Best Computer for Daz Animation?
Deke
Posts: 1,636
in The Commons
I'd like to get a computer that can render animation PNG sequences quickly. I assume this will have to be a PC computer to use Nvidia GPU's for Iray rendering. Any suggestions?
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What's your budget?
Commercial off-the-shelf prebuilt?
Custom build order from others?
Custom build yourself?
What's your experience with 3D tools & computer technology?
What's your goal?
Suitable laptops with Nvidia high-end graphics do exist but would probably be more expensive than an equivalent desktop, and basically unmodifable, and prone to overheating on long render jobs, and probably slower than the "same class" GPU chip on a properly ventilated graphics card for a desktop machine, simply because of the heat issue.
But in a desktop computer, an Nvidia RTX-3060 with 12GB VRAM would be the minimum card I'd use, and actually what I do use. A step up to an RTX-3080 with 12GB would be nice, but expensive. A new RTX-4060, or 4080 with at least 12GB of VRAM would be nicer but priceyer. But unless you're doing this professionally, the RTX-3090's and 4090's are IMHO, overkill. But if you have the resources of Scrooge McDuck, go for it.
But remember you need about three times the quantity of computer RAM, as the quantity of VRAM in the graphics card. (i.e. a 12GB graphics VRAM should have at least 32 to 48GB of computer RAM in which to preprocess the frames before rendering.
I don't do animations, but the top of the line GPU is the 4090 and with Iray it's mostly about the nvidia GPU, cuda cores and vram.
All depends on the complexity and frame size of the animations you plan on rendering, but a computer with 64gb of ram, and with an RTX 3090 video card. 24 gb memory 10496 cuda cores should be good.
As others have stated, for Iray the GPU is the most important component. The more VRAM the GPU has, the larger scenes you can successfully render. The more CUDA cores the GPU has, the faster it will render. Note, though, that CUDA cores can't be compared across generations, so a 4000-series card with a lower core count could render faster than a 3000-series with a higher core count. The 4090 is currently the top of the line consumer GPU, but whatever you choose to go with, you need enough system RAM to support the card, and the general guidance is 3x the VRAM, which would be 72GB for a 4090. A good CPU is recommended, but you don't need to go all out on it.
Thanks for the information. I assume this will be a desktop. I'm a long time Mac guy so I know little about how PC's are sold other than laptops. But I'll look for a desktop with sufficient RAM that can accomodate an Nvidia card. Sad that my old Mac towers won't accomodate the newer Nvidia cards.
I would get a Desktop PC running Windows 10 or 11. The number one component that should be the first priority of focus is the graphics card. Get the best NVIDIA graphics card you can afford with the highest amount of VRAM. Once you start rendering all the frames, the GPU is going to do most of the work. You want to make sure your renders are done purely on the GPU only. If you do not have enough VRAM on your graphics card for you scene, it will fallback to the CPU and will take signifangtly longer to render your scenes.
I recently purchased a used NVIDIA RTX 3090 with 24GB VRAM to replace a 3080 running 10GB. It was running on an older Intel 5820k CPU (from 2014). That VRAM form 10GB to 24GB was a HUGE leap in rendering performance. I later upgraded my CPU to a 13900k running DDR5 ram, and while I noticed some improvements, it was nothing signifigant. Also 32GB of RAM is plenty for a GPU running 24GB VRAM. You can get 64GB ram if you can afford it, but you might not notice a difference unless its some edge case scenario. Having more than 32GB ram might help in some cases, but at the end of the day the scene still has to fit in your GPU's VRAM once the render begins.
So in short, target an NVIDIA GPU with 24GB VRAM as your goal, and build around that. I would rather get the older used NVIDIA 3090 with 24GB VRAM over a new 4000 series GPU that has 16GB or less (unless you dont plan on working with large scenes, low texture compression, or lots of characters using high subdivision levels). If your scene runs out of VRAM on your GPU, your renders will fallback to CPU and that is not good. Make sacrifices on other components once you have the ideal video card.
Great advice. I typically render in layers so I can plan on accomodating the Vram of the GPU.
Is there a difference in CPU's when it comes to rendering?
Please do not spread false information.
If one makes scenes that require 24GB's of VRAM, 32GB's of RAM is not going to be enough, but one is going to need virtual memory to cover for the missing RAM and even when one does have big enough virtual memory that works, it will make the computer sluggish because virtual memory (storage drive) is so much slower than RAM.
What about the aniamtions itself? My PC I'm using to make comics is great for the comics but absolutely impossible to the athe animations itself. Most people I asked said "Use Blender for the animation", but I worked with the old Blender (2.79) nad have to learn it from the beginning; and besides there comes the hasle with exporting/inporting a lot of stuff between DAZ and Blender.
Please advice.
...if you are considering a high VRAM card 4090s are currently going for between 2,000 and 3,700 USD depending on vendor and whether new or used.
In the same generation (Ada) the RTX 4000 is priced at between 1,200 and 2,000 USD. One caveat is the card has 20 instead of 24 GB VRAM which should still be fairly sufficient. While having 4 GB less VRAM and lower core counts it is a smaller card (single slot) and draws a maximum TDP that is less than one third of what the 4090 at does (130w instead of 450).
Its "bigger sibling" the RTX 4500 Ada is a dual slot card with 24 GB of VRAM, higher core counts and is priced between 2,250 to 2,450 USD (new). It is also a "miser" when it comes to power consumption compared to the 4090 drawing only 210w at peak..
The difference is the Pro cards are designed primarily for graphics production and computational use and thus have lower core counts and clock speed making them more efficient over sustained use and less prone to thermal throttling. Consumer cards require higher core counts and boost clock speed to support smoother frame rate but at a price in efficvency, power draw, and heat production.
Prices for last generation (Ada) pro level cards have been holding fairly steady while consumer card prices have been rising. Late last year Nvidia announced that they would be scaling back production of consumer 50xx cards and also all but shut down RTX 40xx production.
The bottom line: If you only plan to use the system for Iray rendering in Daz, a lower end pro grade card could be a decent option, particularly if prices for consumer cards continue to rise due to dwindling supply. While the pro cards can support games, the performance will be noticably lacking at times.