I notice zbrush uses a lot of ram.
I wish i own a super system one day.
But for now this is what i have to work with.
QuadCore q9300
4gig Ram
Geforce 9600 video card
would 2 or 4 gig of ram improve the performance of my current setting?
Thx in advance!
Generally speaking, Ram is always helpful for graphics work, but Zbrush itself can only ever use 4gb max. However, just because you have 4gmb of ram doesn’t mean all of it is available to ZB…the OS takes a chunk. A couple more GB would free that up, and make sure the full amount was available to ZB.
This assumes you’re using 64 bit OS. Larger amounts of Ram are wasted in 32 bit OS.
In answer to your question, yes, 2-4GB more RAM will help with high-poly models in 64-bit OS such as Vista64.
The OS will need 512M-1GB for itself. Other background process may chew up a little more memory. You want a full 4GB free for ZB. Most of my machines are 6 or 8GB. This lets me run a second application such as Modo, Silo or Photoshop. Much more than 8GB may be wasted depending on what other applications are running.
Also ZB 3.5 is coming out next week and ZB4 later this year. That may change things, so more is likely better.
Thx for the reply.
Should i still get more ram if I am running a window xp 32bit os?
I afraid to change to a 60bit os because i ran to a lot of problems with apps and other software.
No, your ram is wasted in 32 bit OS. It can’t even use all the Ram you have already.
There are very few issues with 64 bit OS, and most desktop applications. You’ll have more problems just by virtue of going from XP to Vista or Win 7, than you will from going from 32 bit to 64 bit specifically.
But as long as you’re stuck on 32 bit Win XP, you wont be able to use all the Ram that you have, and the most Ram that can be used per application is 2Gb, no matter how much ram you put in the machine.
I’m curious, what kind of performance issues are you experiencing? You’re system sounds like a “super” system. I’ve got half the cores of what your processor has and half the RAM, yet I don’t have any issues with ZBrush. Are you running on a Mac or PC? Are you running Windows on a Mac?