Since Iray has been introduced in 2015 the same issues and challenges remain unadressed for GPU rendering with DAZ Studio:
DAZ Studio does not offer any official tools that show accurate VRAM information of the current scene.
As a consequence users do not have any clear way to tell when exactly Iray switches from GPU mode to CPU mode when scenes do not fit the VRAM.
In 2017 VRAM is still a scarce resource. Users have to carefully choose texture sizes and subidvision levels of geometry.
Currently DAZ Studio users are forced to make such changes blindly in a trial and error way without knowing for sure if the scene will fit VRAM or not.
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Based on some other posts a main challenge of monitoring VRAM is that information can only be gathered when the live rendering preview viewport is in use.
It seems some artists and developers creating plugins and addons for DAZ Studio either are struggling with this limitation or do not feel like customers are interested in accurate VRAM information.
Nevertheless, on a regular basis there are threads on the forum of customers who are confused
- if Iray is running in CPU or GPU mode
- how to know exactly how much space each texture and scene object takes in VRAM.
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Since 2013 the OctaneRender plugin for DAZ Studio featured both basic and even advanced tools to monitor the scene size in VRAM and even adjust the texture size.
VRAM Summary of the scene
- size of textures
- size of geometry
- space reserved for the rendered images (frame buffer)
- space used by the software itself (engine runtime data, nodesystem data)
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Tools to reduce texture size with VRAM information included
How VRAM information is gathered in other 3rd party plugins
As long as the live render engine viewport is not active there is no VRAM information available. Nevertheless the moment the live viewport is activated all the VRAM information based on the current scene remains available until the moment the user makes any changes to the scene.
I hoped that sooner or later someone at DAZ3D would be able to make a similar workflow possible with Nvidia Iray:
-> When the Iray live preview window is in use then all the information about VRAM use should in theory be accessible.
- step 1) user activates the Iray live preview windows so VRAM information of the current scene is gathered
- step 2) VRAM information for the current scene is displayed in DAZ Studio, plugins and addons
- step 3) user makes changes to texture size and geometry in addons based on the information gathered
- step 4) automatically or manually refresh the Iray live preview viewport and update VRAM scene information
- repeat as necessary until scene fits into VRAM
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@ Are there allready tools available?
- It is true that those who have access to OctaneRender for DAZ Studio plugin can also use it to gather an estimate if the scene will fit into VRAM in Iray as well.
Nevertheless, especially with the large scenes who use the full amount of VRAM it takes a considerable amount of time of reloading scenes when switching render engines.
It is not a smart workflow to switch back between Iray and other 3rd party render engines if the current project should be rendered in Iray in a quick and efficient way.
Furthermore, it cannot be expected of DAZ Studio users to pay large amounts of money for 3rd party render engines just to get access to accurate VRAM information.
- From time to time you can find addons like "Memory Assistants" or "Scene Optimizers" in the DAZ store. But unfortunately they also do not actually gather the accurate VRAM scene information but provide mere estimates on the object level based on calculations.
- Other users seem to rely on 3rd party tools like GPU-Z and CPUID which also provide mere general estimates and were not designed with the intent of providing detailed information about VRAM usage separated into cateogories geometry, textures and software.
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Request and open questions:
Accurate statistics of a scene size in VRAM should be a basic feature of any 3d software that features GPU rendering.
1) Why does DAZ Studio still not have any official tools that show detailed VRAM usage of the current scene?
2) Are there any plans to include such tools in the next DAZ Studio version?
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Submitted as Request #242785
This thread provides some additional information about how VRAM scene information works in 3rd party plugins that was not included in the submitted request.