Best Video Card for Cinema 4D
Cinema 4D by Maxon is one of the most popular design applications for 3D artists. You will need a strong PC to not slow you down when you are working on your projects. Does Cinema 4D need a video card? Find the best video card for Cinema 4D in this article.
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Maxon Cinema 4D
Maxon Cinema 4D is a 3D computer animation, modeling, simulation, and rendering software for professionals. It comes with a fast, powerful, flexible, and stable toolset. That makes your 3D workflows more accessible and efficient. Furthermore, Cinema 4D produces stunning results, whether working on your own or in a team. Because of all those reasons, C4D is an ideal package for design, motion graphics, visual effects, Augmented Reality / Mixed Reality / Virtual Reality, game development, and all types of visualization professionals.
Cinema 4D is widely recognized as one of the easiest and most accessible 3D packages to learn and use. It has two in-built renderers – Standard and Physical Renderer – and works with several render engines such as Redshift (Maxon), OctaneRender (Otoy), Arnold (Autodesk), V-Ray (Chaos), Corona (Chaos), and many more. In addition, C4D is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux platforms.
Cinema 4D System Requirements
The following are system requirements for Cinema 4D of the latest release 2023:
- For Windows PC:
Operating System: Windows 10 Version 1809 or higher – or Windows 11.
Processor: 64-bit Intel or AMD CPU with AVX support.
Memory: 8 GB RAM minimum, recommended 16 GB.
Video card: Minimum: NVIDIA Maxwell GPU, AMD Polaris (AMD GCN 4), Intel Kaby Lake or newer supporting DirectX 12 with feature level 11.0. The minimum GPU Drivers are NVIDIA 461.40, AMD 21.3.2, and Intel 27.20.100.9168.
- For Mac:
Operating System: macOS 10.15.7 or higher.
Processor: Intel-based Apple Macintosh with AVX support or Apple M1/M2-powered Mac.
Memory: 4 GB RAM minimum, recommended 8 GB.
Video card: macOS GPUFamily1 v3 or higher (Metal), only officially supported hardware by Apple (GPU), or only officially supported hardware (e-GPU).
Best Video Card for Cinema 4D
So you know the basic system requirements of Cinema 4D. Now we will look closer at a PC component – a video card. Let’s see what is the best video card for Cinema 4D.
The role of video card in Cinema 4D
As a modeling software, Cinema 4D is largely CPU-bound and does not rely much on the GPU. Cinema 4D includes a Physical render engine as well as a Standard render engine. Because they are both CPU-based, Cinema 4D lacks a native GPU-based render engine. Although Cinema 4D’s Standard and Physical Renderers are popular, they lack several features that have long been included in third-party renderers.
Therefore, if you want to use GPU rendering, you will have to buy a third-party GPU render engine. Such as Redshift, OctaneRender, Arnold GPU, V-Ray GPU, or AMD ProRender, to name a few. For GPU Rendering in those third-party render engines, you will need one or multiple powerful GPUs. We recommend you purchase two, four, or even more GPUs to accelerate your rendering speed the most. Aside from the raw speed, another important part here is the VRAM of your video card. How much VRAM you will need to render your scenes? If your render engine of choice can use system memory if the scene does not fit into your GPU’s VRAM? The questions will determine how much VRAM you need or your video card must have.
Best video card for Cinema 4D
For most Cinema 4D Users, there is no need to purchase an expensive “Professional” or “Workstation” video card such as Nvidia Quadro. The mainstream video card can handle everyday tasks very well. For example, Nvidia GeForce GTX, RTX, and AMD Radeon RX. However, Nvidia’s RTX Line-Up is a good deal, because of their greater performance for the same price range. Also, Nvidia’s RTX Line-Up can work with almost all GPU render engines for Cinema 4D. The following are some suggestions for the best video card for Cinema 4D:
1) Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070
2) Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080
3) Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090
4) Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090
If you use ProRender or another GPU Render Engine that supports AMD’s video cards, you can consider getting one or more AMD GPUs. Radeon RX 6800XT is a good option.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Cinema 4D needs video cards for GPU rendering in Redshift, OctaneRender, and other third-party GPU render engines. The GPU from Nvidia’s RTX series is the best video card for Cinema 4D. And you can also select AMD cards if you solely use ProRender or render engines that support AMD GPUs.
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