How do you 3D artists deal with high power consumption in your renders?
Magic Dragon 3D
Posts: 125
Hey guys! I'm back here on the Daz Forums, and I'm experiencing a rather annoying problem when it comes to working with 3D rendering using Daz.
Not to prolong it, but I currently live with my parents and work as a hobbyist in 3D rendering besides my main work as graphic designer (although I want to try to pursue this as a career and I'm already earning something), and recently my stepfather complained a lot to my mother about the electricity bill being very expensive these last few months and the culprit, of course, is Daz Studio which makes my video card work like a slave.
For those who work either as a hobbyist or professionally with renders in Daz Studio, how do you manage to deal with the high cost of electricity caused by long hours of render in Daz? I'm currently producing 3D comics and each scene takes an average of 50min-70min and as I produce 5 pages a week, in total it takes me almost five hours a week to render all the scenes (pages), and this causes my electricity bill to increase a lot.
I have an RTX 3060 12GB with Xeon E5-2670 V3 with 64GB of RAM, and this card can handle my scenes very well and when I need to, I use the Scene Optimizer to reduce the size of the textures to relieve my VRAM. NOTE: I live in Brazil, and here the electricity bill is usually one of the most expensive on the planet due to high taxes.
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Comments
I can't offer many tips on saving electricity, apart from possibly looking at your PSU for a more efficient one. Even then, you'd probably spend more on a new PSU than you'd save over many months or even longer. What I can offer a comparison on is on how much electricity my 12GB RTX 3060 uses. I can notice it on the meter, but it's really not terrible. I probably spend more boiling a kettle of water or toasting some bread for a few minutes than I do in a day.
Are you certain Daz is the culprit? Is it something you're able to measure yourself? If not built into Windows, there are programs you can download to monitor power use. That could help you identify any spikes beyond normal load. I'll have a look at my system tonight, but my finger in the air is that Daz doesn't seem to use much more than normal gaming would.
my consumption went down considerably after underclocking my GPU with MSI Afterburner
there are Youtube tutorials but basically one creates a profile where instead of a curve it levels off to as straight line upon reaching a chosen board power draw wattage
I've had a look at some numbers while rendering a scene to a 4072x5760 image, which I believe are the dimensions of a piece of paper at a fairly high resolution. Averaging around 115W draw on my RTX 3060 GPU. For the prices here, that apparently equates to around 3p an hour (4c). There will be other components using energy too while the computer is on, although nothing that really stands out like the GPU. The PSU will be wasting some energy too. The house idles around 1 to 2p an hour; the meter shows 6 to 7p (8 to 9c) an hour while rendering.
While rendering, have you thought about turning your monitor off? I see a drop on my energy meter when I do that.
Oh, for comparison, boiling a kettle costs 77p an hour (almost a dollar), and the oven costs 42p (50c)
And I monitor using this: https://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor-pro.html
The most efficient method to reduce electricity costs for render is to use art supplies and draw/paint in the garden during the day.
Unfortunately, the only way I know of to reduce your local electricity bill is to use an online rendering service. I think DAZ 3D boosts Boost.
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/386061/cloud-rendering?srsltid=AfmBOop3waHpNvcFo2tIBmcW9lDB98T7MWB7QJOuY6yUgzFGVN5ltojf
https://irendering.net/daz-studio-render-farm-service/
I haven't noticed much if any difference, also I have to because my PSU not powerfull enough and if the card draws more than 300W board power my PC will blackscreen
I think gaming is where one would see more of a hit
Australia electricity not cheap either
When I had to move back home during covid, my folks' power usage went up. My pops complained a little bit, nothing stressful or anything, and I said just tell me what the difference is from what you all paid before I came back and just paid the difference because I knew that's from Daz. It alleviated any complaints.
I've thought about using cloud rendering services before, but as I'm doing it as a hobby and making little money, I can't afford it. As I make 3D comics, the cost would be very high.
Well, I'll look at some undervolt tutorials and see if that would solve some of this problem. My GPU is a Gainward Ghost RTX 3060 12GB with OC. Sorry for my ignorance, but RTX OC cards tend to use more energy than an RTX without OC?
I think that in fact it wouldn't even be Daz to blame, but rather 3D rendering programs or any software that pushes your CPU-GPU to its limits. I had to make an agreement with my stepfather that every month, I should help with an amount of 50 reais (I think it's about 8 USD. It seems little, but 50 reais here is a lot of money lol) with the money I get from this 3D comic which, by the way, is being commissioned. The problem is that when you want to take a hobby into something serious, you find yourself in boring situations like these (lack of money, high energy costs and another things).
Overclocking definitely uses more energy and usually not advised as shortens the life of the card
article on undervolting and underclocking
https://www.pcworld.com/article/560217/why-you-should-or-shouldnt-undervolt-your-graphics-card.html
I had to watch a video myself to figure it out, I cannot recall which one as so many
One way to reduce render times is... interrupting the render before it finishes. n_n
And then try a denoiser. Here is a test using a generic profile on the free version of Neat Image. The render was only at 24%. The front image is out of the box and the one behind is with the denoiser applied.
Depending on the configuration, the scene, the lighting, etc. You can have a smooth result, in this case, the skin. But other zones could be better.
Here is another test using Topaz Photo AI, again with just a generic setup.
If you compose the image in different layers you can have more detail for example in the hair and face.
Electricity bills vary a lot depending on your location. IM in the city and live by myself. I have my computer on for at least 12 hours a day, not rendering always but when needed. PLus games and other stuff. THat plus other electrical use such as my stove for "cooking", I get a bill for around $60 CAD every month. Why??? Delivery charges are dirt cheap cause the power doens't have far to go.
My mom on the other hand, lives 30 min away and where she is, she uses very little power compared to me except for her small furnace, but the delivery charages out to where she is is just as much as my entire bill.
It could be too that the Utilities company in your area raised their prices too and its just costing more