Had to upgrade! Iray maps use some memory!

Oso3D · October 2015

If you know hardware and/or want to do heaps of research and can eat the cost of frying hundreds of dollars of components if you screw up, then definitely build your own.

Otherwise...

I always buy Dell. More expensive, but it's much more likely to do what you think it should.
Alienware is better than the core Dell stuff because, for some wackadoo reason, Dell removed all the customization options they used to have. Alienware is still pretty configurable.

I'm planning on getting an Alienware Area 51 sometime before the end of the year. With three slots for cards, it should be reasonably upgradable for a while.

jas_va_26 · October 2015

SnowSultan said:

"Plus, your GPU requires a PCIE 3.0 while your MOBO only supports PCIE 2.0..."

Which GPU are you talking about, the GTX 760 or the GTX 980 Ti which I don't have yet? Not that it matters apparently: http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2461806/nvidia-gtx-980-titan-work-fine-pcie.html

And for heaven's sake, I'm running 64-bit versions of Photoshop, Studio, and about fifty other programs; you think I don't know whether I have a 32 or 64-bit system or not?

I am getting really tired of being treated like a noob in every post I make here.

Dude, no offense intended just trying to help. When it gets back to the 3D world I am a noob right now, I haven't touched this stuff since Poser 3/4 days. However hardware on high performance stuff? I kinda live that world in my regular job, and offer basic help where I can. My laptop that I carry for work (bought from my own pocket) is a i7, 18 Gig of ram and a GFX 880M. That laptop is vastly underpowered quite often....

jas_va_26 · October 2015

So in my last attempt to render the scene I was using, it crashed. (Daz3D) I am not sure but I am removing stuff and attempting to see if I can isolate it or if there is a memory issue with 'how much' stuff is loaded.

SnowSultan · October 2015

Richard: here, in the Control Panel -> System. There have been times when the "(7.99 GB usable)" has not appeared, but it's there most of the time.

"Go into the BIOS and see if you can adjust the memory timings, manually. If you can, you may be able to bump it down a bit and have Windows see all of it."

Thanks, that was another suggestion that a tech recommended. I tried quite a few adjustments and was able to get the "7.99 GB usable" message to vanish upon checking the Control Panel right after booting. However, the next day it was back even though the timing changes remained.

edit: Windows 10's Task Manager is showing some information that I hadn't noticed before. It says I'm using 2.4 GB of 8.0 GB, with 4.0 GB "hardware reserved". Is that normal?

edit 2: Dude, no offense intended just trying to help.

It was someone else I was frustrated with, sorry for any misunderstanding. We do seem to have an surge in wanna-be hardware and Iray experts around here lately who never seem to actually read a person's questions, and it bugs me when a person who still calls Studio "DAZ" starts lecturing an 16-year veteran of 3D about how Iray is a realistic renderer.

RAMWolff · October 2015

takezo_3001 said:

icecrmn said:

I built my current computer for ~$1000 , an equivalent Alienware would be around $2200 (according to Dell's "Build you own" )

If you don't mind putting them together yourself, you can save a ton of cash.

Which ever path you take, get as much RAM and as many CPU cores as you can.

THIS! ^

Ailenware is an over-priced dell...No, just no...You're better off with building your own or getting a barebone config at Cyberpower or the like, that way you can at least know what hardware you're putting in your rig, and upgrade accordingly, either via newegg/amazon..Just don't get a mac, or you'll be stuck with a $10,000 rig that you can only upgrade with overpriced mac parts..

Also you can set the affinity for your multi-core CPU to half...(3 if you have a 6 core..)

I used to build my own rigs but got too time consuming so I use CyberPower PC.com to get my rigs now. They are close by where I live in CA so when they ship it's like to me in a day or so after they get it set up. You have all sorts of customization options, you can even change out the box if you hate it, which I usually do, to something more to your liking. Since you already have a spanking new card you can even order your rig with NO vid card if you want or SLI it to the the one that comes with the set up. I've only ever had one issue with this company, it wasn't resolved to my liking but it was the only time in a decade and it was years and years back now. If you order during one of their sales often times the shipping is free so keep an eye out on that...

SnowSultan · October 2015

RAM: Ah, I was experimenting with building a machine through them too (this is the 'default' build): http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/system/Gamer_Infinity_8800_Pro_SE ; Good to know you've had decent experiences with them.

ogimus · October 2015

SnowSultan said:

Richard: here, in the Control Panel -> System. There have been times when the "(7.99 GB usable)" has not appeared, but it's there most of the time.

"Go into the BIOS and see if you can adjust the memory timings, manually. If you can, you may be able to bump it down a bit and have Windows see all of it."

Thanks, that was another suggestion that a tech recommended. I tried quite a few adjustments and was able to get the "7.99 GB usable" message to vanish upon checking the Control Panel right after booting. However, the next day it was back even though the timing changes remained.

edit: Windows 10's Task Manager is showing some information that I hadn't noticed before. It says I'm using 2.4 GB of 8.0 GB, with 4.0 GB "hardware reserved". Is that normal?

edit 2: Dude, no offense intended just trying to help.

It was someone else I was frustrated with, sorry for any misunderstanding. We do seem to have an surge in wanna-be hardware and Iray experts around here lately who never seem to actually read a person's questions, and it bugs me when a person who still calls Studio "DAZ" starts lecturing an 16-year veteran of 3D about how Iray is a realistic renderer.

Snowsultan,

When your system is reserving ram for hardware, that means that your GPU is on board your motherboard and it HAS to allocate that ram to make the GPU function, your CPU will use it all up if you are gaming, or rendering or something else hardware intensive.

I recommend to anyone who wants to do anything with computers, in fact I urge you to learn how to build your own and to research hardware, its critically important in my opinion.

Look at it this way if you will. Even the best boutique PC builders are liable to use ultra cheap aka crappy components somewhere and if they don't they charge a high premium for what they do put into it generally higher than retail. By building your own you will save alot of money for one thing, you will know what went into it and feel pride about that choice and you will have a better understanding of how it all works. You can plan for the future, for instance I bought a 1050 watt EVGA platinum certified PSU, which is overkill for what I have, but now I am future proof there as a bigger newer card will be no problem.

If I were to buy right now I would buy a Socket LGA 2011 v3 motherboard though not sure which as I have not looked in a while, probably a Gigabyte or an EVGA, but I digress, an E5-1650 v3 Xeon (Haswell chipset) CPU (Skylake Xeons are not available yet) and load it up with RAM, at least 32 gigs, though I would go for 64 eventually.

Most motherboards in this range will be in the $250 - $300 range, the CPU around $700, and 32 gigs of RAM is about $400., 980 Ti's are around $650 each so thats about $2000 if you round up for 3 cards. No boutique can beat that even if I added an evpensive PSU and you would for three 980 ti's, case and cooling.

SnowSultan · October 2015

I've built my last three PCs and as you said, saved money by purchasing parts and installing them myself.

"When your system is reserving ram for hardware, that means that your GPU is on board your motherboard and it HAS to allocate that ram to make the GPU function,"

When you say "on board your motherboard", are you talking about an integrated GPU?

Oso3D · October 2015

Time spent learning hardware configurations and puzzling together how to put your machine together is time not spent working on artwork, developing skills, or doing other life stuff (like taking care of my kids, laundry, spending time with my wife, walking dog, etc.).

'build your own' is a not inconsiderable investment of time. And possibly money, for mistakes, and frustration and stress when things don't work for no reason you can adequately determine.

mjc1016 · October 2015

SnowSultan said:

I've built my last three PCs and as you said, saved money by purchasing parts and installing them myself.

"When your system is reserving ram for hardware, that means that your GPU is on board your motherboard and it HAS to allocate that ram to make the GPU function,"

When you say "on board your motherboard", are you talking about an integrated GPU?

Yes.

And for some motherboards, unless you specifically turn off the onboard...but according to the spec for the board you posted eariler, it doesn't have onboard video.

But that isn't the only cause for this...it's just one of the common ones. Probably just as common as timings causing.

SnowSultan · October 2015

"And for some motherboards, unless you specifically turn off the onboard...but according to the spec for the board you posted eariler, it doesn't have onboard video."

That's right, I was curious to see if that person had read my previous posts and saw the video card I had instead of assuming that I didn't know if my GPU was integrated or not.

kyoto kid · October 2015

jas_va_26 said:

I just had to laugh last night and make the order so I could upgrade.

So in the rev up sale, I bought well... A lot. To much! Then decided to go start playing with all the new items. Loaded up 3 figures into the Prison Shower scene, and kicked off a test render with the lighting I tossed in... WHY IS MY PC RUNNING SO SLOW RIGHT NOW???? Nope didn't check the CPU in the render process, 3D card is working its little heart out. (GTX970) ....Task Manager? Can you tell me?

How about your using all 12 gig of ram, and have a massive page file (swap) going right now!!!!! So total memory consumption on the system was about 18 Gig!

Moral of this story? $200 later, and $37 Next day shipping, I have 24 Gig of ram on the way, and that will pretty much max out this PC. Time to start looking at full upgrades. Most likely Alienware.

...I need to make the same upgrade. However I also need to upgrade to Win7 Pro as well since I still; have the Home Version. That adds about another 135$ to the cost.

My next full system upgrade, will be a massive step up: Dual 8 core Xeons,128 GB Quad Channel DDR4 memory, and 4 Titan X GPUs. It will also be a fairly expensive one.

If by that time, Nvidia releases GTX units based on the new Pascal architecture (16 - 32 GB of HDR2 video memory and 5,000 - 6,000 CUDA cores), I will swap out the 4 Titan-Xs for at least two of those, four if the price is right (with 20,000 - 24,000 cores, that would give me the rendering speed of Nvidia's 50,000$ VCA). The tech curve is going off the scale.

With how highly developed my scenes have become, I need all the "horespower" I can get.

Currently performing a full render of my populated railway station scene with fog, and as the scene file is huge it is taking forever to perform the prliminary calculations. Nothing has popped up in the render window yet and it's been about 15 - 20 minutes. .

takezo_3001 · October 2015

=

takezo_3001 · October 2015

SnowSultan said:

Yes I know the RAM limits for the various Windows versions, that's why I mentioned wanting to get Windows 10 so I could upgrade in the future. I did write that in my previous post.

SnowSultan said:

Nah, 64-bit versions. Windows actually sees the 12 gig but only says 8 is usable. One of the main reasons I upgraded to Windows 10 was for the ability to get more RAM. Now I'm ready to downgrade and buy the premium Windows 7 upgrade for that feature. I hate Windows 10.

No, I was going by this, that you already upgraded to win 10, and was going to downgrade and buy win 7...

SnowSultan said:

"Plus, your GPU requires a PCIE 3.0 while your MOBO only supports PCIE 2.0..."

Which GPU are you talking about, the GTX 760 or the GTX 980 Ti which I don't have yet? Not that it matters apparently: http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2461806/nvidia-gtx-980-titan-work-fine-pcie.html

And for heaven's sake, I'm running 64-bit versions of Photoshop, Studio, and about fifty other programs; you think I don't know whether I have a 32 or 64-bit system or not?

I am getting really tired of being treated like a noob in every post I make here.

I was going by your own post

"Here's what I currently have:"

Motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188039
Graphics card: http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-760/specifications

Considering your memory problems I still think it would be a good idea to check out http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/ As they have incredibly helpful volunteers that are Computer experts that can help with troubleshooting your PC due to Virus attacks and various PC maladies, And I apologize for having so strong a reaction as I have been in the position of being ripped off by countless online PC companies and I wanted to illustrate the importance in having the right info about your system so you won't waste any of your money.

Richard Haseltine said:

takezo_3001 said:
Also, with 12 gb RAM your system usually use only 2-2.5 gb of sys mem out of 12, and yours is using 4!

I took SS as saying that 4GB is not available to the system, not that the it was available but in use. On a 64 bit system the RAM address issue that masks the upper GB or so should not happen at all.

Either way, it's all the more reason for SS to check out http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/ ; because it is not a normal function for the computer to operate in. Because 4 GB of missing RAM is not a good thing, and SS should do a sys memory check the next time they restart their PC.

Ivy · October 2015

For those of you that are using EVGA GTX graphic cards and may not know this info. you can download the free PrecisionX program and use it to monitor your gpu, and to adjust settings, monitor tempatures, adjust fans speeds and overclocking etc etc.... though this program is only offered by EVGA got gtx graphic cards 600 series or newer and you will also need an a evga account to download the Precision Xprograms the link is http://eu.evga.com/precision/it/

Its a really good tool to monitor and control your EVGA monsters its what I use to monitor and control my over clocks for my both Titan x running sli

i hope this info help someone.

jas_va_26 · October 2015

SnowSultan,

Don't feel bad, running into the same/simliar issue with my ram upgrade. Installed the 24 Gig, and 16 addressable.... *sigh*

CR

kyoto kid · October 2015

...yeah most memory for those particular MBs (LGA 1366) is configured for channel operation. Not sure how memory would be addressed if it was not in divisible by 3.

This is why I would need to spend the extra to update Win7 Pro.

SnowSultan · October 2015

Thanks for clarifying Takezo. I'm sick at the moment, but I'll mess around more with the RAM when I install an SSD I ordered next week.

Jas-va_26: Huh, sorry to hear that. :P I read updated articles on that problem and most people are still saying it's either faulty RAM or some other hardware issue. My RAM is pretty old though, and I've thought a little about buying a new set of 16 gig (which isn't that expensive now).

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Had to upgrade! Iray maps use some memory!

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