Graphics card requirements for Enscape are serious. Hard to understand.

1st Official Post

    Graphics card requirements for Enscape are serious. It is a bit beyond my ken. Who is going to make this easy for me? I have AMD 15DD Graphics card and Enscape says it's out of date. Trying to use the graphics card update Enscape recommmends for 3.2.0 didn't work either, I guess because my existing graphics card is so meager. But my computer guy says what I need is simply a bigger video card, because mine only has 1 GB ram (or vram?), and that is what he plans to get for me. But he says it's takes a long time to get video cards because everything is slowed down because of pandemic. Reading these comments here and anywhere about graphics card requirements for Enscape is like reading Greek. Have never had to get this involved in graphics cards. Takes a certain level of expertise. Wish Enscape could make it easier. I have HP desktop and windows 10.

  • NoMasCorona

    Changed the title of the thread from “Graphics card requirements for Enscape are serious. It is a bit beyond my ken. Who is going to make this easy for me. I have AMD 15DD Graphics card and Enscape says it's out of date. But my computer guy says what I just need a bigger video card.” to “Graphics card requirements for Enscape are serious. Hard to understand.”.
    • Official Post

    NoMasCorona , welcome to our Forum!


    Indeed, if your graphics card only has 1GB of VRAM (Graphics card memory), then you will not be able to run Enscape - You will have to acquire a GPU with at least 4GB of VRAM, ideally more. I also understand the situation is dire lately when it comes to more modern GPUs which cannot be acquired at the moment, or only for insane prices.


    Besides that, if the GPU is suitable for Enscape, most of the time the rest of your machine would suffice, especially if you're able to use Revit, SketchUp, Rhino or ArchiCAD without Enscape, without any performance problems.


    In this case, I recommend you further refer to your system admin, to perhaps look for a good deal on a used GPU, or you're going to be lucky and get one new for a decent price. Which may be unlikely for a couple more months at least.

    The current Nvidia cards are the 30 series, such as 3060, 3070, 3080.

    The previous generation is the 20 series, I have a 2070 that has 8Gb of vram and its working well for my needs, you/your computer guy could look for a second hand 20 series though as Demian pointed out the market is nasty at the moment with ridiculous prices for anything out there.

    Whilst 4Gb of vram is the min that Enscape supports I'd highly recommend you do not get anything less than 8Gb.


    Whilst it would be slower you could look for a 10 series such as a 1080 but that would only be if a 20 (or 30) isn't available.


    In all honesty, it could be cheaper to buy a new system from the likes of HP/Dell with the card you want as they have better access/supply chains to the 'good stuff'

    I had no idea it (Enscape) would be this difficult and expensive! I don't know anything about graphics cards, even though I'm quite proficient with SketchUp, Vray and Corona Render (which I use with Cinema4D and SketchUp). This is a whole new thing. I used all of those programs on my two or three year old HP Pavillion Desktop 590-P0024 computer (with the AMD15DD graphics card) with no problem except I added some ram. I don't even know what to shop for. What would I be shopping for? How would I describe what I need? Thank you.

    I have another question. Is there a chance, if I do get the proper graphics card, that I will be able to run Enscape on my 2017 version of Sketchup? Your specifications say only 2018 and up (but I guess you mean Sketchup Pro; don't think they refer to their versions with year numbers anymore) but when I tried to open my trial Enscape plug in, the only message was about my graphics card, so I was hoping maybe it would work in my 2017 version. Thank you.

    • Official Post
    Quote from NoMasCorona

    I had no idea it (Enscape) would be this difficult and expensive! I don't know anything about graphics cards, even though I'm quite proficient with SketchUp, Vray and Corona Render (which I use with Cinema4D and SketchUp). This is a whole new thing. I used all of those programs on my two or three year old HP Pavillion Desktop 590-P0024 computer (with the AMD15DD graphics card) with no problem except I added some ram. I don't even know what to shop for. What would I be shopping for? How would I describe what I need? Thank you.

    It really only is difficult and complicated at first - Once you've wrapped your head around the current GPU models available, there really are not that many which we would really recommend. You can of course also always refer to our system requirements just to see which GPU's we list. I'm not sure what you mean by "what would I be shopping for", are you referring to the GPU now or other PC components? This is also usually where the system administrator comes into play which should be able to clear a few things up and give you perhaps a brief introduction into which PC components are important for 3D rendering (Which Enscape does) and such, but any further questions can also be directed at me/us of course!


    Quote from NoMasCorona

    I have another question. Is there a chance, if I do get the proper graphics card, that I will be able to run Enscape on my 2017 version of Sketchup? Your specifications say only 2018 and up (but I guess you mean Sketchup Pro; don't think they refer to their versions with year numbers anymore) but when I tried to open my trial Enscape plug in, the only message was about my graphics card, so I was hoping maybe it would work in my 2017 version. Thank you.

    SketchUp 2017 is not officially supported I'm afraid. Even if it may work under some circumstances still, you'll usually run into issues sooner than later. In this case, we recommend upgrading to SketchUp 2018 or above.


    Quote from NoMasCorona

    What does "disabled" mean on my post? Starting to feel like I'm being censored like on twitter. Is that helpful to the potential Enscape community if you hide posts by people with problems?

    NoMasCorona , we do not censor anything in this Forum and never have, never will, and never could unless it really is spam or something insulting to us or the community - Every new user has a period of a day in which their posts get approved manually by the Enscape team to simply avoid incoming spam (because many users come into the Forum posting something normal, only to then replace their message with ads/spam afterward), which was a problem before I've added this rule. Pardon the confusion, but you're neither disabled nor censored here.

    Thank you very much Demian. When I saw "disabled" on my posts it reminded me of twitter and I jumped to a conclusion. I have appreciated your replies very much, right from the very first one. In terms of "what I would ask for," if I went shopping for a new computer now, I guess I understand now the words I need are a 'dedicated/discreet VRAM of at least 4GB.' I guess I have to get my head around how much I would have to spend (on a big VRAM and probably SketchUp) just to get started with the Enscape trial. I guess there is no way around that. Thx.

    • Official Post

    NoMasCorona , always happy to help!


    Now, thanks for clearing that up, and let me help with clearing some further things:


    If you do wish to go shopping for a new machine entirely, which is probably recommended since your current one may have other components that drag the graphics card (which is MOST important for Enscape) down in terms of performance:


    What you want to ask for is a machine with a Graphics Card that has at least 4GB of VRAM, ideally though 8GB+ is what we truly recommend. If there is a chance for you to let me know what kind of machines or Graphics Cards in those machines specifically are available for purchase, please simply let me know here and I'll gladly get back to you with further info regarding which GPU (Graphics Card) would be suited the most! :)


    Not to confuse you any further, but, it's rather simple when it comes to the Graphics Cards at least from the manufacturer NVIDIA (there really only are two large companies producing them, AMD and NVIDIA and we usually recommend NVIDIA cards):



    Have a look at this graph above (source), and you will see that it's mostly 3xxx and 2xxx cards listed there alongside some Quadros or Titans. The Titan cards are usually very, very expensive and mostly not worth the price (in my opinion) while the Quadro cards are also a lot more expensive compared to their counterpart non-Quadro cards (You pay a lot extra for Quadros since they're rather used for applications with complex calculations and NVIDIA offers more advanced support for them, neither is needed for Enscape pretty much).


    So, this basically leaves cards like the RTX 2070, or RTX 3070 and so forth, plus using this list above allows you to check the "Performance Total" which is simply put how well the card will work with Enscape!


    Summed up, if there is any chance you can find a machine with any of these cards above, mostly non-Quadro or Titan's that is, go for it, and keep the performance rating in mind as well because the more performance you have, the more fluent your experience will be in Enscape. :) Those are all cards with at least 8GB of VRAM as well, again, what we recommend!


    If anything is unclear, please just let me know. It's a pleasure clearing some things up.


    Finally, please also keep in mind that the Graphics Card situation is pretty bad these days and even lower cards like the RTX 2060 (the slowest in the 2xxx lineup) go for incredibly high prices due to shortages and Cryptocurrency mining. This means that worst case you'll either have to wait a bit longer, find a good deal online or in a store, or pay a bit or a lot more extra.

    I don't know where you are in the world but I'll assume the US,

    Here's an HP Omen 40L: https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/…av-1_omen-40l-gaming-desk


    • It has an Intel i7 12700 processor and an Nvidia RTX 3060 with 12Gb of vRam .... You could pick a faster 3070 but it only has 8Gb of vRam, if it was me I'd go for the 3060 with its 12Gb .... The alternative is a 3080 at a ridiculous price.
    • I'd recommend AT LEAST 16Gb of Memory but I'd go for 32 if I could afford it.
    • For storage, I'd keep the 512Gb SSD for Windows and all the other apps (C Drive) but add a 2Tb 2nd HD to store all my files (D Drive).

    I'm in the UK so supplies/prices are different. Assuming you are in the US is there a Microcentre near you?, I've no idea about their reputation but they seem like they stock everything and are/can be helpful. https://www.microcenter.com/site/stores/default.aspx

    Demian, et al: Would an "Asus PH-GTX1050TI-4G GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB Phoenix Fan Edition Graphics Card" be acceptable? I find that on Ebay. Since the others (at Best Buy) are either sold out or too expensive. I simply want to try Enscape. I have a two year old HP Pavillion I want to use. My computer guy told me I will need a new monitor with an HDMI port since mine does not have one, which I didn't realize. Glad he let me know. Is that true with the graphics card I quoted above (or any/all of these dedicated graphics cards)? Thank you. Attached below you will see, at Best Buy, the place I depend on, everything in my price range is sold out. Thanks!

    "Finally, please also keep in mind that the Graphics Card situation is pretty bad these days and even lower cards like the RTX 2060 (the slowest in the 2xxx lineup) go for incredibly high prices due to shortages and Cryptocurrency mining. This means that worst case you'll either have to wait a bit longer, find a good deal online or in a store, or pay a bit or a lot more extra." I feel like I just read this last paragraph of yours, Demian. I am certainly finding that out to be true. That is why I would like to try out the Nvidia 1050 4GB I mentioned above, if it will work at all. I am a commercial interior designer; not sure my files (SketchUp) are as big as an architect's, but not sure. Seems my last few SketchUp project models (before I imported them into Cinema4D and then rendered them in Corona) were between 25 and 75 MBs, or more. Is the "Asus PH-GTX1050TI-4G GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB Phoenix Fan Edition Graphics Card" an Nvidia card? I thought that's what Ebay said but not sure about the way they have it worded. Please see below... Thanks.

    Would either of these desktops be good?


    HP OMEN - 25L Gaming Desktop - 10th Generation Intel Core i5-10400 - 8GB Memory - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER - 512GB SSD - Shadow Black


    CyberPowerPC - Gamer Master Gaming Desktop - AMD Ryzen 5 3600 - 8GB Memory - AMD Radeon RX 6600 - 500GB SSD - Black


    Thank you!

    Demian I thought you said you would respond to me if I gave examples of a desktop machine I was thinking about. What about the two examples above? Your posts are very helpful. I still don't think you may understand what new territory this whole video graphics card is for people who might other wise be capable renderers, who have never had to deal with this before. I understand now (but it took a while) that I will never find a graphics card at a reasonable price, and that I need to find a new computer. Just wondering if "gaming computer" is what I want. Thank you.

    Actually now I see when I specify the 2070 when looking for an Nvidia graphics card on Ebay, rather than leaving that out, some options do come up for used cards. So I see I'm not limited to the 1050. I wasn't specifying the 2070 number in prior searches. Still very close to buying a new machine, however, since with a graphics card I would need a new monitor with the HDMI connection, and would have to make that connection between card and the monitor. My current machine is only 2 years old but as you say could have some other aspects that drag the performance down.

    Hey there! One thing you might look at is a gaming laptop. Perversley - it seems to be easier to get laptop GPU cards that can handle Enscape than desktop cards. There are a lot of options for reasonably priced laptops that would have the specs to run Enscape. for example: https://www.newegg.com/phantom…-gaming/p/N82E16834645859

    Thank you andybot. I'm not very handy with laptops though, can only use a desktop pc.


    Once I get a used 8 mb GPU and a new monitor with hdmi to accommodate it, that will be 2/3 the price of a new gaming machine. Although a new 4GB 1050 is not very expensive actually, on Ebay. That is one reason why I wish I knew if the 1050 is acceptable.