Update from DAZ 4 to DAZ 6
leo04
Posts: 414
In the past when I updated the DAZ Studio software, it automatically transfered the things like the Menu configurations and addons.
When Installed the DAZ 6 version this does not appear to happen. Will this be addressed? If it is not what do I need to do.
I have a lot of 3rd party stuff and really don't want to have to load it all again, as well as reset my user interface settings.
Thanks.
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DS6 and DS6 are completely separate installations with their own settings, like the DS4 general release and beta were. It's normal that your custom menus or custom content directories were not automatically retrieved from DS4.
I know there are scripts which enable you to copy over the preferences or layout from one version of DS to another, I'll have to see if I can find a link...
Thank you, that would be helpful.
So I am following up on this. I have so use Version 4.25.0.4 most of the time because a lot of stuff doesn't seem to have been updated for Version 6.
Is anyone else having this issue?
I have been told by someone, not sure or remember who, said there would need to be updates for Daz 6 but I haven't seen anything on that.
Any suggestions?
At present, a lot of plugins and scripts don't work with DS6. It's been kind of up in the air if PA's are even going to update, with some already doing it and others being completely silent on the subject.
Effectively, if you need certain scripts or plugins, you'll need to do your work in DS4 and then load the scene in DS6 for rendering.
Of course some of these things won't translate and you'll have to do workarounds to get them to load properly in DS6.
Also, certain file types are no longer supported, such as DSB or DAZ, and will either not function, or will not appear in your content library.
Pretty much, unless you have a 50xx series card, there's not much reason to update to DS6 at present.
Aside from everything running faster in DS6. I have a 4090 and I run DS6 most of the time, occasionally using DS4 for certain tasks.
Is this benchmarking resutls, or just personal perception?
In my benchmarking results, ds6 is slower, faster,or merely comparable with ds 4.24.03.
Loading a G8f Dev load takes 13.37s in ds6, and 9.47s in ds4. by contrast a base g9 is 15.9s in ds4 and 10.22s in ds6.
A test render of that dev load, at 1000x1000, with all default render settings, has a log report of 3.9s in ds4 and 6.15 in ds6. For the G9, 7.85s for ds4, and 9.35 for ds 6.
The benchmark scene from here. has results of 8m44.68s for DS4 and 8m22.3s in DS6.
My personal benchmark scene is 5m32.4s in DS 4 and 5m 36.2s in ds6.
WIth the various plugins and scripts i use on the dailty, it would need to be a massive improvement in render times etc. to make up for the loss in productivity time i'd incur.
Those kinds of gains are not there in any way.
Personal perception. Which is really all that matters. But, here goes.
DS6
Total Rendering Time: 1 minutes 5.40 seconds
DS4
Total Rendering Time: 1 minutes 12.17 seconds
And yes, I have a lot of morphs for G9.
I simply switched the processor to handle rendering on the graphics card and added my libraries. I didn't change much else from the base setup, so it's fine.
On the other hand, there are tools that no longer work, like applying skin texture to the genital areas, and that is a real headache.
Given the statements regarding some of the pre DAZ 6.0 stuff not working or being updated I am wondering why this update was done.
It seems to leave a lot of pre DAZ 6.0 users and creators in the wilderness.
It seems this was a poorly thought out move.
The code base for DS4 relies on version 4 of the Qt framework, which is now very old (Qt4.7 was released in 2015), has been unsupported for years and has many technical limitations due to its age. Daz tried to avoid upgrading that framework for years due to the incompatibility it would cause for plugins (though they started working on by a DS5 based on Qt5 many years ago), but there comes a point where you have to make the technical changes if you don't want to be stuck.
One of the major problems that appeared recently and finally prompted Daz to release DS6 (based on Qt6) is that it's not possible anymore to integrate new versions of Iray in DS4 code base, due to technical changes Nvidia made to fix some major bugs in the first version supporting 50xx cards and which are not compatible with DS4 code base. So if they wanted DS to work with new hardware they had to change the code base.
For the record, a few other things that are technically impossible in DS4 include for example font scaling for big displays, integration of Filament in Mac version, or making an Apple Silicon version of DS. Getting DS4 to work on MacOS Big Sur was already very problematic years ago, and almost got Daz to release a pre-alpha of DS5 until they finally managed to work around the issue after many months of trying.
So we are stuck with DS4 plugins not being updated to the new version? I have a number of things I use in fact need to do some of the things I want to accomplish and now I can't move forward with DS6 it would seem.
Is anyone even considering updating their plugins?
It seems like this is not all that advantageous to those of us that invested so much into DS4+ stuff, now that this has happened.
A number of PAs are updating scripts and plugins so they also can be used in DS6.
But whether a PA will update the pluging/scripts requires that the PA can see a business in doing it and is still active. And some updates might not be free.
Are DS4 and DS6 files forward and backward compatabile?
In other words can I open a DS6 modified filed in DS4? and vice versa...
Yes. You can install DS4 and DS6 on the same machine and open scenes made by either in either and render them in either as long as the render doesn't require the plugin is present.
I do this all the time. I've had both version running on my PC for months now (and both are open with different scenes as I type this).
For now I have not seen anything that would prevent opening a DS6 scene in DS4. That might change at some point if new features which require some new DS6 code are introduced in the future, in which case scenes which rely on these features would not work as intended in DS4 (though they might still load).
For DS4 to DS6, the only problematic thing I know of is that scenes which use Ultrascenery or Ultrascenery 2 won't work unless you have US/US2 installed in DS6 too. Which is now possible for US as the original Ultrascenery has been updated recently, but the update to US2 is not available yet (it's currently in testing).