Computer spec's and 3d Work
polycounter lvl 6
Hello, I am looking for advice on upgrading my computer.
I have an older quad core system running in 32 bit vista with 4 gigs of ram. I am running out of ram when I try to bake pretty high poly objects in xnormal or using Ultimapper in Softimage.
So my question is to work on really dense high poly models I need lots of ram?
In order to get past 4 gigs of ram I need to use 64 bit windows, correct?
The one thing I'm worried about as far as going to 64 bit windows 7. Is that I own a older copy of Softimage Foundation Version 6.
Thanks.
I have an older quad core system running in 32 bit vista with 4 gigs of ram. I am running out of ram when I try to bake pretty high poly objects in xnormal or using Ultimapper in Softimage.
So my question is to work on really dense high poly models I need lots of ram?
In order to get past 4 gigs of ram I need to use 64 bit windows, correct?
The one thing I'm worried about as far as going to 64 bit windows 7. Is that I own a older copy of Softimage Foundation Version 6.
Thanks.
Replies
Adding more ram without getting a 64 bit version of your app will only allow you to use more applications next to each other, but the app itself will still be limited to 2 gb.
I hope my version of Softimage is 64 bit compatible.
As a side note. What determines how many polygons your machine can handle smoothly in a 3d app?
Is it mostly ram? Or does CPU have more to do with that aspect.
That said the best thing you can do is upgrade to 8 gigs, get a SSD and a copy of win 7 64, it will feel like a brand new computer.
Just as an example, if I have a model that is 8,000 polys in modo, and a add a sub-division with a bunch of levels, so that its about 1.2 million polys, I only see a very minor spike in ram like. However, if I convert that to polys(not just the realtime sub-d display) the ram usage jumps up about 10x. So, if you're dealing with a massive amount of raw geometry ram is going to be a bottle neck, if you're doing standard sub-d type work in a 3d app, probably much less so.
Generally speaking, even the most dense sub-d cages I end up doing are like 300,000K pre-subd, whereas sub-divided it might be 5 million, and while i'm not going to edit the 300,000k mesh all at once with great performance, I can certainly get a smooth framerate in the viewport just rotating around. This was true with my old XP install, and true with my Win7 install.
Softimage may perform vastly different however, I would suggest opening up task manager, and finding out how much ram it is using doing various tasks.
I had some issues working on 5 subtools at 2-5 million each subtool.
But also I was having ram issues trying to bake down a huge mesh in xNormal. I kept getting not enough ram errors.
I'm going to upgrade to windows 7 64 as soon as I figure out if Softimage 6 works in 64 bit!
Solid state drives make a big difference?
Thanks again for all responses.
In ZBrush's case specifically it uses its own page file separate from the standard Windows Virtual mem, which stores all the subtools when they are inactive or going over the ram limits that zb has due to still being 32bit only. So switching between subtools becomes a snap, where as on standard HDDs it can sometimes take a while when switching or re-activating subtools (ie Compacting Memory is no longer an issue).
My version of Softimage Foundation 6.5 is only 32 bit. But I have other apps that can use 64 bit.
Thanks folks.
8GB+ ram is a good amount.
UGH. I need to save thousands of dollars and upgrade. Or I could get Modo...
But Softimage is just so user friendly I find.
I guess upgrading my system with tons of ram and 64 bit OS won't help me with Softimage. But my zbrush and xnormal performance increase would make it worth it!