Hey all,

been using DAZ for about 3 years and just got back into it again, "Marineguy" has my gallery. I'm going to be buying a new computer in a couple of months. I'm a Network Engineer and working with computers for the last 25 years and I've used Photoshop for the last 10 however, the world of 3D, rendering, DAZ, poser, etc, etc is all new. I haven't a clue on what kind of hardware, graphic cards, memory, etc to buy. I'll build you a a 1000 node network that can link you to 100 offices all over the world, but I'm dumber than a rock on what I need.

Any clues on hardware for 3D?

thanks

Look at the configuration of good gaming computers you'll need something similar.  I built my own for 3D stuff:

Asus Mobo
Processor :   AMD Phenom(tm) 9950 Quad-Core Processor, 2608 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s)
8GB RAM

Video card:
Adapter Description    NVIDIA GeForce 9500 GT
Adapter RAM    1.00 GB (1,073,741,824 bytes)

Lots and lots of disk space, but stay away from the 1 TB 7200.11 hard drives, there's a "silent" recall on them and they fail without warning.

If I had it to do over, I would have put in several smaller RAID drives instead of one large eSata drive.

Price in an external drive for backups.  Stay away from the Intel video cards; D|S has a lot of problems with them causing it to crash unexpectedly.

on edit:
Make sure you get a case with good ventilation and plenty of fans - these configurations run hot even without overclocking.

Hey thanks alot!!!! Use to do Graphic Design and had big images with lots of graphic and graphic cards did little to improve it. Is it a whole different world with 3D? Will DAZ and other 3D software take advantage of the card and card memory?

D|S is very particular about your video card and openGL.  I'm not sure why, because it doesn't utlize the card memory during rendering (that's all on your system memory) but does utilize the card memory for the Viewport display. 

Truthfully, I designed my system to work with the Adobe CS4 Extended Package because I design Flash, Video and graphics.  The video card I bought was the lowest end one that Adobe would accept for use with After Effects, but was considered high end for D|S.

basically a gaming computer as stated will work for most all your 3D needs.

Mine is a bit over the top, but eh, who cares right :D

Seriously I think there are basic things to consider about the use of D/S.  cpu, ram, cooling, software.

•    Now, you can get quad cord processors for a reasonable price.  There are others much larger but I don't think you really need them.
• RAM is indeed limited for use by programs on a 32 bit system.  A 64 bit system is unlimited(?) for ram.  However, when rendering it seems like speed is affected by ram.  The difficulty with 64 bit is that lots of programs out there don't use 64.  I have 4 gigs and many people say  8.
• Cooling:  this can be a big deal in my mind.  The performance of your cpu and system will drop as the heat goes up and crashes if too high.
• Software use:  When rendering in D/S if you use open gl, or hardware assist, you will not get a true view of the of the render, but it is faster.  Some people use it as a previewer then use 3Delight (full software) for final render.  My renders aren't so complex so I use 3Delight all the time.Also in the render options, under advanced you will see pixel filter selection.  These are for render image interpolation, or how the computer will see the data and convert it to a render.  I know other methods, but haven't checked these.
• Also, note that your use of many lights will greatly affect your render time.

64 bit has a RAM limit but that limit is theoretical at this point. Windows drops the limit to much more realistic number 8GB, 16GB, 128GB depending on your flavor, oddly Mac OS X does not impose such limits and only comes in Consumer and Server.

It's been suggested to get a gaming machine, and I agree with that. Some folks'll grab an HP in the discount isle for $399 and these are problems waiting to happen with integrated components that were lackluster to begin with.

An Intel i7 or AMD, it's up to you. I have an i7-920, the clock speed is deceiving and would appear to be less than it really is but is known for its ability to OC past Intels costing 3x as much, the i7-930 is the CPU that replaced it. I have 12 GB of DDR3 1.6GHz RAM and an Asus mobo with 6 RAM slots to equalize some of the expense. (Note, the new iMac has an option for an i7 Intel and 16GB of RAM, it will run windows 7 64 like a champ and has a 27" LCD that rocks)

Power is a much more serious issue than it was 5 years ago, I'm running a single nVidia GTS 250, two drives, one DVD and fans in a LianLI case and I'm using a 750 Watt Corsair, I think SLI is overkill for Studio but your mileage might vary. ATI or nVidia, just not integrated into the mobo.

In a "what the hell" moment I bought StarCraft 2, installed it and ran it full blast on my system at 1900x1200 with all options cranked. The system didn't so much as hiccup. (I am however getting my butt pwned by the CPU)

my next investment is a Corsair 600 case and a liquid cooling system to further up this system.

This system above works very will with Studio for the most part but Studio does not feel totally optimized for 64 bit at this time. It's fast, but there is plenty of headroom for faster especially when the scenes get busy.

3Delight is very responsive when I render, but it pins the CPU, which is was designed to do.