PC Specs

[SonAnima]

So what is everyones pc specs for running fallout 4? I just ran into the limitations of my laptop as I cant use Substance Painter anymore without it instantly crashing when loading a material heavy project. My specs are

16gb

Radon R5 M335 

4 core Core i7

Just asking as Im gonna need to upgrade as It seems like I cant make quality retextures for my weapon mods. I also can run the game for at least 2/3 hours before letting the laptop cool down and I want longer play time. 

[DiodeLadder]

Hello SonAnima,

My machine is far from the high end stuff in 2023, but here's my machine :

i7 2600k (oc'd to 4.2 GHz)

32 GB RAM

Radeon RX6700XT (12 GB VRAM)

About Substance Painter, I've seen it taking up a lot of RAM, but I don't think I saw it approaching anywhere close to 32 GB in my experience.  I do use lots of layers, and perhaps I'm not the most efficient user, but I think 32 GB is okay for the stuff I do.

I use AMD GPU mostly because NVIDIA cards tend to have higher DPC latency.  My PC is primarily used for music/audio work, and high DPC latency would be problematic in that context.  Also, NVIDIA drivers tend to be not so great at supporting OpenGL, and I've seen some plugins having issues in the past.

AMD is, however, terrible at supporting multiple monitors, and their GPUs tend to have weird issues like 2nd monitor flickering or system instability.  AMD drivers have been very good since this summer, but that hasn't always been the case.

If you are primarily a graphics artist, I'd recommend going NVIDIA.  Blender, Substance, Autodesk stuff, they all have full NVIDIA GPU support.  AMD pretty much is not competing in graphics artists' space.  

[South8028]

If I were putting together something for fo4 + 3ds + photoshop today, based on a very modest budget, I would take a Ryzen 7 5800x, 32GB of RAM, rtx 2080ti. I buy everything on Ali and for my region such an assembly would cost no more than ~600-700$. Price varies by country... Tax Fees. You can also take the old server from Ali. For example ryzen threadripper 1920x-1950x. Motherboard + 1920x + 64GB of RAM is ~$700.

[SonAnima]

Sorry for the late reply but thanks for the recommendations. I didnt know about DPC issue affecting music performance and thanks for letting me know. Idk what DAW that your using but I do know that some VST's can take forever to load (samplers can eat up a lot of ram while some synths can really push your processor) and I dont want to make things worst. It sounds like 64GB of ram will be better for me so I can still use my DAW to make sound effects, music, and still be able to work things like Substance Painter without messing with the settings too much. A 8 core processor should do the trick. Sounds like a intel processor would be better due to me wanting multiple monitors?  As for the GPU I will look into the NVIDIA series as it sounds like it does exactly what I want it to do. My dream set up will have 3 monitors as it would be nice to have 3ds max, any files/ substance painter, and the creation kit all on separate monitors. Same for music as I hate having to constantly open and close multiple screens. 

 

[DiodeLadder]

I think I should have worded better about AMD.  I am actually running a 3 monitor setup with 6700XT, and it's rock solid NOW, but the drivers before late July this year had problems with 2+ monitor setups.  I had the same issue with RX580 - the first 2 years I owned it, their drivers had issues with multi monitor setup, but they got resolved.  AMD really sucks at writing good drivers at card launch, but once the drivers are solid, their cards are good.  I'm grudgingly happy with my AMD card for now, lol.

The DPC latency issue in NVIDIA cards may have been resolved in the very recent drivers, also, so you may want to check that.  The DPC latency only matters in DAW if you need very low latency monitoring while recording under high CPU load - which can be necessary if you are using software instruments running in real time, but not if you are just editing sound effects.  How this is important really depends on how much you are willing to push your system.  With the current CPUs, though, it's highly unlikely that you get anywhere near maxing CPU usage in DAW.  Going NVIDIA probably won't cause problems today.

64 GB RAM - in the context of music production, this much RAM is necessary only if you are using a full orchestral sample library template with multiple microphone positions turned on.  If you are doing regular pop/rock/EDM type stuff, you only really need 16 GB.  

[SonAnima]

3 hours ago, DiodeLadder said:

64 GB RAM - in the context of music production, this much RAM is necessary only if you are using a full orchestral sample library template with multiple microphone positions turned on.  If you are doing regular pop/rock/EDM type stuff, you only really need 16 GB.  

Yep I figured that the hard way many months ago when it comes to orchestral. Kontakt is a killer when it comes to ram especially Sonokinetic VST's(then again its my fault I I didnt read that they recommend 16GB as a STARTING point). I tried composing some tracks that are heavy on instrumentation and I cant even open those tracks anymore without my DAW crashing lol. Even with tracks that are just strings Im pushing 12 - 15 GB which is annoying (this remains true even when I avoid using Sonokinetic). I want to use 64 GB as a starting point for orchestral and leave room for expansion should the need arise.