Hey guys,
I was wondering what’s the RAM usage of your PCs when working on dense polycount scenes. Like, more than 10 million polygons.
I was thinking in upgrading my PC to 32gb. But RAM memory in my country is so expensive that I would have to sell my PC in order to buy additional 16gb RAM. And I don’t know if it would be worth it. Thank you.
Hey,
In order to answer this question better, I have a few followup questions.
What are you looking to do with the scene and how are you going to render it?
What are your PC specifications (CPU, GPU,RAM,HDD/SSD)
You need to balance memory with computer speed. A GPU will give speed to renders but little else. A faster graphics card will speed up general workflow. More memory means that more data can be worked on at once without swapping.
In today’s connected world of business and commerce, I don’t understand why you can’t buy computer parts for cheaper than what they cost where you live.
Well, I wanna create a mansion with many rooms and with lots of furniture and stuff. I’m gonna use cycles to baking maps and eevee for real time navigation in VR. Than I wanna make a very simple game in UE4 with it, like a exploration game. I’ll try to create some dark atmosphere.
My pc: Ryzen 5 3600, 16gb RAM 2666mhz, 2 ssd 480gb each, gtx 1080. Thank you
I understand. Well, unfortunately in my country it’s only worth importing stuff from China. If I import ram memory from, let’s say, the US I’ll end up paying even more than what they cost in my country. Cause the government taxes any imported stuff 60% over the product price plus the shipping cost.
My countrys currency is very weak compared to the US dollar. The dollar is worth more the 5 times my countrys currency. Wich technically makes everything cost more than 5 times to me than what it costs in the US. Plus taxes, plus sellers profit etc. At the end, if an American pays 70 dollars for 16gb ram, I have to pay as if it cost almost 600 dollars or more.
So, you get the idea how I suffer to buy things in my country. Lol
I see Americans complaining about prices in the US and I think: if I lived there, I would think that everything is so cheap that it’s almost like they were for free. Lol
What country do you live in and how much would 16gb of ddr 4 ram cost in your currency after all the fees?
Hey watercycles,
So, I live in Brazil and as an example I’m gonna take the kingstom hyperx fury 2666mhz. A couple of 8gb sticks cost (cheapest online store I found) 560 reais in Brazilian currency. That would be about 109 US dollars.
In the US the same sticks cost 74 dollars (in Amazon).
You see, the difference is not a huge one. But because I need about 5.15 reais (the brazilian currency) in order to buy 1 dollar, at the end of the day, it’s as if I was paying, not “just” 109 dollars for the sticks, but 109 times 5.15 which would result in (as if it were) about “560 dollars”.
Just to give you an idea, the minimum wage in Brazil is 1045 reais (around 200 dollars). Imagine you paying more than half a minimum salary for just 16gb of RAM memory?
I’m just saying that so you guys can have an idea of what it is like to live in poor countries in comparison to rich countries.
There’s a reason why countries are classified into rich and poor, because the difference between them is huge.
In a rich country, no one in its sound mind would pay “560 dollars” for 16gb of ram. That would be insane. But that’s what we, in poor countries, are forced to pay not only for ram, but we pay ultra expensive for just about anything. And the vast majority of us make less than 2 minimum salary a month.
Now, suppose I imported the same sticks from the US for 74 dollars. The calculation would be as follow:
74 dollars + shipping (no idea but let’s say 20 dollars) X 5.15 + 60% of importing tax.
The result would be about 774 reais.
Even more expensive than what I would pay here 560 reais.
Historically, the brazilian government protects the almost non existent “internal industry” taxing heavily (60%) whatever thing we import from other countries.
And being free from external competition, the Brazilian businessman raises the prices even more.
I used to be very bothered by that, especially cause I like the technology. But today I’m not as near as bothered. Cause, like Jesus Christ said:
“take care, and be on guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”
So, at the end, I think we should all ask ourselves: does my life really consist in how much money I make or how many possessions I own? Or even how successful I am in this life or how much prestige I get from people? Those are the sort of things we’re all after, aren’t they. But what’s the real value of them all?
More ram will only help you if you do not have enough. Do you run out? Check resource manager (close unnecessary simultaneously opened applications). Unreal engine has 8gb as recommended. It seems finding the resources to buy the memory would be difficult for you at this time. If this has not yet proved to be a problem for you, why bother? You might have jumped to a newer computer before you need it.
You also need to make sure your operating system and motherboard will support 32GB of RAM.
My old motherboard would only go up to 24 GB, and Windows 7 would only see 20 GB.
So check the requirements of your motherboard and make sure the ram you get will match and work with what you already have.
I understand you, the US dollar is really expensive in some of our countries.
About the subject, it depends on the type of work you do. Only you will know if you are going to need more RAM. My advice is that you don’t worry too much until you really see that you are exceeding those 16GB. You monitor RAM usage with your system monitor
To give an example, “Victor” scene that you can download from blender site is a scene that when rendering it exceeds 16GB of RAM. But it is a really heavy production scene, with big textures and particle systems.
Regarding the large number of vertices in the scene, Blender is more likely to get slow and heavy due to internal causes than due to excessive RAM usage.
It is funny you mention the import tax to be a downfall of Brazil because in USA we have a negative import of I think -30% tax for cooporations that is said to lead to all our manufacturing jobs being exported. The only things we make in US is toilet paper and food. Between out countries we have difference in the import taxes of 90% between our countries.
If all was fair in the trading you would be able to trade someone in the US loafs of bread at about 5.35 reais for some RAM. A loaf of bread in US costs about $5 US. Paying about $1 US for a loaf of bread would be way better than the $5 we pay. So 74 loafs of bread for 16GB of RAM + shipping costs seems like a fair trade.
I checked with a local electronics retailer over there and the prices seem pretty good and no import fees because it’s a local shop.
https://www.casasbahia.com.br/c/informatica/computadores/?Filtro=c56_c58&flc=true&nid=201558
To answer the question if a scene is taking more than 16GB of ram you can make it fit in 16GB of ram with modifications that lower quality just a tiny bit or not at all. The “Victor” scene for example has some huge texture on the skin of the sheep that is not seen because of the fur that is taking a huge amount of ram.
Trading loafs of bread for RAM memory was funny. Or I could be a beggar in the US and instead of asking for bread, I could say: Please give me some RAM, I still haven’t done any render today. Lol
But yeah I get your point.
Unfortunately there’s nothing magical when it comes to prices in Brazil. Although the computer prices in the retailer store here in Brazil you showed me seem to be good, they are actually very low end PC’s. But thank you anyway.
You’re right bird, it’s not time for upgrading my PC. And actually 16GB of RAM is not bad.
Of course it would be cool to have 32GB, but right now 16GB is ok.
I’ll start to monitor my RAM usage and see what I get. I’m looking for upgrading my GPU at the end of the year with the next generation NVIDIA cards or maybe AMD, who knows. If AMD comes with something more interesting. So I’d better start to save some money. Maybe I can trade part of my liver to the GPU hahahahahaha.
Well said Mash. Thank you.
You’re right Yafu. I’ll start to monitor my RAM usage. And as you said, Ram memory is not everything when it comes to performance. For even with planty of RAM memory, a very heavy scene will slow down in a not so powerful PC. Thank you.
That’s right, I’ll make some tests here and monitor my pc resources and see what I get. Thank you.
I’ve upgraded my current pc 4 months ago except by the GPU. By the time I’d paid around 400 bolsonaros for 16gb ram 2666mhz in kabum store. And my ryzen 5 3600 was bought in pichau for around 1000 bolsonaros.
Today 16gb RAM from kingstom hyperx is around R$ 600. I knew the price was going to sky rocket in a few months but I’d concluded that 16GB ram was enough for gaming. However, little did I know that for CG it would be better to have more. If I knew that I would’ve bought 32gb when the price was still “low”.
Fortunately 16gb is still good so I can wait for a new upgrade, maybe at black Friday. Right now I’m more interested in the new GPU that are coming soon. Both from Nvidia and AMD.
I’m curious to know how much realism real time Ray tracing will bring to my real time renders.
If you were rich, what would you do?
Yeah my friend but remember that you’re not considering the most important aspect of having more ram. That is: it just feels good.
You don’t need to believe me, you can see it by yourself. Just repeat out loud the following phrases:
I have 16GB of RAM in my PC.
I have 32GB of RAM in my PC.
Seeeee, don’t you feel sooooo much better repeating phrase number 2? I do. 
Yeah that’s true CPU matters, but not so much for games. Before I bought my ryzen 5 3600 I’d spend a lot of time in watching CPU benchmarks for games. And I came to the conclusion that anything higher than this ryzen would be overkill. Specially if you’re playing in 4k. Now for working with CG it’s another story.
Yeah I’ve had a couple of GPUs that would break past warranty period and it hurts a lot. They’re soooo expensive here in Brazil. Here in Brazil you can’t own a GPU and a car at the same time, there isn’t enough money for that. Unless you win the mega sena da virada.
So you’re not a gamer huh? That’s weird.
Feeling good won’t pay any bills
If you won the mega sena da virada you’d never be worried about paying your bills again.
But anyway, I’d never make a career out of 3D unless I could make so much money that I wouldn’t need to work anymore. 
And I’ll tell you the reason for that: think of a food you enjoy eating. Let’s say pizza. So as a pizza enjoyer, you’d probably feel like eating, once or twice a week, some slices of pizza. Then you’d choose their flavor according to what you’d be feeling like eating at that moment.
Now, imagine if you made out of eating pizza a career. So now, as a pizza eater, you’d have to spend 8 hours a day eating pizza and you wouldn’t even be allowed to choose what flavor you’d like to eat to.
Seeeeeeee? This is what making of your hobbies and pleasures a career means.
So my plan is to become a muti billionaire, buy Pixar and boss those lazy guys to create everything I desire while I’d be playing videogames all day long. Or maybe I could also buy Ubisoft, and maybe my own games. Wow I hadn’t thought about that. How could would be that.
Btw
paid in dollars
???
My only chance to get to be paid in dollars would be in the next life if I manage to be born in the US
Hey my friend,
I don’t know if you’re trying to be funny or simply trolling
Sorry if I gave you this impression. I didn’t mean to sound condescending. And I never troll anyone. I’m not a troller. What happens is that I aways try to be funny and make people laugh. Especially by saying things that sound absurd, exaggerated or nonsense lol. But again I’m sorry, if I say something meaningless, please take as a joke lol.
So yeah that’s a good idea, PayPal. Sometimes I forget that we’re living in an era where the world is much more connected thanks to the internet. Yeah the internet has changed the world. And the internet is a pretty recent phenomenon in the history of the world. I think, idk, just 30 years ago there was no internet I guess? Wow, and today it’s hard to image life without it, right? Idk about you but I wouldn’t be able to live without it. Btw, where do you live my friend? You speak good English, sounds like you live in one of those countries where English is the official language. Am I right? Have a great day.