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Recommended specs for running DAZ on a new laptop?

CyonixCyonix Posts: 212
in The Commons

As the title says, I'm in the market for a new laptop so I can finally get back to playing around with DAZ (I think my last renders were with Genesis 1, and Genesis 2 was just getting started, if that tells you how long it's been lol...) 

So, what are the recommened specs for a new laptop for DAZ?  I know I can't go wrong with more RAM and more hard drive space, and I'm guessing a dedicated graphics card would also be great, but what else do I need to be looking for, especially with Black Friday sales either going on or coming up? (And yes, I know a desktop would probably be better than a laptop, but sadly I don't have the space for a desktop...)

Comments

  • Victor_BVictor_B Posts: 392

    Then you will need good CPU too (for rendering). I'm not sure that laptop's dedicated graphics card can render more or less complex scene. So, you will render with CPU.

  • pdspds Posts: 593

    You didn't mention anything about your budget or what else you want to do with the system, which makes it difficult to offer specific recommendations. However, you can create a custom "gaming" laptop that will work quite well for making still images using Daz Studio.

    As a starting point, take a look at various configs offered by MSI, Razer, Alienware, etc. All offer systems with Nvidia RTX graphics cards, but note that the laptop version of these cards do not have the same performance specs as their desktop counterparts, especially those designed for slim laptops. 

    Also, Google search the Forums because there are at least two threads discussing laptop configurations that could be quite helpful. Here's one such thread:

     

    https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/4388706/
     

  • fastbike1fastbike1 Posts: 4,078

    @Cyonix

    You are setting yourself up for disappointment if you are determined to get a laptop for rendering Iray. For fast Iray rendering you want  as many Cuda Cores and as much Vram as you can afford. Sadly most of the laptop options won't be very satisfactory for either of tthese parameters due to space and heat dissipation issues in a laptop.

     

  • KI3KI3 Posts: 38
    edited November 2020

    I have RTX 2080 and i7 8750, (MSI Laptop) it does a good job of rendering rather quickly and texture surface viewport is entirely non issue, however, it still struggles with roaming around in iray preview. Futhermore you have to consider the heat this sort of processing produces. Daz3d makes all the fans fire up real quick, which forces the system to drop a few gears and your experience will suffer the longer you're at it. Like many said, Desktop is a FAR better option as it allows you to control a lot more of the enviroment you're rendering in, buuuuuttt a gaming laptop will do the trick for you.

    Post edited by KI3 on
  • j cadej cade Posts: 2,310

    I use a chonky gaming laptop 

    I got it on sale for under 1200 a couple years ago and its sill going solidly 

    IMO most important settings are memory and gpu. unless you plan to carry it around daily, weight and thickness are absolutely irrelevant all they lead to is increased likelihood of overheating

     

    all the doom and gloom that you need 5million gigabytes of memory and vram is way overblown. I have 16gb of memory and a gtx1060 (6gb), and yet I rarely hit the limits. You just have to spend a little effort optimizing - and I mean little: the 2 main things I do are remove leg textures when my character is wearing pants and when using iray preview - which, for the record, I use constantly in the main large window - set the max render time to something low like 20 seconds. and my laptop is normally on my lap and still doesn't overheat

  • WolfwoodWolfwood Posts: 835

    I also use laptop. Aim for gaming laptops with Nvidia unless you know your render enginge of choice is target at cpu only.

    Biggest problem? Heat. Fans go crazy when i render even if i disable cpu. I can still do other things (non gpu related) while i render, but the noice is high and temp is an issue. This of course depends on each laptop.

  • PenguinistoPenguinisto Posts: 83
    edited November 2020

    I bought this thing on Monday and I'm playing around on it now. It was a great balance of price and performance. Comes with a GeForce RTX 2070 8GB GPU, which is a vast improvement over the old GTX 1060 I had before (my 2-year-old and worked-right-up-until-it-blew-up-this-Monday-morning Acer Aspire 7). 

    Don't listen too much to the folks who say that laptops suck. I stick with them because, pre-COVID, I literally traveled the planet on business, and the laptop represents a way to keep myself out of trouble when I'm not working or playing tourist (or on the frequent occasions where I repeatedly go to places where I already did the tourist thing). Works pretty well on the plane (well, in Business Class anyway - a 17" lappy gets a bit cramped in Coach). I'll probably do that again in a few months (well, if civilization holds up), so I stick with the paradigm. It has DS, a frig-ton of saved/ripped movies that I build up before I go, a few non-networked games... stuff like that. 

    Anyrate, you can do just fine on a laptop as long as you mind the texture bloat, and don't cram a scene full of crap. 

    The one and only thing long-term is --if you travel a lot with that laptop-- get a set of new fans specific for your laptop make and model, and have them set aside, ready for replacing the existing ones. Almost every laptop I had required a replacement at some point (but then, desktops have that dirty little secret too.) I say this becasue it's faster (and time-wise, cheaper) to drop in replacement fans than to meticulously clean old ones out with a cotton swab once they gum-up with dust. They're easy to find on Amazon, and take maybe 20-30 minutes to swap out.
     

     

    Post edited by Penguinisto on
  • DustRiderDustRider Posts: 2,880

    Since you last used DS, DAZ has integrated Iray into it. The vast majority of renders (including promo renders in the store) you see now have been done with Iray, and the greatest product support is for Iray, not 3Delight, which was our only choice when you last used DS. If you want to use Iray you will need to get a laptop with an nVidia graphics card, preferably one with 8Gb of discreet video (GPU) memory (like j cade noted, you could get by with 6Gb with more optimization). If using Iray, you should also consider 16Gb RAM the minimum for the best experience, if you like to make more complex scenes, then 24Gb or 32Gb RAM would be better. You can find gaming systems with RTX 2070 GPU's in the $1500 (or less) range now, and they perform quite well with Iray (I've had an MSI gaming laptop with a RTX 2070 for over a year now and am quite happy with it)  If you plan on staying with 3Delight, then you would want a higher performance CPU, and the video card is not as important (my personal preference is Iray, you can take a look at mt galleries to see what I do with my laptop).

    As others have noted, a gaming system the best option, and I would go one step farther ans say avoid the thin/light systems if possible. Proper cooling needs a bit more room, with a thin laptop to keep temps down they will typically reduce the speed of the CPU/GPU which reduces overall performance. With a "full size" laptop (or "chonky" laptop - great term j cade) you shouldn't notice the performance issues that SixThree noted. I don't have these issues with mine, and I typically run it in "comfort" mode, which means the fans are hardly noticeable (but it's not chonky, it's just huge - MSI GT76 Titan). If I use "sport" mode, the fans are a bit louder, but the GPU and CPU run at low desktop temps and near full speed, if I change to "turbo" mode I get max performance of the CPu and GPU, and very reasonable temps, but the fans are loud (I have an Intel i9 9900K desktop processor in my laptop, and it runs at ~4800GHz under extended full load in turbo mode). I always pick the largest (thickest) case option available for the simple reason things will stay cooler and perform better under longer loads. I also do photogrammetric work with my laptop, and it's not unusual for me to have it running both the CPU and GPU for many, many, many hours.

    So a "chonky" gaming laptop with and RTX 2060 or RTX 2070 and 16Gb of RAM should get you ready to use Iray. I've had great experience with MSI and Prostar, but Asus ROG also have a great reputation (Alienware is another possible good option). I had my current MSI laptop custom built buy XoticPC, and if I were to buy a new one today, I would probably get another MSI from XoticPC, unless Prostar had a better deal on their Clevo laptops (you can get prebuilt Prostar systems from Amazon, as well as the other brands). I actually would have gotten a Prostar again, but I couldn't get one with 128Gb of RAM, which I needed for the photogrammetry work. XoticPC had the MSI's with 128Gb option, so I got it from them.

  • PenguinistoPenguinisto Posts: 83

    So - forgot something... what to look for.

    When I went to buy a laptop (well, just did), my priority list ran like this, after I set a budget max:

    1. A decent GPU - not bleeding-edge (because only suckers buy bleeding edge), and not ancient. Today, this means the RTX 20xx series for iRay and such. They have RTX 30xx, but hoooly crap it costs a mint. Now if you;re on a budget, you can still do just fine with a lower-end GTX 1080 or better.
    2. More than one drive. This way I park all my runtimes and content directoris on that fat second drive (a 2TB SDD), that I was able to easily drop into the new laptop; all my files kept their references, and no transfer times.
    3. CPU. Yeah, #3. Why? Because an i7 10th-Gen isn't really too awful faster from the i7 8th-Gen I just replaced it with. Now if you exclusively use 3Delight or a CPU0intensive render engine, then okay, go for the gusto and get the latest/greatest CPU, maybe even spring for a mobile Xeon if you have the budget for it (yes, they make those).
    4. Look for "Gamer" laptops - you don't pay as much as you do for a "mobile graphics workstation" or similar claptrap. 
    5. Manufacturer reputation: MSI is a solid and known quality to me. So is Apple (which has slipped of late... urgh). So is Acer. Believe it or not, I avoid Dell (because their Alienware brand is way overpriced and usually outdated), and I'm okay with HP and their products are generally solid, but they tend to charge a bit more than they should IMHO, so unless there's a great deal on one, I don't bother.
    6. Weight. In my case it's a bit low on the list because I'm buying 17" beasts. That said, my new baby is a full half-kilo lighter than the old Aspire 7... which is pretty nice.

    My budget max was $2k, and I wound up paying $1200 (after rebates and price-codes. Note that I also paid $200 above that for a two-year SquareTrade warranty (because the missus had to use them once after dropping her laptop, and it was IMHO well worth the $200 for a two-year coverage period. Cheaper than AppleCare too.)

    HTH a little.

  • CyonixCyonix Posts: 212
    Penguinisto said:

    I bought this thing on Monday and I'm playing around on it now. It was a great balance of price and performance. Comes with a GeForce RTX 2070 8GB GPU, which is a vast improvement over the old GTX 1060 I had before (my 2-year-old and worked-right-up-until-it-blew-up-this-Monday-morning Acer Aspire 7). 

    Don't listen too much to the folks who say that laptops suck. I stick with them because, pre-COVID, I literally traveled the planet on business, and the laptop represents a way to keep myself out of trouble when I'm not working or playing tourist (or on the frequent occasions where I repeatedly go to places where I already did the tourist thing). Works pretty well on the plane (well, in Business Class anyway - a 17" lappy gets a bit cramped in Coach). I'll probably do that again in a few months (well, if civilization holds up), so I stick with the paradigm. It has DS, a frig-ton of saved/ripped movies that I build up before I go, a few non-networked games... stuff like that. 

    Anyrate, you can do just fine on a laptop as long as you mind the texture bloat, and don't cram a scene full of crap. 

    The one and only thing long-term is --if you travel a lot with that laptop-- get a set of new fans specific for your laptop make and model, and have them set aside, ready for replacing the existing ones. Almost every laptop I had required a replacement at some point (but then, desktops have that dirty little secret too.) I say this becasue it's faster (and time-wise, cheaper) to drop in replacement fans than to meticulously clean old ones out with a cotton swab once they gum-up with dust. They're easy to find on Amazon, and take maybe 20-30 minutes to swap out.
     

    Thanks for the recommendation! I think I'll be picking up the one you linked to, the specs look pretty good for my budget and I can always upgrade the RAM and/or replace the secondary HDD with a SSD later if necessary.  And considering it'll be replacing a NINE YEAR OLD laptop (running an old GeForece GT 520M and only 8 GB of RAM), it'll be a massive improvement even without any upgrades.

  • JamesJABJamesJAB Posts: 1,766
    Cyonix said:
    Penguinisto said:

    I bought this thing on Monday and I'm playing around on it now. It was a great balance of price and performance. Comes with a GeForce RTX 2070 8GB GPU, which is a vast improvement over the old GTX 1060 I had before (my 2-year-old and worked-right-up-until-it-blew-up-this-Monday-morning Acer Aspire 7). 

    Don't listen too much to the folks who say that laptops suck. I stick with them because, pre-COVID, I literally traveled the planet on business, and the laptop represents a way to keep myself out of trouble when I'm not working or playing tourist (or on the frequent occasions where I repeatedly go to places where I already did the tourist thing). Works pretty well on the plane (well, in Business Class anyway - a 17" lappy gets a bit cramped in Coach). I'll probably do that again in a few months (well, if civilization holds up), so I stick with the paradigm. It has DS, a frig-ton of saved/ripped movies that I build up before I go, a few non-networked games... stuff like that. 

    Anyrate, you can do just fine on a laptop as long as you mind the texture bloat, and don't cram a scene full of crap. 

    The one and only thing long-term is --if you travel a lot with that laptop-- get a set of new fans specific for your laptop make and model, and have them set aside, ready for replacing the existing ones. Almost every laptop I had required a replacement at some point (but then, desktops have that dirty little secret too.) I say this becasue it's faster (and time-wise, cheaper) to drop in replacement fans than to meticulously clean old ones out with a cotton swab once they gum-up with dust. They're easy to find on Amazon, and take maybe 20-30 minutes to swap out.
     

    Thanks for the recommendation! I think I'll be picking up the one you linked to, the specs look pretty good for my budget and I can always upgrade the RAM and/or replace the secondary HDD with a SSD later if necessary.  And considering it'll be replacing a NINE YEAR OLD laptop (running an old GeForece GT 520M and only 8 GB of RAM), it'll be a massive improvement even without any upgrades.

    How about taking a look at the Dell G7 Gaming 17" (7700).  You can get one with a 10th Gen i7, 32GB RAM, 1TB NVME SSD, and a RTX 2070 Super 8GB for under $1400 at the Dell outlet site (One of the ones in the link above even lists as "New" for $1390).

  • j cadej cade Posts: 2,310
    Penguinisto said:

    So - forgot something... what to look for.

    When I went to buy a laptop (well, just did), my priority list ran like this, after I set a budget max:

    1. A decent GPU - not bleeding-edge (because only suckers buy bleeding edge), and not ancient. Today, this means the RTX 20xx series for iRay and such. They have RTX 30xx, but hoooly crap it costs a mint. Now if you;re on a budget, you can still do just fine with a lower-end GTX 1080 or better.
    2. More than one drive. This way I park all my runtimes and content directoris on that fat second drive (a 2TB SDD), that I was able to easily drop into the new laptop; all my files kept their references, and no transfer times.
    3. CPU. Yeah, #3. Why? Because an i7 10th-Gen isn't really too awful faster from the i7 8th-Gen I just replaced it with. Now if you exclusively use 3Delight or a CPU0intensive render engine, then okay, go for the gusto and get the latest/greatest CPU, maybe even spring for a mobile Xeon if you have the budget for it (yes, they make those).
    4. Look for "Gamer" laptops - you don't pay as much as you do for a "mobile graphics workstation" or similar claptrap. 
    5. Manufacturer reputation: MSI is a solid and known quality to me. So is Apple (which has slipped of late... urgh). So is Acer. Believe it or not, I avoid Dell (because their Alienware brand is way overpriced and usually outdated), and I'm okay with HP and their products are generally solid, but they tend to charge a bit more than they should IMHO, so unless there's a great deal on one, I don't bother.
    6. Weight. In my case it's a bit low on the list because I'm buying 17" beasts. That said, my new baby is a full half-kilo lighter than the old Aspire 7... which is pretty nice.

    My budget max was $2k, and I wound up paying $1200 (after rebates and price-codes. Note that I also paid $200 above that for a two-year SquareTrade warranty (because the missus had to use them once after dropping her laptop, and it was IMHO well worth the $200 for a two-year coverage period. Cheaper than AppleCare too.)

    HTH a little.

    I don't think any laptop I've had has ever been as heavy as my first one - this thick boy

    Even my current one which isnt exactly slim and has a much larger screen is way lighter (I looked it up and according to the internet it weighed 7.18 pounds which...)

     

    Incidently the last time I checked it still worked, the bottom 3rd of the screen doesn't but that happened while I was using it - Somehow managed to use it like that for actual years. 

  • JamesJABJamesJAB Posts: 1,766
    j cade said:
    Penguinisto said:

    So - forgot something... what to look for.

    When I went to buy a laptop (well, just did), my priority list ran like this, after I set a budget max:

    1. A decent GPU - not bleeding-edge (because only suckers buy bleeding edge), and not ancient. Today, this means the RTX 20xx series for iRay and such. They have RTX 30xx, but hoooly crap it costs a mint. Now if you;re on a budget, you can still do just fine with a lower-end GTX 1080 or better.
    2. More than one drive. This way I park all my runtimes and content directoris on that fat second drive (a 2TB SDD), that I was able to easily drop into the new laptop; all my files kept their references, and no transfer times.
    3. CPU. Yeah, #3. Why? Because an i7 10th-Gen isn't really too awful faster from the i7 8th-Gen I just replaced it with. Now if you exclusively use 3Delight or a CPU0intensive render engine, then okay, go for the gusto and get the latest/greatest CPU, maybe even spring for a mobile Xeon if you have the budget for it (yes, they make those).
    4. Look for "Gamer" laptops - you don't pay as much as you do for a "mobile graphics workstation" or similar claptrap. 
    5. Manufacturer reputation: MSI is a solid and known quality to me. So is Apple (which has slipped of late... urgh). So is Acer. Believe it or not, I avoid Dell (because their Alienware brand is way overpriced and usually outdated), and I'm okay with HP and their products are generally solid, but they tend to charge a bit more than they should IMHO, so unless there's a great deal on one, I don't bother.
    6. Weight. In my case it's a bit low on the list because I'm buying 17" beasts. That said, my new baby is a full half-kilo lighter than the old Aspire 7... which is pretty nice.

    My budget max was $2k, and I wound up paying $1200 (after rebates and price-codes. Note that I also paid $200 above that for a two-year SquareTrade warranty (because the missus had to use them once after dropping her laptop, and it was IMHO well worth the $200 for a two-year coverage period. Cheaper than AppleCare too.)

    HTH a little.

    I don't think any laptop I've had has ever been as heavy as my first one - this thick boy

    Even my current one which isnt exactly slim and has a much larger screen is way lighter (I looked it up and according to the internet it weighed 7.18 pounds which...)

     

    Incidently the last time I checked it still worked, the bottom 3rd of the screen doesn't but that happened while I was using it - Somehow managed to use it like that for actual years. 

    Oooo, I remember those horrible monsters.  Mine had a Pentium 4 with Hyperthreading and a Geforce 5200.  It would overheat and shut down if you did any multi-core aware workloads.... Like World of Warcaft for example.  Shut off Hyperthreading in the bios and the thing could still double as a furnace and the WASD keys would still get too hot to touch.... But you could actualy play WoW without shutting down! laugh

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