for hand painting i second the 3d coat recommendation. http://img05.deviantart.net/674c/i/2015/068/b/5/golem_bust___part_2___texturing_in_3dcoat_by_turpedo-d8l2e3b.jpg
After reading about what you needed and the reviews, the last one you linked should be fine http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145598&cm_re=so_dimm_ddr2_800-_-20-145-598-_-Product
I don't know how to check Tri count in UDK, it used to stat the polycount in UE3 but in UDK its changed so I cant find it. EDIT: The scene is about 56k Tris. HighPolys.
I had the same issue. Additionally the AO would not update when changing settings. Restart of the program was the solution ... GTX 560 ti - driver v. 314.22 Win 7 ult. 64 bit
i think it was 1500k triangles. texture size was 768 diffuse and spec, 1024 normal, 384 decal. weird i know, but thats what they asked for when i did it like 5 years ago.
I remember some threads about damage modeling in the past. How to do car procedural destruction? Breakable environments discussion (56k warning) So, how do you make destructible 3d enviorments?