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"2 GB gpu or 4GB gpu"


stusutcliffe
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I am just about ready to get a new graphic card. ( partly to go from Direct x 9 up to 12) The one I have selected is 2 gb or 4 gb. Any body care to enlighten me on how the extra 2gb( +£30) will benefit me in 3dcoat ?  And also I would be interested in knowing how 3dcoat utilizes the main processor and the gpu. ( I think I read some where that zbrush only uses the main processor but 3dcoat uses the gpu a bit like a video game?)

thank you

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hi stusutcliffe

go for 4GB or even 8 I´d say! like a GTX 1070, which got very affordable, lately. I would not mess around with 2GB anymore.
Generally, the more GPU RAM, the better, as you may have guessed already.

I try to find out, if things like bakers are supporting GPU actually, I am waiting for a dev-response myself.

Cheers

Edited by Karsten
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Thanks,

Yup ,1070 would be lovely! ( not very affordable by the way!  they actually cost more than i paid for my computer!)

Going for the 1050..affordable and everyone seems to love it. No extra power required and supposedly v quiet. In comparison tests it beats the heck out of my current card (quadro fx 1800..750 mb!) which i find adequate for most of the stuff I do.( I need direct x 12 so I can check out Marmaset and unreal engine. 

But the main question ....what are the GB s used for?  

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42 minutes ago, stusutcliffe said:

Thanks,

Yup ,1070 would be lovely! ( not very affordable by the way!  they actually cost more than i paid for my computer!)

Going for the 1050..affordable and everyone seems to love it. No extra power required and supposedly v quiet. In comparison tests it beats the heck out of my current card (quadro fx 1800..750 mb!) which i find adequate for most of the stuff I do.( I need direct x 12 so I can check out Marmaset and unreal engine. 

But the main question ....what are the GB s used for?  

In 3D Coat, the main usage would be storing texture maps on your GPU, but if you have a dense scene, some of that mesh data has to be stored on your GPU VRAM, so you would want to future proof your investment by getting something that will still be very capable 4-5yrs from now.

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The VRAM is used to store graphics data (textures), frame buffer,  depth buffer or Z depth and etc...  The more vram you have the higher monitor resolution you can have and higher resolution textures can be loaded. Since you are looking at Unreal game engine this important. Same for Marmaset.

You can paint at higher image resolution in 3DC.

Everything AnbRanger said... 

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...also, where GPU VRAM is really crucial is GPU rendering. Seeing that AMD ProRender is being considered as one of the render plugins (perhaps as the new default GPU render?), and then Octane is on the list as possible integrated plugins (people can now use Octane on subscription for $20/mo), it might be worth spending a little extra coin, to get that 1070 (or go on eBay and find a GTX 980Ti...which is neck and neck with the 1070, but cheaper). I bought mine, used on eBay, for about $75 less than a new one. No problems with it at all.

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Thanks for the info guys.Its always appreciated when i get a reply to my rambling!

My workflow at the moment seems to be mainly vertex painting my sculpts, mainly for simplicity. Does this count as "textures" as they are not technically image maps I suppose, as the color info is part of the object.... I think I am heading for the 4 gb card just because bigger is usually better ! ( well thats what she said..) Im doing all this on the cheap at the moment cos its only hobby stuff and cant justify £350 for inbuilt obsolescence. 

I think Marmaset will import vertex colors, because an older version I tried did. I dont know if Instant Light or Unreal can use Vertex colors. My IL demo ran out months ago, but it didnt really work very well on my system,probably my gpu not good enough.

( the top row on my Artstation page is all vertex paint rendered in 3dcoat, anything below that is mostly image mapped and rendered in Carrara. Not a great deal of difference ,but so much easier when  you dont have to faff around remeshing and baking and exporting and lighting... Sculpt ,Paint, Render...next..

 

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Always is better:

- More Vram

- More CUDA Cores

- Memory Interface Width

Can you afford GTX 1070 or 1060 ? 1050 is entry-level card.

Unless you change graphic card every year, For me it is more convenient to think of an investment in something that is usable for some years.

Maybe it's something that works for a few months, but maybe if your projects grow, it can get old in a short time.

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15 hours ago, stusutcliffe said:

Thanks for the info guys.Its always appreciated when i get a reply to my rambling!

My workflow at the moment seems to be mainly vertex painting my sculpts, mainly for simplicity. Does this count as "textures" as they are not technically image maps I suppose, as the color info is part of the object.... I think I am heading for the 4 gb card just because bigger is usually better ! ( well thats what she said..) Im doing all this on the cheap at the moment cos its only hobby stuff and cant justify £350 for inbuilt obsolescence. 

I think Marmaset will import vertex colors, because an older version I tried did. I dont know if Instant Light or Unreal can use Vertex colors. My IL demo ran out months ago, but it didnt really work very well on my system,probably my gpu not good enough.

( the top row on my Artstation page is all vertex paint rendered in 3dcoat, anything below that is mostly image mapped and rendered in Carrara. Not a great deal of difference ,but so much easier when  you dont have to faff around remeshing and baking and exporting and lighting... Sculpt ,Paint, Render...next..

 

I would keep an eye on some 1070's on ebay, like this one:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/EVGA-GeForce-GTX-1070-FTW-GAMING-/292079630602?hash=item44014d790a:g:94EAAOSwpkFY6BL6

The 980ti is still a very powerful card, roughly as powerful as the 1070. But rather than 8GB or VRAM, it has 6GB

http://www.ebay.com/itm/EVGA-GTX-980-TI-SC-/112364805190?hash=item1a2976dc46:g:PFAAAOSwuLZY6lfD

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Thanks for the links, but i dont do ebay , anyway those links not in uk, still too expensive. Though I will keep an eye on the bidding just out of curiosity. ( computer stuff seems to be $1=£1 ...what a rip off! So in UK we pay 30% more or whatever the exchange rate is) 

The thread has gone off at a tangent ( that usually happens doesnt it!)

Basically I might as well be saying I want a new engine for my Nissan Micra and you guys saying "I know where you can a BMW engine cheap" 

Sorry, I am not trying to be rude about being helped, the answers were drifting away from my original question.

My computer is a cheap second hand workstation just to tide me over until I decide whether to call it a day with all this cg stuff, if i am still enthusiastic in when I hit 60 I will invest in a super-duper computer to see me out!.....so I just need the bare minimum to keep me going until then. So mainly getting this card to update Direct x to try some new stuff that wont run at the moment. My usual technology timeline is generally  4 years behind . I used a Geforce 9800 for 8 years!!!

I will get the 1070 in a couple of years when they are £100....you lot will be using  quantum computers  by then.... hee hee....

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On 4/14/2017 at 11:52 AM, stusutcliffe said:

Thanks for the links, but i dont do ebay , anyway those links not in uk, still too expensive. Though I will keep an eye on the bidding just out of curiosity. ( computer stuff seems to be $1=£1 ...what a rip off! So in UK we pay 30% more or whatever the exchange rate is) 

The thread has gone off at a tangent ( that usually happens doesnt it!)

Basically I might as well be saying I want a new engine for my Nissan Micra and you guys saying "I know where you can a BMW engine cheap" 

Sorry, I am not trying to be rude about being helped, the answers were drifting away from my original question.

My computer is a cheap second hand workstation just to tide me over until I decide whether to call it a day with all this cg stuff, if i am still enthusiastic in when I hit 60 I will invest in a super-duper computer to see me out!.....so I just need the bare minimum to keep me going until then. So mainly getting this card to update Direct x to try some new stuff that wont run at the moment. My usual technology timeline is generally  4 years behind . I used a Geforce 9800 for 8 years!!!

I will get the 1070 in a couple of years when they are £100....you lot will be using  quantum computers  by then.... hee hee....

Hi, stusutcliffehave you bought GTX 1050ti? What are your experiences with that GPU, how many triangles can you push in Voxel sculpting before 3d Coat start to slow down?

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Hi there racerx,

Yes I did buy the GTX 1050ti. Yup, basically the best upgrade I ever bought in 20 years of PC ownership.

I have never had to push it concerning polycounts though. 25 million has been my max,( surface mode) but that has been painted on the vertex s ( vertices?) also. A tiny bit of slowdown when painting...but then I can just hide the parts I am not painting and its fine again.

In the picture I just duplicated the "man" loads of times. I got up to 69 million just fine..went down to 12 FPS which was still usable for me, but did not try sculpting or painting.

I tend to use surface mode mostly, so I suspect I could go even higher in that mode !

So basically yes I would recomend this card  if you are on a budget...

Funny thing is I actually got some payed work so its already payed for itself ten times over.

( 5 year old HP z400 zeon,16 mb ram Win 7 pro)

men.jpg

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Thank you very much, stusutcliffeyour post is very helpful to me, and hopefully it will be also helpful to someone else in future, cause out there isn't many threads about budget GPU-s and their ability in 3d Coat - and that's the shame, because budget cards like GTX 1050 ti or GTX 1060 3GB are more powerful then premium cards from 2012.

I've also like to thank to AbnRanger who was also more then helpful on this subject, and had recommended GTX 1070, but because of some budget limitations, I will probably go with GTX 1060 6GB model, and as soon as I have new card, I will share my experiences with rest of the community. 

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