Daz Pairing GPUs questions

[datazzguy]

Back again with another question.

I still haven't pulled the trigger on a new rig since I'm having trouble justifying the high price.

Anyway, the build was looking at came with a Z790 board, which has room for two GPUs (I think).
So I was thinking of pairing the 4080 Super that comes with it, with my old 3060.

How would that work when rendering in DAZ? Can you render using both at the same time? I know the 3060 is a lot slower, but surely it would make things quicker than using just the 4080 Super, no?

Would love to hear from someone with more knowledge on this.

 

[MissFortune]

Daz is going to use the card with the lowest amount of VRAM. Why? Fuck if I know. Daz just being Daz. You've gotta stick with the same card if you're going to use two, or at least two cards with the same amount of VRAM. So, for example, 2x 4090s or 1 4090 and 1 5090 are fine. But a 4090 and 3080 aren't. It'll use the 10/12GB of the 3080.

Edit: Forgot the 5090 had 32GB of VRAM here for some reason. Probably more accurate to say 1 4090 and 1 3090 are fine.

I've got two 4090s, and most renders in Daz (at around 4000 iterations in 4K) only take 9-15 minutes. Blender is usually under five minutes.

What I'd do is sell the 3060 and see if you could find a good deal on another used 4080, or keep the 3060 in the system but don't use it to render in Daz and only for your monitors and other stuff. A real consideration of Dual GPUs is system memory. You'll want to double the amount of the VRAM in your system. I've got 96GB of DDR5, and that's probably not really enough. Make sure you have a fairly beefy PSU, as well.

 

[datazzguy]

Daz is going to use the card with the lowest amount of VRAM. Why? Fuck if I know. Daz just being Daz. You've gotta stick with the same card if you're going to use two, or at least two cards with the same amount of VRAM. So, for example, 2x 4090s or 1 4090 and 1 5090 are fine. But a 4090 and 3080 aren't. It'll use the 10/12GB of the 3080.

I've got two 4090s, and most renders in Daz (at around 4000 iterations in 4K) only take 9-15 minutes. Blender is usually under five minutes.

What I'd do is sell the 3060 and see if you could find a good deal on another used 4080, or keep the 3060 in the system but don't use it to render in Daz and only for your monitors and other stuff. A real consideration of Dual GPUs is system memory. You'll want to double the amount of the VRAM in your system. I've got 96GB of DDR5, and that's probably not really enough. Make sure you have a fairly beefy PSU, as well.

That's what I suspected. 4080 Supers are still $1400-$1500 where I live so it'll have to wait.

Yeah for RAM I heard it's recommended to multiply your VRAM by 4.

 

[MissFortune]

That's what I suspected. 4080 Supers are still $1400-$1500 where I live so it'll have to wait.

Yeah for RAM I heard it's recommended to multiply your VRAM by 4.

You can still have it in the system (would make sure airflow is okay first) and not use it in Daz (Render Settings > Advanced > Uncheck the card, and CPU fallback options while you're at it.). Having another GPU in the system can only help. Plug your monitors into that, maybe game while rendering, other graphically intense software. Provided you have enough RAM and a decent CPU, at least.

If you have any interest in Blender, you can use both without much issue. But it's not the easiest software to pick up.

Multiplying by 4 is generally pretty unnecessary unless you've got the spare money to spend. Doubling is usually fine (e.g. 24GB of VRAM = 48GB, 32GB of VRAM = 64GB, etc.). I only have 96 because I tend to do a lot of other multitasking while rendering.

 

[datazzguy]

You can still have it in the system (would make sure airflow is okay first) and not use it in Daz (Render Settings > Advanced > Uncheck the card, and CPU fallback options while you're at it.). Having another GPU in the system can only help. Plug your monitors into that, maybe game while rendering, other graphically intense software. Provided you have enough RAM and a decent CPU, at least.

If you have any interest in Blender, you can use both without much issue. But it's not the easiest software to pick up.

Multiplying by 4 is generally pretty unnecessary unless you've got the spare money to spend. Doubling is usually fine (e.g. 24GB of VRAM = 48GB, 32GB of VRAM = 64GB, etc.). I only have 96 because I tend to do a lot of other multitasking while rendering.

Interesting that it works in Blender. I'm tempted to learn it, but the amount of stuff that there is to learn before you master it kinda scares me

 

[MissFortune]

Interesting that it works in Blender. I'm tempted to learn it, but the amount of stuff that there is to learn before you master it kinda scares me

I tend to point people toward learning the basics in Daz first. It's fairly rudimentary (compared to Blender) and allows you to get going quicker. Maybe make a short game in Daz, get comfortable with the lighting, posing, framing/composition, etc. That way, going into Blender, you aren't learning everything else. You're just learning Blender itself and how the tools work in it rather than the concepts of what you're doing.

Either way, it wouldn't hurt to get familiar with Daz as you'd likely be using Diffeomorphic (Daz to Blender addon) to move Daz models and possibly environments over to Blender.

 

[datazzguy]

I tend to point people toward learning the basics in Daz first. It's fairly rudimentary (compared to Blender) and allows you to get going quicker. Maybe make a short game in Daz, get comfortable with the lighting, posing, framing/composition, etc. That way, going into Blender, you aren't learning everything else. You're just learning Blender itself and how the tools work in it rather than the concepts of what you're doing.

Either way, it wouldn't hurt to get familiar with Daz as you'd likely be using Diffeomorphic (Daz to Blender addon) to move Daz models and possibly environments over to Blender.

I've been fiddling around with Daz for 3 years now and I'm fairly comfortable using it. But Blender still feels overwhelming.

 

[MissFortune]

I've been fiddling around with Daz for 3 years now and I'm fairly comfortable using it. But Blender still feels overwhelming.

Blender itself is very much a good example of the 80/20 rule. 80% of the time, you're using 20% of the software.

Aside from addons, I spend most, if not all, of my time in either Object or Pose mode. A few tutorials should get you to a working stage. AnimeNyan (Pornhub) and Krys Kryngle (YT) have some pretty good starter videos for someone just getting into it.