Sorry if this is out there already. What do the “experts” consider some of the most limiting PC specs for 3D modeling?
Long story short, I won’t be able to work traditionally for a long while (legal reasons, plus a pregnancy). I’m hoping to be able to use blender to bring in a LITTLE bit to cover paying my bills, as not only am I absolutely loving character design modeling/sculpting, but I think even in my current newbie state, I’m half decent at it. I hopefully have a tax refund coming, and most of it needs to be set aside for my bills until I start getting income, but I can probably justify a small upgrade (me and my hubby are VERY good at finding PC deals). I FEEL like my current limiting factor is RAM. Working on my ogre, and with nearly 600k faces, 300k vertices, in dyntopo mode I’m at (total as per task manager): ~15-18% CPU usage, 27% GPU usage, but with my references open, I’m down to only about 5GB of free RAM left. Blender runs at about 13 FPS while sculpting in dyntopo.
Specs are decent, as I’m also a gamer:
AMD R7 2700 3.2GHz
16GB DDR4 RAM
RX 570 8GB GPU (a bit outdated, I know, it’s the next “big” upgrade we want to do when funds allow)
Tomahawk B450 Max
We are thinking I can double or more my RAM for under $100 which I would consider a worthwhile investment, and something both me and hubby could justify, but spending too much more than that would be pushing it, in terms of trying for a larger upgrade. Would doubling my RAM provide much improvement in either performance OR stability? Are there any other tweaks to settings or such that could help with additional performance improvement, given my usages are relatively low?
(sorry for the double post, I accidentally deleted/withdrew the previous one, and it said it should be removed an hour from the time of posting this one)
It also depends on what you are going to do with Blender!
You need a lot of memory when sculpting in great detail.
You need a better CPU when you do a lot of geo-nodes and material nodes.
You need a powerful card for speedier rendering.
But your Blender work doesn’t get any better with better hardware. Try to find out where you interest lies, and do a lot of projects. Before deciding to spend a lot of money.
Personally, when doing Blender projects. I keep the number of verts in mind.
Model in parts en combines them in the scene build. I also have a not-so-capable machine, but I do what I can do. Still having a lot of Blender fun.
Thanks! The sculpting is definitely what I’m loving so far, and working out all the detail. And RAM will be beneficial for my gaming as well, as some are starting to want more than 16gb. It’s also going to be a relatively cheap upgrade (we might even be able to double my current RAM for only $50). I just wanted to make sure that I wasn’t vastly misunderstanding what seemed to be my pc’s limitations!
Haven’t gotten to nodes in the tutorials yet. As for a gpu for rendering… Hubby has a 3070, so if i really need to, I’ll hijack his pc for long renders .
So far though, it sounds like RAM will be a decent starting point that should help at least a little, for relatively cheap!
It is always tricky especially on a limited budget. If it is not grinding to a halt does it really need changing? Might it be better to save up for a complete new computer in the further time distance?
I am not the one to ask on such things, as I tend to go the other way, buy a machine and do not touch it till it dies rather than small upgrades here and there.
Just a word of warning, from what I have read, making any money from selling models etc. is practically impossible. If anything it would be a very little. Perhaps unless you are good at self marketing to people locally that may want such things.
I may not have money for an upgrade for a long while. It’ll likely be over a year before i can work traditionally. We also build our own pcs, and keep upgradability in mind. It’s not quite grinding to a halt, but stability and crashing issues do occur. RAM, as I said, is also going to be useful for the gaming and other activities I do.
I’m not expecting to make much of anything off the blender work. I started learning mostly to make videos and assets for my own streaming content creation. However, I do know that others want stuff like that occasionally as well, so am merely keeping that as an option. I don’t plan on sticking just to character creation
I do appreciate all the input though! It does sound like a RAM upgrade will be useful, so depending how much money i get back, I likely will go that route.
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