My latest WIP.  Sybelle for G8.1F by Vyusur.  Rendered in OR4C

I have a couple of rigs with specs similar to yours.  One is an i7 4790K @ 4.00GHz with 32 GB ram and a GTX 980 with 4GB GDDR5.  The other is an i7 3820 @3.60 GHz also 32GB ram and a GTX 1060 with 6GB ram.  This was my dream machine I built myself 10 years ago.  Both cpu's are plenty fast, and I rarely max out the ram with the simple scenes I create.  Having said that, I too, find myself wishing for bigger, faster, stronger.  But with one foot into retirement, and the other foot trying to stay out of the poor house,  my options are limited.  After talking to the good people at Memory Express,  a Computer store I've used exclusively since they first opened back in the late 80's,  they told me that I could spend upwards of 3 grand to buy or build a new rig with all the latest bells and whistles,  and I still wouldn't be much better of, as far as power is concerned.  They did recommend a couple of newer GPU's to handle the ever increasing demands that software (DazStudio)  and content creators require.  I'm just a hobbyist, I do this for fun, and definately not for money.  I don't to much with dForce,  I don't render with iRay except for previews and My main software is Carrara,  which doesn't do iRay, although I do use Octane for Carrara, which requires an Nvidia GPU.  So, what I'm going with is a couple of RTX 3060  with 12GB ram.  If I remember correctly, DAZ 3D recommends an RTX 3070 as a minimum (for dForce).  But all things considered, get the best RTX card with the most ram,  in order to get the best out of DazStudio in terms of performance especially with dForce sims,  and of cource render times.

I share your fears 

There is a simpler way to get Genesis 8.1 to work in Carrara.  And by "work" I mean to get a figure,  male or female,  to load into Carrara with all the dials, Head and Body, available as you would expect.  This will not include using the Anatomical elements, rather just the Basic figure along with any of the morph and or character packages you wish to include.  My work flow is:

1.   Assemble the content you want to use, such as the base figure like Genesis 8.1 Female,  or Male.  Add all the morphs you want to include, like Head and Body morphs, etc.  Add a Character package, totally optional.  Make sure you use a clean Content Library,  just the stuff you want to use should be in your content library, just to avoid any surprises.  You'll also need Gemini and or Harper for Genesis 8.1 which I believe are still available here in the Free stuff by Misty.  Also add any hair or clothing, all of which need to be converted to Blended Weight and saved as a subset.  For whatever reason, when you first install studio, it creates a default content directory, in Users/Public/Public Documents/My DAZ 3D Library, which should be empty unless you've saved stuff in there.  But this content library will come in handy.  If you have stuff in there, zip it up and put it somewhere else if you need it.  Under "My DAZ 3D Library" folder add a sub directory "People" and under that "Genesis 8 Female.  Add "My DAZ 3D Library"  in you Daz Studio Content Tab.  That's where you'll save your Character.

2.  Fire up your latest version of DazStudio.  I used 4.20 for my tests. 

3.  Load your base, Gemini or Harper.  They come in without the Eyelashes or Tears, which is ok.

4.  With your base selected,  load the corresponding Genesis 8.1 figure, you  should get a prompt asking if you want to load a new figure or apply to the currently selected figure.  Choose to apply to the currently selected figure.  Your base should now be textured, and also have the Eyelashes and Tears fitted and parented to your base.  Make sure you base figure, Eyelashes and Tears are at base resolution, and 0 subdivision.  One at a time convert the Lashes and Tears to Blended Weight.  You can save these converted items as subsets to use again.  Scroll through the Parameters Tab to make sure that everything is there that should be there.  If you've added a Character package, the those dials should also be there under People or Full Body, Head, or all of the above.  No need to set any dials.

5.  Save your Character.  With your Base character selected, navigate to "My DAZ 3D Library/People/Genesis 8 Female". Ensure the the Genesis 8 Female folder is highlighted.  Click on File--Save As--Support Asset--Figure/Prop Assets--Give it a file name.  

That should be it.  Test in Carrara.

A bit of an update to my procedure when merging Fiber Brows and Lashes (by Colm Jackson).  I'm also using some products by Lyoness, like the Every Girl Kit for G38F, and a couple of others.  The point is, these kits have full body morphs, and full head morphs, so when you merge things like the lashes and brows, you want them to follow the head morphs, and the brow and eye morphs.  So, prior to the Merge process,  you will need to set a value for all the dials that affect the brows and the eyes in order for those dials to work in Carrara.  I used this workflow on Genesis 8 Female via the preset by Misty.  

From one Westphalian to another,  Antonia is as Lovely as ever.  The pants are nice too.  I'm tempted to fire up Poser again.  It's been a while.  I use Carrara mostly.

With every new update of DazStudio, I test to see how this method of mine works in the latest version.  Well, it don't.  In fact, the results are worse than in the previous versions.  I'm not going to try and explain it, because I can't.  4.10 is still the only version that works for me.

Another example.  Terriable lighting, I know

A note about Fiber Hair, brows and lashes in specific.  I've mentioned that fiber hair looks like crap in the Carrara native renderer, but I'm changing my tune on that.  They ca look a bit more presentable in you change some of the render settings in the render room.  In this example I used the G8F preset (Veronica for G8F by Misty) with the Lashes and brows merged into the figure, using Colm Jacksons Lashes and Brows.  The important setting is the AntiAliasing set at its highest.  Native render compared to Octane. 

So here's an unexpected twist.  I was working on yet another variation of Gemini, and I neglected to clear out one of my content folders before creating the figure, that folder or library contained the MetaMixer Toolkit.  Long story short, all those dials carried over to my Real Gemini, I also applied one of the dark skinned material presets, dialed in all the Neda dials and voila.  I'm sure they're not meant to be used that way, but what the heck,  it works for me.

You're welcome!  This is my Genesis 8.1, Male or female, workflow.  This also works for all the Genesis generations but G8.1 was the most challenging.  Happy to answer any questions you might have.

Looks kind of daunting,  at first, but it's really pretty simple, and if you go through it a couple of times you can put together a character in about 20 minutes.  Save the character to your Carrara browser, for future use.  This method, achieves two things, it allows me to use Genesis 8.1 with all the body dials and most of the pose controls, and if you choose to use the anatomical elements, the merge process welds the two figures into one figure, overcoming the UV issue.  

Step 3

Launch DS4.10 and Load Lily.  She come in as Lily Base,  as the "Base" indicates to me the figure contains the minimum set of morphs that I would want in any character.  That's just my preference and not a rule.  And since I'm working with Mousso's Lily, she is Lily Base.  Also deleted the icons for the other presets so I don't get confused about which one to load.

The result is evident.  No screen shot. 

I've fitted mutiple items such as the lashes and Fiber brows following the same steps, but I'll skip that for now.

I've fitted Fiber head hair  as well with good results.  But to be honest,  the resulting file size, especially using head hair is a bit too much, even with 32Gb of ram.

Now the important part,  setting a value for all the dials in the parameters tab with Lily Base selected.  

Under the Actor node, the important parts are Full Body, Hip, Legs (in specific the ones that effect length). and the Waist.

Under the Pose controls , Hip and Leg are the ones the I set.  

The value doesn't matter, but I generally set them to 10%

Full Body Dials all set to 10%

People:  There's only 1 dial cause I'm only using 1 Character package but if yours has more then set them all to 10%

and finally under the Figure node is the Waist.  Usually I set them all to 10%.  There's a lot of them.

Now for the Pose Controls.  I skip Arms, Chest, Feet, Hands, Head, Neck and Torso. I focus on Hip and Legs.

I set all the Hip dials to 10%, and a few will pop back to zero but I don't worry about it

Legs.  these I set to 10%

That's it for the Dials

The more morph packs you have installed, the more dials you have to set.  General rule is all the FBM's get set, all dials relating to the Hip, thighs and waist are set.  Why?  Because the Gens are attached to the Hip, and if you dial in a hip morph then the connecting part will or can be effected.  Also the Length morphs to the Thighs and Shins will effect the position of the hip, up or down.  Learnt that by trial and error.  OK, now the scary part, and also some nudity which cant be helped, if I'm going to explain what's going on.  This is what you see with all the dials set.

Activate the Geometry Editor

With Lily Base selected, Right-Click in the Viewport, do this

Click Yes.

Delete Genesis 8 Female Genitalia from the scene tab.

the Gens are now part of the hip so the original is not needed

In the Geometry Editor. Under "Regions" note the count of the Hip, for  information only

Target Group--change that to Regions

-

In the Chose Group drop-down choose Hip

Expose the Surfaces and select the Genitalia.  On Lily Base the selected area turns red

Click the Plus (+) sign and the selected area turns yellow. then Click on "Assign to Target Group". Now Click the minus (-) sign

Scroll down to the Regions portion and select the hip to verify that the gens are now part of the hip.

So far so good.  Exit the Geometry Editor and return to the Universal tool

Back in the Content Tab. This is where I'm going to save my Creation.

With Lily Base selected  do this

I call mine Real Lily 

Save Options come up and I fill in the blanks.  Make sure that Product Name is unique. the Vendor (You) and the Item Name is auto-filled.  The rest I leave alone cause I'm not sure of the consequences if I change things.

Stuff happens.......and there she is

Clear the Scene and Load Real Lily, and she comes in as Lily Base.  I change the name to Real Lily in the scene tab

Now in the Parameters Tab  I ZERO the figure Then Adjust Rigging to shape, the Memorize Figure.

Save as Character Preset  I call mine Real Lily which overwrites the Real Lily that exists.

Clear the scene and load  Real Lily  Dial in Your character and spin some dials.  all of them,  just kidding.  

Also with my figure Dialed in I do this

Memorize figure again then.  Re-save the Character preset. This way when you load the figure she'll be dialed in already

And that's that.

Fire up Carrara and See

Root node with all the Pose Controls Some work some don't

Keep in mind

This is no longer a DAZ Figure , It's Your figure, but you CANNOT share it or sell it,  because it's still a DAZ figure.

Hope you get some use out of all this.

I sincerely thank Misty for creating the presets for without her we'd all be back using Genesis 2 (Not that there's anything wrong with those)

Thanks

Step 2

Create content folder.   I use ProPose8.1

Under that create subfolder     I use Real People

Under that create subfolder     I use Genesis 8.1 Female           

Launch DS4.16 or whatever you are using, must support G8.1.  Add   ProPose8.1 content library  to your DAZ Studio Formats 

Load  Lily Base

Navigate to Genesis 8.1 Female in your ProPose8.1 and With Lily Base selected in the scene tab go to 

File---Save As---Support Asset---Figure/Prop Asset

Give a file name    I called mine "Lily Test" and click Save

This comes up

If your save options don't match what you see, make it match and Click Accept

Bunch of stuff happens, and a data folder is created with a bunch of stuff in it

clear the scene and load the saved figure 

Important step Do This  Adjust rigging to shape      accept the next popup 

then do this     Memorize Figure

then finally  save as character preset I call mine Lily Base as it's called in the scene tab

I close DazStudio4.16

I launch DS4.10, and load up Lily Base.  Play with the dials and pose controls, Lily Base should respond properly, al least she does for me.  I save another Character preset and just name her Lily.  Clear the scene and load up Lily,  re-check  the Dials and controls.  This is the Lily that I'll use going forward. 

And now I'll explain why I use DS4.10

 I tried every version of Studio from the most recent 4.16 version down to version 4.10.

DazStudio 4.10 is the only version that merges properly the anatomical elements.  this is true for all the Genesis figures G1 to G8.1 male or female.  Why is that important?  Because in Carrara, when you add the genital figure onto your character the UV's of the gens are lost making that part of the figure useless.  In daz Studio it all blends in perfectly, but not everyone wants to render or animate in Daz Studio.  Other people have come up with creative solutions to overcome this problem, and this is my kick at the can.  but even if you don't do nudes, the figure that you have right now is alot better in that you have all or most of the pose controls available depending on what you've added in morph packs.  If anyone out there has a better way, I'm all ears.  

Another thing I also create a Runtime ---Textures folder in my ProPose8.1 content Library and copy all the relevent testures 

Step 3 will be the merging of the Anatomical Elements  to Lily Base

Initial tests in Carrara

Root node selected

Same as usual, No Body Pose Controls

next with Actor node selected

Just the character morphs were added to the selection.

All the Dials seem to work  the Lashes work with the eyes and the brows conform with the head morphs dials as well. So I'm happy about that.  What I'm not happy with is that all my Zev0 morph dials are missing.  I didn't bother loading the gens cause we all know what happens when loading a geograft attachment. The uv's are messed up.

to pubes conform to the figure properly. Tear I didn't bother with. 

Fiber Brows and pubes look like crap in the native renderer.  In Octane they are OK

Probably better off using textures that include eyebrows. And better lighting

Next step is in the works, and hopefully I can overcome some of the shortcomings.  Pose Controls for the body,  Morph dial for the figure and gens without messed up uv's.

But as is, I do have a poseable and animatable dialed in character.