ZBrushCentral

System specs and multimillion polys

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Hi guys, I’m writing with a bit of a peculiar problem here and I’m not sure if anyone can be of help, but I hope so. First off I’d like to say Zbrush works just fine and I use version 3.5, however I have a 5-6 million poly cap that I can’t ever cross without my system freezing or the program crashing. I’ve agonized over upgrading my laptop several times, but being a student (studying games design and illustration) I live and die on budget constraints. I’m also computer illiterate and couldn’t invest so much on specifications I wasn’t confident or certain about, let alone the fact whether or not a better system would make for better sculpts.
I’ve been told the most important asset for running Zbrush is RAM, but since I also use Photoshop and 3DS Max I need a good graphics card with openGL support for PSCS4 or CS5, something my Tecra lacks at the moment.

My question is, versus my current specs and expected Zbrush performance improvement, which of these laptops would you buy or recommend? Secondly, based on the budget (£580), is there anything better out there?

My current laptop specs:

Windows Vista Business
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo at 2.53 GHz
4GB RAM (dxdiag says it’s 2936mb. Not sure where the missing 1000 went)
Mobile Intel 4 Series Express chipset for the graphics
32 bit OS
Not sure how fast my hard drive speed is, but most commercial laptops and store fronts don’t display rpm.

What I’m considering and can afford:

HP Pavilion DV6 (£550)


  • Processor - AMD Phenom II Quad-Core P960 - 1.8 GHz
  • RAM - 6 GB
  • Hard Drive - 750 GB
  • Operating System - Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
  • Graphics - Radeon HD 6470M
Samsung RV511 (£580)


  • Processor - Intel Core i5 - 2.9 GHz
  • RAM - 6 GB
  • Hard Drive - 640 GB
  • Operating System - Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
  • Graphics - NVIDIA GeForce 315M
Samsung RC520 (£525)


  • Processor - Intel Core i5 2410M - 2.3 GHz
  • RAM - 6 GB
  • Hard Drive - 750 GB
  • Operating System - Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
  • Graphics - NVIDIA GeForce GT 520M

#2

From the PCs that you posted I would go with the Samsung RC520. The processor is the best (fastest) out of the ones you posted.

All of them have 6 gigs of ram witch is good. If you could find out what sort of channels the ram has that could also sway the decision. I am guessing these are still DDR2. Hard drive speed does impact Zbrush esp when it starts to compact the memory and writes to the virtual memory but you are right… most places don’t post that. I am sure with some digging you could find it.

From my understanding Zbrush doesn’t use the videocard for rendering. This is awesome for people that don’t have great videocards… but sadness for people that do :slight_smile: The specs you posted on the cards is limited but the extra memory on the Samsung RC520 will be good for sure. If you could find out what series these cards are I could give you more of an opinion. Regardless anything is better than onboard card like you currently have :stuck_out_tongue:

#3

Thanks for responding Nyx.
The RAM for the RC520 is DDR3, the hard drive is a “Serial ATA-300 @ 5400 rpm” (not a clue what that means except that 5400 isn’t as great a speed as could be desired) and the graphics card is a low end GT 520. I’m not sure what you meant by series, but this is the model number: 01G-P3-1523-KR. I know for a fact it supports high definition, openGL 4 and DirectX 11, which would be great for stuff like Photoshop CS5, but like you said, Zbrush doesn’t utilise the graphics card that much. At the moment I’m still not sure if only 2 gb RAM makes that much of a difference, but I’m leaning towards the RC520 as well.

#4

Yea no problem.

Oh great it’s DDR3. Since you are using Win7 64 then the 6 gigs should make a difference. DDR3 works best in multiples of 3.

Yea the hard drive speed isn’t the best but its something that you could easily upgrade later if you wanted too. Serial ATA is the type of cable it uses (also called SATA.)

When I was asking for the gpu series I was asking for the “GT 520” part. Sorry for the confusion. But the 520 GT isn’t terrible. If you are only doing lower-end game stuff it should be alright. Anything is better than onboard. Again, it’s something that is pretty easy to upgrade later if you wish. I would just do a triple check to make sure there isn’t any glaring problems with 3dsMax compatibility. Quadro cards are better for 3d content creation but those…are…stupid expensive. If you were to upgrade anything I would probably upgrade your graphics card first.