My Office Computer needs upgrading. Please help!

[rebeccamoore]

Hello all,

 

I work at an architect's office and there is me and my colleague in the graphics department. We use Luxology Modo for modelling and rendering and then Photoshop for post. We use CAD and InDesign too but these are not really causing us problems. We are having problems rendering and even working on scenes as the program lags when we pan/zoom/rotate. My computer is slightly better than my colleagues but I still have trouble with it.

 

My computer:

 

Intel Core i7- 3930k CPU 3.20GHz

16GB RAM

GeForce GTX 570

 

My colleagues:

 

Inter Core i7- 970 CPU 3.2GHz 2.67GHz

12GB RAM

GeForce GTX 550 Ti

 

I know her processor needs upgrading but mine is a powerful machine. I have read some threads on here and everyone says 8/12GB RAM is plenty, however I have 16GB and max it out constantly. I know I can lower the amount of RAM modo uses but this slows render time dramatically. Can anyone give me any idea on how to improve these machines? We're constantly missing deadlines because the machines don't render in time.

 

As you can probably tell I know practically nothing about computers so if there is more information I need to provide please let me know. Thanks in advance,

 

Becky.

[Jason Matthews]

If maneuvering around the model is the issue then it is a video card problem. I have the GTX570 as well and I only have issues when the geometry really gets heavy. Depending on how much money you want to spend, you can upgrade your video card quite a bit. Depending on the GTX card you have, you need at least a 550W power supply. So you can upgrade your card to a 4GB GTX 680 for about $550. The GTX 690 is a better card than the 680 but it costs about $1000 and requires at least a 650W power supply. There is also the FirePro V7800 for about $620. This is a great workstation card and you should see much improved results over the GTX 570. Now before you go aout and buy anything, make sure you have updated your graphics card drivers. It is amzing what a software update can do. And finally, make sure (if there is a setting for it) that you are using Direct X and not OpenGL inside of Modo.

 

Your processors are fine for modeling and rendering. I do not know Modo but I am fairly certain that RAM really has little impact on rendering speed unless you are running out of it. Can you tell us exactly what issues you are having?

[rebeccamoore]

Thankyou very much! I think our 'PC guy' updates all our drivers but he's broken my computer quite a few times so maybe I should actually check!! When I start to render, it will use 99% memory. If I tell modo to use less memory then it will but sometimes I get an error saying that the memory limit (cache?) has been exceeded and Modo closes. Or if I don't get an error, it's just much slower as it's using less memory. If I try to open a photoshop file whilst I have a large Modo file open, it won't work and I will have my programs say not responding for about 20 mins because it says my memory is on 99%. Maybe it's something that is set up wrongly? A large exterior scene (with no lights or complex materials to kill it) will take about 2-4 hours to render on mine, an interior with light, more like 18-30 hours. On my colleagues the same exterior will take about 8 hours and the interior won't render at all.

 

Thanks so much for your help,

 

Becky.

[Jason Matthews]

OK. You need to upgrade your RAM then, if your motherboard can take it. An easy way to check is to go to Crucial.com and click "Scan my System". This will check you computer and let you know how much RAM you can put on the motherboard and even gives you the option to buy it from them. Anyways, it sounds like Modo is utilizing all the RAM to store textures, lighting, etc. When it runs out of RAM then it has to wait until the items stored in the RAM is used. Then it removes it from memory and stores the next piece of information. The whole "paging" process is probably killing your render times. Because RAM is relatively cheap, buy the maximum amount you can afford or the system can handle.

 

What OS are you running? Windows 7 Home 64-bit will only see a maximum of 16GB of RAM. You will need to upgrade to Windows 7 Pro if this is the case. Again, it depends on how much RAM your motherboard can handle.

[rebeccamoore]

Bummer, I am on Windows 7 Home 64-bit. Will go and talk to the bosses now and see what we can sort out. Many thanks, really appreciate it

 

Becky.

[Jason Matthews]

Windows 7 Pro is only about $100. All it is is a new serial number that unlocks Windows to make it Pro. It takes all of 5 minutes to buy, download, and punch in the numbers.

[Dimitris Tolios]

Jason gave you good advice, but I would like to object the "nvidia upgrades" suggestions.

The 6xx series offers little or no performance upgrade over the 5xx series of the same caliber (or the 4xx for what matters) as far as 3D OpenGL view-ports go.

 

The only sure thing is that you would not need a PSU upgrade when going from a GTX 570 or even 560 to a GTX 6xx - the 6 series is much more efficient and requires less power, unless ofc we are talking the 690, which is a dual GPU board - 2 GPU processors in SLI mode, on a single board. SLI is not supported by any 3D program atm, so a 690 that is almost as fast as 2x 680 in games, in 3DS max, modo or any other modeling program is (in the ballpark) as fast as a single 680. Which is not faster than a 570 most of the times...

 

If you really need better viewport performance, I would suggest you consider a Quadro card (even a Quadro 2000), or if you want to keep it cheaper than that, try an AMD Radeon card. The "red" team has gaming cards with much better OpenGL performance

Edited December 15, 2012 by dtolios