Hardware to speed up high poly modelling

GoK

Hi guys im looking to upgrade soon as iv been doing a lot more high poly work and im wondering what would be better to upgrade first? memory.. cpu... GFX card.. anyone have any ideas on this?

Im thinking memory but not too sure about it.

Jody

Ben Apuna

Which apps will you be using? Zbrush, Mudbox, other for hard surface SubD?

In general more memory is good for everything, if you are using a 64bit OS that is, otherwise you're capped at 4 gigs.

A better CPU will help speed up the texture baking from high to low poly.

Mudbox will require a beefy GFX card, with as much memory on it as possible. Nvidia for Mudbox on PC, ATI for Mudbox on Mac.

Sorry, I don't know what's good for Zbrush.

divi

memory

arrangemonk

what system are you running now?

MoP

Upgrade your RAM first, but it's only really going to help if you're on a 64-bit system running a 64-bit OS (and 64-bit apps?).
RAM will help ZBrush a lot, it's basically all it really seems to care about, and it will eat it up as fast as you can plug it in.

SerdarDesign

which software are you using?

For Mudbox: Better GFX Card
For other 3D Apps: More Ram + x64 OS

and of course better CPU, if u want to speed up rendering.

Blaizer

As far as i know, Zbrush demand cpu power and ram, so if you are going to use it a lot, it's recommended to have more than 4 gb, but only if you need it. Some friends use to put their cpus at more than 3,8 ghz with OC, their perfomance increase a lot in zbrush.

All depends of the program you mainly use. For example, with my main app, modo, with a simple 8400gs, i can work very well with a great amount of polygons, all hi-poly work. And it's a videocard for less than 30 euro XD.

Don't waste too much money :P

BTW: memory is more expensive now, almost the double.