Max RAM required for Forest pack?

[3dwannab]

I'm going to upgrade my PC and currently have 128GB ram. But I haven't used forest pack in a couple of years and was wondering that is the max ram you folk have encountered. I know this may greatly differ from user to user but I wanted to get a feel for what it's usual RAM usage is on heavy scenes.

There's no point in me getting 128GB again when the max used is less than 64GB.

Thanks in advance.

[Michal Karmazín]

Hi,

I'm afraid there isn't a general rule. With 64GB of RAM, you should generally have enough memory to handle even heavy scenes. However, if your models have a high polycount and you're using high-resolution textures, the memory requirements can increase significantly, even for well-instanced geometry. Some users are currently rendering on machines with 256 GB of RAM.

Best regards,

[DT]

I'm going to upgrade my PC and currently have 128GB ram. But I haven't used forest pack in a couple of years and was wondering that is the max ram you folk have encountered. I know this may greatly differ from user to user but I wanted to get a feel for what it's usual RAM usage is on heavy scenes.

There's no point in me getting 128GB again when the max used is less than 64GB.

Thanks in advance.

RAM isn't that expensive anymore, I wouldn't go with less than 256GB for myself, it allows me to be a little more creative with displacement and scattering. And I'm rarely below 128 anymore since my upgrade. Granted I work on quite heavy scenes with lots of scattering and displacement, or huge projects spanning a couple of KMs. So if I were you I would definitely not go under 128GB.

[Tobias Jansson]

How many RAM slots does the motherboard have? If it has four I would populate two slots with 2x64 GB and then you have two free for more RAM if you need it.

[3dwannab]

Thank you very much, everybody. I was thinking of going with 96GB—so two 48 sticks and upgrade later if need be.

I'm conscious of using RAM in the QVL for the boards I'm thinking of getting; the max is only 2x48 for both, See:

- https://rog.asus.com/motherboards/rog-strix/rog-strix-x870e-e-gaming-wifi/helpdesk_qvl_memory/
- https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/MPG-X870E-CARBON-WIFI/support#mem

The number of slots on these boards is 4 and the ASUS supports up to 192GB and the MSI 256GB so will probably get the MSI as ASUS's Armoury Crate is horrific and I feel they are slipping a bit with the BIOS side of things! MSI's looks really good.

The processor I'm getting will be the 9950X. Not sure if I should wait for the 9950X3d now!!

EDIT: Won't be getting the 3Xd, not needed. Good thread here: https://community.amd.com/t5/pc-processors/is-x3d-important-for-modeling-vfx-and-rendering-professionals/m-p/695209

[financecajole]

Thank you very much, everybody. I was thinking of going with 96GB—so two 48 sticks and upgrade later if need be.

I'm conscious of using RAM in the QVL for the boards I'm thinking of getting; the max is only 2x48 for both, See:

- https://rog.asus.com/motherboards/rog-strix/rog-strix-x870e-e-gaming-wifi/helpdesk_qvl_memory/
- https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/MPG-X870E-CARBON-WIFI/support#mem Slice Master

The number of slots on these boards is 4 and the ASUS supports up to 192GB and the MSI 256GB so will probably get the MSI as ASUS's Armoury Crate is horrific and I feel they are slipping a bit with the BIOS side of things! MSI's looks really good.

The processor I'm getting will be the 9950X. Not sure if I should wait for the 9950X3d now!!

EDIT: Won't be getting the 3Xd, not needed. Good thread here: https://community.amd.com/t5/pc-processors/is-x3d-important-for-modeling-vfx-and-rendering-professionals/m-p/695209

Thank you for sharing.  In short, X3D CPUs' increased cache improves gaming performance but not productivity/professional apps, where clock speed and core count are critical.  For example, a Threadripper 7960X has 128MB of L3 cache for all 24 cores (5.3MB/core), whereas a 7950X3D has 64MB for 16 cores and an additional 64MB for 8 gaming cores.  (12MB per gaming core).