Renderotica

Hi technical people.

I know my way around my PC, I've changed the mobo, cpu, and gpu so many times it is obviously no longer the same PC that I've had for 15 years (even though it is still the same PC, if you know what I mean).

Back when I had windows 7, and then the free upgrade to win 10, I just migrated my OS to a new drive without issues.

But, after the storms we had before Christmas and some blackouts, I lost a hard drive, and I think my RAM might be doolally along with my graphics card.

These are some of the reasons I haven't rendered in months.

So I'm thinking about getting a new PC and starting again with Windows 10... BUT, I just cannot face re-installing Poser and all the runtimes, and making sure that V4 and her files go in the correct place etc etc.

I don't believe that I can just put my Windows drive into a new PC and it will magically work (licenses etc). As I've only changed 1 component at a time, I've not had a problem before.

So if I have a clean install of Windows 10, can I just drag my Poser directories around and point at them and everything magically works as it used to?

I don't know if there are Emoji's in the thing strong enough for it but ... back ... up ... the ... RUNTIME.

Considering an old PC with the same hard drive, the cheapest option at Costco ($50 range, 1 TB) should be fine for an "External" HDD.

Late night before bed just set the thing to copy/paste the runtime.

Do this now, before that thing dies.

Then when you move computers, get a new one, recover from the crash...install it.  Works as a second runtime, newer Poser (and DAZ) can grab him and work fine.  It's pretty easy to search for another runtime in the file index and it just gets included.

This is from a person who has dealt with a lot of computer crashes and changes the past decade.  If you have a dozen items alone the time to do that is better/even than the time for downloading and re-installing everything.  If you have 100+ items, its a savings of time even assuming you'd just wait to see the progress of the copy/paste process versus doing something else for 20min - 3+ hours.

Assuming you get a machine up and running, with a fresh install of Poser or DAZ Studio on it, you ought to be able to copy over a previously saved runtime and then point your 3D application of choice to it. Some plug-ins may have to be reinstalled, depending on where they like to put their files, but reinstalling a handful of plug-ins is a helluva lot easier and faster than rebuilding an entire runtime from scratch. You can get a 2 TB Western Digital or Toshiba external drive for like $60 or so, so it's really cheap and easy to back-up your runtimes for just this kind of situation. Get two drives if you can, so you can back-up of your back-ups.

Originally Posted by: simontemplar

I just finished putting the last touch on a sweet rig here, not for me but for a client (I couldn't afford that one
for myself, sadly!) which would plain rip the carpet off for renders. Behold:

I7 8700K
32GO Ram DDR4
M2 SSD 500GO (for Windows)
SSD 500GO (for time sensitive software)
2TO Seagate Barracuda (for the rest of it)
RTX 2080ti Asus Strix with 11GO ram onboard.

It was easy as pie to build. I put it together inside a Corsair Obsidian 752D Airflow case and cooled the CPU
with a NZXT Kraken X62 watercooleer. No hassle anywhere, it went like a charm. Now I feel sad to let it go!
I gave it a few test drives and it's... ohhh such a preciousssss~~~~

I'm not much of an AMD processors person, although I admit they are more affordable than Intel. I did notice that
setting up the same cooler on an AMD though was a bit of a bore in comparison, more bits needed. The Kraken
would perform just as fine on an AMD, I have no doubt of that, though. I ran 3Dmark's tests and the temp didn't
rise by much more than three to four C°'s.

Assuming you work with dual monitors, there is a small app I cannot recommend enough: DisplayFusion. It manages
your displays very efficiently and makes snapping your programs windows from one display to another very easy.

My first computer was a laptop and that was Intel. Then after university I got a proper PC (intel again) and only got into gaming then. My best friend's husband (also kind of my best friend too, as the 4 of us lived together) would always rebuild my PC for me to upgrade it (I just hate the thermal paste aspect and securing the CPU. Too afraid I'll break it. I'll happily do everything else).

But I watched the recent reports of the upcoming AMD GPU and CPU, and quite frankly I don't want to waste money on the RTX nVidia is pumping out, maybe in 5 years when raytracing picks up (Elder scrolls 6?)

At the very least, the July release of the new AMD range should push the price of Intel and nVidia down, right? I hope.

I was all set for a i7 9700K, and RTX2070 when I found the preview reports for the AMD stuff at the same time as the Borderlands 3 preview launch spectacular on 200 AMD rigs... I wish I'd been there for that, even if I don't like the new Psiren.

So I'm thinking "Maybe it's time for AMD?"  Hopefully we'll get some specs about Cyberpunk 2077 in the next couple of days... Just my luck it will be nVidia only, twin RTX2080ti SLi or something. I don't want to slum it on xbox.

Originally Posted by: Masterstroke

I'd never go for an AMD. If you might also use DAZ Studio, Intel/NVIDIA combo is a must.

Shit... I was forgetting about Cuda for the render engine.

(I don't use DAZ, but I keep wanting to move to the new figures...)

AMD CPU's are now better than Intel processors, any of the Ryzen or Threadripper CPU's are superior.

For one thing the latest versions of Meltdown and Spectre are forcing many older Intel processors to have their Hyperthreading turned off. AMD CPU's are not affected.

Secondly, AMD is close to releasing a 7nm processor while Intel isn't, so AMD is now ahead in CPU technology. Furthermore they continued in their dominance of consoles, the new Playstation and the new Xbox will both have AMD CPU's as do the current generation of each.

But otherwise you need to use NVIDIA GPU's if you want to use Iray in DAZ.

But once again, AMD is the better way to go for a CPU right now, until Intel get's their shit together.