one older box with a 6GB 1060 that I run DS on. On a phone right now so I can't get into too much detail, but a couple things come to mind:
1. I rarely ever use Iray preview mode as it seems to cause more dumping to CPU and general instability (even when switching to texture shaded before starting a render - which I highly suggest you do).
2. As Havos mentioned, the textures eat up the most VRAM. It's a good thing that higher resolutions are included in assets, but it's often unnecessary - get used to managing them.
As an example of what can be done, this scene with a full environment, numerous characters/clothes/hair/props and volumetrics was rendered at 3200x1800 on that box:
Your card is much better than mine, so it seems like you should be OK.
- Greg
With texture compression I can load way more than that
Check https://blog.irayrender.com/post/54506874080/saving-on-texture-memory
Counting 6 Genesis clothed, 2 monsters, 2 architectural props.
From DS log :
14.9426 MiB for frame buffer
1.6875 GiB of work space
Materials memory consumption: 1.12115 MiB (GPU)
Geometry memory consumption: 115.421 MiB
That's what is used by Iray for rendering and I think there's few gigas used by DS but I still have some space to add some characters and props
Don't use your CPU to render. That's only usefull for fallback
For Iray preview kickoff, while in Iray preview, change the response threshold in draw settings. Minimum is 8 but you can unlock it and set it to 0
When you move the camera only the GPU works. When you pose, the CPU may kick in for mesh smoothing, subdiv updates etc...before the GPU begins to work
Sorry about that, I have updated my post
The GTX 1660Ti is not a very powerful card.For a little bit more you could have gotten a GTX 1070 which is an 8GB or you can purchase a used 2070, which is still fantastic for rendering, for $410.00
Just hazarding a guess here, but the GTX 1660 Ti is of about the same power consumption as the GTS 250 it was replacing. The 1070 or 2070 have higher power consumption, so they're not necessarily suitable replacements (or at least, picking those as an upgrade might well also add the cost of a PSU upgrade, so they're not inherently better value).
Lower power, smaller card $260 for 6GB DDR6 vs $410 for 8GB DDR5, it's 3 years newer. Outside of having more VRAM the 1070 is not offering much more power wise; performances or consumption needs. I have an apprehension with used cards, I have no idea if the previous owner had a dog that shed all over the house and they ventilated the chassis by taking the side off, or they patched it with some rouge OC distro that sent the voltage past what the mfg ever imagined. The reviews across the board said unless you just wanted to spend money the 1070 was between +3/+12 faster and in some cases slower. the Nvidia 2060 Super appears to be a viable replacement for the 1070; new was ~$410 - $450 (MSI) thats an 8GB card, it blows the 1070 out of the water but both these cards eat more PSU and the old Mac Pro is very finicky with cards. The 1660 wont fit in PCIe 1 and it doesn't like to work without another card that fits in the bottom. I have a GT120 that gets power directly off the board (it's another Apple OEM card) but if I put that in the 16x or 4x slot with the MSI card it wont display on either device; I also cant preinstall the 1660 drivers with the 120 plugged in, the installer finds the 120 and fails to complete. It gets wierder but I'll spare you. Close to two decades of carreer IT and HW, I have never seen anything this strange.
For the $200 more than what I have I'm not sure I'd be happy spending it on that or a setup and rewiring of my Stratocaster which is in dire need of one.
Makes sense. Personally, I don't have a full size rig, so I'm limited to half-height cards - I could probably upgrade to a bigger system, but I've been sticking with the compact case because the GPU progression is less hectic and a lot less expensive, and having that hard limitation avoids the temptation of "Ooh, if I just paid X more, I could get the next card up".
The downside is that none of these cards are bigger than 4 GB, but between scene optimizer and restarting Daz before any large render to clear any caches (I find that after several renders, even if none of the actual content of the scene has changed, Iray will regularly drop to CPU) I have been able to fit some reasonably large scenes on the card. With aggressive optimising, I've been able to fit 2880x1800 scenes with ten G3 figures into those 4 GB without too much of a quality hit. (No instancing, although three of the characters were wearing the same armour, so there may have been some resource sharing on the textures).
That was in Daz 4.10 though, and I've not retried the same scene in newer versions, so I don't know if any memory optimisation changes have affected that.
So yes, I would say that your results with a 6 GB card aren't what I'd expect.
I will look into that, thanks!