upgrading hardware

>download speccy
>take a screenshot
>post it here

Those specs are a little on the low side but nothing that should give you a really horrible experience, particularly in Zbrush. Need to see your GPU specification but last year I was using Zbrush on an iMac from 2007, 2.2ghz Core 2 Duo, with 4 gigs RAM and no dedicated graphics - and unbelievably it ran it ok. Not kidding.

That said, Macs are known for sometimes getting better performance with lower specs than Windows based systems, so go figure.

But anyway - yeah, there's no such thing as too much RAM and if you have space for another 8gb you'll see a big leap in performance all round and it will cost you very little cash, really.

>>544818

>>no such thing as too much RAM and if you have space for another 8gb

Yeah this. 8gb is not an inadequate amount of RAM, but by today's standards it's not a lot either. Get a hardware resource monitoring utility like Speccy or Open Hardware Monitor (both free) and they'll tell you if your RAM is all being gobbled up.

Ideally you need a good bit of RAM overhead btw - that is to say that if your system is at 85-90% load, it'll feel lumpy.

File: Screenshot (12).png (273KB, 822x1029px) Image search: [Google]

273KB, 822x1029px

>>544818

as far as this first year or so of learning zbrush, the way i saw it the poor stats will just help me be aware of document size. but its starting to run alittle chunky. Mostly i need to upgrade for substance painter though.
>>544819

Ok so I definitely need ram then. thats a relief i know thats not too expensive. I heard there's a bunch of factors in determining which kind of ram to go with?

>>544828
ram is just how much space a program needs. cpu is what determinants speed

>>544830

Jesus fucking Christ this place just amazes me sometimes...


Anyway OP - yeah, um, ignore that retard up there. As for type of RAM; no big deal - just figure out how many RAM slots you've got left open on your mobo and then, hopefully if you've got the same amount left open as you have got used up - you just go right ahead and buy whatever you've got in there already again.

8gb should be under $50 on eBay - do consider buying used stuff because the stuff you need right now is exactly the kind of stuff people are getting rid of for cheap in order to make way for bigger RAM upgrades.
If you're not in a hurry - once you've figured out the modules you need, look for auctions on eBay (as opposed to 'Buy It Now' listings) and you'll get a bargain - especially *after* Christmas because that's when nobody buys anything and people have to start selling stuff to pay off their credit card bills.

File: tumblr_lmhnw8aaab1qb9lruo1_r1_500.jpg (39KB, 500x440px) Image search: [Google]

39KB, 500x440px

>>544833
cool, thanks for your help everyone. I will scrape ebay and kijiji for deals.

File: zb64.png (30KB, 706x318px) Image search: [Google]

30KB, 706x318px

>>544833

Oh wait... are you using Zbrush 64bit? Because if not... um... your problem may not be RAM, but it may be easy to fix.

If you're just using the regular Zbrush executable, (and you probably are desu) it's only 32bit - and it can't exploit any more than 4gb RAM.

So... if you're in 32bit Zbrush, try using the 64bit version (its installed already - just go into your Zbrush program directory and you'll find another .exe in there titled 'Zbrush64' (pic related)

This will use all your 8gb of RAM - if that doesn't solve it - your problem isn't RAM. Sorry.

Totally forgot that Zbrush is still x86... my bad.

>>544835

Ah... check this first dude:

>>544836

Sorry to get ur hopes up....

more ram won't help in substance, the bottleneck is most likely gpu ram

>>544836
im using 64 bit desu ^_^

File: 4b377621166b91c20bd8f0d998c28e3e.jpg (72KB, 564x910px) Image search: [Google]

72KB, 564x910px

>>544837
>>544833
even chrome seems to constantly crash these days. hopefully the ram fixes everything. I tend to leave everything open all day

>>544816

I have 32gb of ram. Substance painter 2 and zbrush still run slow sometimes. An ssd will be better for saving large files which I find causes the most crashes.

>>544867
zbrush is only32bit m8

>>544867
crashing at high resolutions is entirely vram related

>>544816
16 gigs of ram will smooth things out but make sure you have more than 1 gig of vram also or you will suffer.