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Best hardware to run high-quality simulation?
I am developing a factory simulation in Unity. The quality should be as good as possible (running on two hi-res monitors).
The good thing is that it will be deployed only on one computer, and I am the one to decide what computer it will be (though it should be within $1.5K).
Could you please point me to what should get the highest priority in this case: CPU, graphics card, RAM? If you mention particular models (for graphics card), gigabytes (4, 8 or 16 for RAM), gigahertz (for CPU), it would be wonderful.
Also, based on your experience, could you please approximate how much polygons/tris I can get with that particular machine ($1.5K)?
Thank you very much!
IT all depends on what your simulation does. If it involves a lot of rendering on screen, you want to invest in a good graphics card. If there is a lot of calculation, you want to get a good CPU... assu$$anonymous$$g you can't use CUDA or other GPU accelerated computing method. As for RA$$anonymous$$, the faster it is the better... you also don't want to run out.
This is the best I can tell you with just "high quality simulation" as info...
Answer by CHPedersen · Jul 24, 2013 at 11:08 AM
There is no way to tell, even with gross estimates, how many polygons/triangles a machine will be able to render based on its specs, let alone its price tag. In fact, even if you know exactly what hardware went in it and you've got the exact vendor figures on the graphics card, you still can't tell for sure. This is because hardware vendors have a tendency to exaggerate the capabilities of their graphics cards and report best-case-only-on-their-test-rig-for-like-one-frame amounts of polys or tris.
The only way to be absolutely certain is to develop what you need to develop and then test your exact program on the hardware.
I can give you some overall pointers, however. With computer graphics, the machine will almost always hit the limit on computation before memory. So you should focus your money on the CPU and the graphics card. Don't spend extra to get 16 GB RAM vs 8 GB ram, and don't spend extra on SSD drives vs normal rotating drives. It doesn't sound like you're gonna be rebooting that machine a lot, nor storing a heck of a lot of data on it anyway.
I'm an Intel / NVidia kinda guy, so my suggestions are biased in that direction. ;) If you like AMD and ATI, I can't make recommendations. Don't go below a Core i7 for the CPU. I'd say aim for 3GHz and above. I personally have a really old i7 2.4GHz from 2008, and that thing STILL performs so well I can't find it in me to replace it with something newer. Get DDR3 SDRAM, maybe 1600 MHz should be fine. For the graphics card, aim for NVidia's Geforce GTX series and pick up maybe the GTX670. You can get way better cards than that, but then you won't be able to keep this rig below 1500 dollars. Make sure you get a card from a quality manufacturer, that is, don't buy some no-name Chinese knock-off crap. Get a recognized brand that has a history for making quality hardware. I personally like ASUS and have used their cards a lot, both motherboards and graphics cards. The ASUS GTX670-DC2-2GD5 looks like a decent card for the price.
Thank you very much for such a profound answer! Speaking about polygons, I do not expect to get a precise number. If you have to choose between three values (500$$anonymous$$, 2$$anonymous$$ and 5$$anonymous$$), would you select first, second, or third?
Third, for sure. The exact specs, though indeter$$anonymous$$able as I mentioned, are way higher than that. This site seems to have run a benchmark of the GTX 670 that gave them 1.3 billion, (yes, billion) triangles per second.