How long do your renders usually take?

[Frank21]

If you are getting nothing with the CPU disabled it may be that DS isn't using your GPU at all. Pull out your GPU, check the connections and re-seat it in the MB. Also check your Nvidia driver is up to date. Which version of DS are you using?... I know 4.20 needs the latest driver. Good luck mate.

[gts6]

There is a free utility called "TechPowerUp GPU-Z" Try running that during render and monitor your GPU in that software. It will show whether it is being used or not. It sounds like it is not being used. The DAZ log file might also have some clue what is going on during renders

[GAMI SETA]

You need an nvidia card. The likes of 2080 upwards to get decent speeds. That is all

[oldspokesy]

@kinkygr I'm running a Geforce 3070, which is what's throwing me off- some scenes rendered the same as when I didn't even have a GPU. I ran all the diagnostics suggested here, and when I take the CPU out of the equation, the GPU is certainly being used- sometimes to capacity. Although- since pulling my tower out further on my desk it is running cooler.

I'm going to try out the scripts posted earlier and see how that goes. Using GPU only I'm getting pretty good results- except I'm very limited to what I can have in a scene. The Long Gallery Ruin is still out of reach- added a single character and it would no longer render. I hadn't even added clothes yet, just a G8 and hair...

[enjoyify]

I doubt it's the G8 character that is causing the bulk of the problem. Long Gallery Ruin is a big environment with HD textures. If you're not hiding most of the geometry (in the Scene tab, or via a script), it's going to eat up VRAM and take a long time to render.

Since you're still troubleshooting, I'd recommend keeping the scene simple for now. Start with the character and basic HDRI lighting. Once that is running smoothly, you can try to add architecture.

[Frank21]

@Ethiopia "You might want to grab the Iray Test Scene and read this thread…
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/53771/iray-starter-scene-post-your-benchmarks"
Yes I would try that now and see how it compares to other 3070s. There aren't many benchmarked but you should be looking at times between the 3060 and 3080. If you're way off you'll know something is seriously wrong.

[oldspokesy]

@frank21 , oh, it tore through the bench mark. using both the CPU & the GPU it was 43 sec, gpu alone was 44 sec. I have noticed that it slows down if I try to render back to back. I can speed it up some just by restarting daz. I still have a few scenes that turn out grainy even with GPU alone, not sure why that is. I guess I'll be spending all my free time experimenting. Tempted to have my husband look over all the raw data since he's the gaming computer guy, but I don't want him to think I'm disappointed in my birthday present lol

[Amber]

@littlepleasures
Yes, it's all quite possible, though painful to do.
I have no supported GPU, so I have only CPU/sysRAM. I did however make the leap from 8 to 32GB and the difference is day/night! Like I said, there's many tricks to getting a heavy scene to render within a human life span without crashing or BSOD. 🙂

Neat Factoid: Section planes are crazy effective, but they do not decrease memory load per geometry. (neither does hiding unused geometry!) If geometry exists in the scene graph, it is always loaded in RAM. If you hide it (made invisible) or exclude it using section planes/caps, then it is merely excluded from lighting calculation. If RAM consumption is your primary concern, geometry must actually be deleted from the scene to remove it from the potential memory pool. If render time is your main concern, exclusion (if you're not willing to delete geometry) will help vastly reduce the number of ray calculations per iteration, and the amount of extra memory allocated to these calculations (which is above and beyond the memory required to describe the geometry itself).
And like you said, texture optimization goes a LONG way! Best always to use the smallest tile you can get away with - no point applying a 4K texture to a low poly geom that sits in the background and is blurred by DOF anyway! Same goes for LODs; always use the lowest resolution you can, it's that many fewer vertices to store in RAM, and fewer ray calculations required per pixel.

There's lots of other minor tweaks too, like turning off ground shadow if you're rendering on explicit geometry, it wastes ray bounces.

[oldspokesy]

@amberkat , That explains why I noticed it still trying to render hidden hair. So many devs suggest just hiding things too... Once this render I've got going finishes I'll go delete all the hidden crap in my scifi WIP and see what that does.

[Frank21]

"I have noticed that it slows down if I try to render back to back. I can speed it up some just by restarting daz." Yeh that's a DS memory issue. And it tore through the benchmark because there's no real texture maps or much geometry in it.
As for multiple characters I often use the same maps for several characters, because I don't like them looking starkly different, and because if they're using the same maps they are shared and only loaded once into VRAM.

[enjoyify]

Neat Factoid: Section planes are crazy effective, but they do not decrease memory load per geometry. (neither does hiding unused geometry!) If geometry exists in the scene graph, it is always loaded in RAM

@Amberkat What about VRAM? I thought hidden geometry was excluded from VRAM, but I honestly don't know for certain. It seems like it is, since I often have a lot of geometry hidden in a scene and don't bump up against my VRAM limit. I suspect that those of us with Nvidia GPUs are mainly working against a VRAM limit, not a RAM limit. It's good to keep RAM limits in mind too, of course.

[Amber]

@enjoyify
AFAIK all scene geometry is loaded in memory at all times. Who's doing the calculation should determine where it lives, GPU/vRAM vs. CPU/sysRAM. Of course, system memory will catch overflow from lacking video memory.

If you want to see how your memory is behaving, you can always go to the Performance tab in Task Manager to see CPU, GPU, and associated memory graphs in realtime.
You can also use tools like CPU-Z and GPU-Z to see detailed info. And there should be a specific monitor tool for whatever fancy gfx card and/or rig you use, like MSI Afterburner, or whatever Nvidia manufacturers like EVGA offer these days.

[Amber]

*stands, slow clap

@littlepleasures
Good show, you went into FAR more detail than I was willing. A poetic description of the Iray sausage works.
We have such amazing techies here, gives me the warm fuzzies. 🙂

I like your "32GB sysRAM" rule of thumb, very sane.
Funny thing I noticed, after installing my new RAM...
Firefox is more of a hog than I ever imagined. It seems at random intervals, it goes berserk and decides it wants ALL THE RAM. Literally.
Windows takes up roughly 3.8 - 4GB, and then Firefox, normally a few GB depending how many tabs are going.
I haven't yet discovered the specific trigger(s), but there are times when the system goes full-stupid, and when I (finally) get Task Manager open, I see Memory is at 100%, Firefox having eaten up every last available byte.

By extension, I've noticed that Firefox is at least 75% of my problems when rendering, no matter how much RAM. Close FF and you have a nicer Iray experience, every time.

[Amber]

If you look at the standalone reference implementation of Iray and the associated whitepapers, it's clear that the Daz implementation is a whole other beast, and one missing a few fangs and some fur, too. Not surprising though, that's the Daz Way. Take a look at Daz Script some time - it's a half-baked wrapping of QtScript (as are the Qt Objects re-implemented as Dz Objects >.< ).

[Abad]

I didn't want to answer, but I still know how to read... The topic question is ambiguous. Does the question refer to a render with Iray? I am sorry to say it, but the tree prevents you from seeing the forest.
Iray is a derivative of Mental-Ray, from Nvidia, which Autodesk used years ago in its products such as 3ds Max or Maya... It is an OBSOLETE render engine.
The only fools who use it are Daz and his direct competitor Reallulision with his crappy IClone. Why? Because Nvidia SELLS GPU´s, not software: They care about shit Iray...
Both companies piss in your face, because they live on the rents of the PA's..., workers without payroll or contract and charging a dollar for each hour of effort. Like a pizza delivery man...
Welcome to neoliberalism...

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