On GPUs and the future (Patreon)
Content
I need some input, guys. I'm a bit of a bind. I need help deciding on my new GPU purchase.
So, as most of you know, I'm working on a literal potato GPU from 2016, an old 1060GTX, and while I can still work, I'm running into more and more problems as time goes on. My GPU is a massive bottleneck. It's damn near 6 years old by this point. I'm worried it might just crap out on me any day now, and I'll be stuck rendering on my APU, which, while possible, would set me back lightyears in terms of how much I can produce.
My Patreon page is exploding with new patrons, and I'm starting to make actual, serious cash from you guys supporting me. The thing is I can't help but feel I'm not delivering enough actual content. I manage 1 animation per week due to hardware constraints, but I know I could crank out 2 with the proper hardware. It's a massive hindrance to my workflow and my render time.
I'm spending an ungodly amount of time on rendering animations, because my GPU is so ancient, and because I've started to render up so many versions of my animations. I mean, it's fine because I want to reward you guys for supporting me, but it's seriously eating up the time I can spend on animating. I had the entire day off yesterday, time I could have spent on making animations, but I was forced to waste it on letting my computer render forever. It's kind of killing my motivation. It's difficult to explain, but once I start rendering an animation, I'm pretty much done with it. I want to move on to something new and tackle that, but instead I'm usually stuck rendering stuff for a good two days on my off time.
Then there's my workflow. My FPS in Blender when I play animations is so atrocious that I can't really preview what my animations look like unless I render them out and play them as a video file. It's the most ridiculous thing, and it adds so much wasted rendering time that breaks up my animating, and it's just frustrating to no end.
So. Why am I telling you guys all this? I need a new GPU. It's just obvious. The problem is I don't know what to get, and when to get it. The current price of GPUs is still pants on head retarded, but prices are dropping fast. By all accounts, I should wait another 6 months or so for the next 4000gtx series to get released by Nvidia, but I'd be stuck in this crappy GPU limbo for another six months.
So I can bite the bullet, buy an overpriced GPU and really start cranking up my production right now, or I can wait 6 months, continue at this snail's pace but have an awesome futureproof GPU for years to come. I just don't really know what to do.
I'm not going to beg for even more money from you guys for my GPU fund, I just want you guys to know I appreciate all you've done for me over the last couple of months. It's quite the journey, and I hope I'll be able to take the next step soon.
Anyway, this was my blogpost. Thanks for reading. Animation is done tonight.