When using a 3D modeling application such as Blender, you must ensure that your device meets the minimum software specifications. One of the most critical specifications is how much RAM your computer has.
At a minimum, it is recommended to have at least 8 gigabytes of RAM with your computer to run Blender successfully for most tasks. This includes tasks such as 3D modeling low Poly objects and photo editing. The recommended amount of RAM for any computer is 32 gigabytes if you want to perform the more intensive operations in Blender, such as physics simulations.
Ultimately, the amount of ground you’re going to acquire will depend on the projects that you will be focusing on using the blender software, as some projects can require far more system memory than others.
What Is RAM And Why Does Blender Need It?
Your computer is made-up of different pieces of hardware. The CPU, for example, is the brains of your computer. The GPU is an optional piece of hardware that allows you to perform more extensive tasks such as video games and image rendering.
But another key component of your computer is the RAM, which is the random access memory of your device.
In layman’s terms, the more RAM your computer has, the more tasks that you will be able to perform simultaneously. For example, Google Chrome is quite intensive on system memory. So the more tabs you have open, the more performance is likely to be effective if you don’t have a lot of RAM.
The more RAM you have, the more tasks your computer will be able to have open without any degradation of actual performance.
In Blender’s case, there are a lot of tasks that will require a significant amount of random access memory. Different tasks require different amounts, which is why there is no fixed recommendation for the amount of RAM required to use Blender.
However, the minimum amount that we recommend is going to be 8 gigabytes, as this will allow you to perform the simplest of tasks without any loss of performance with your computer.
Which Tasks Require What Amount Of RAM?
As we previously mentioned, different Blender operations will require different amounts of system memory. So what we have done is we have created a table below where we list the different tasks that you are likely to complete in Blender and the amount of RAM that we recommend for that task.
| Task | Minimum RAM | Recommended RAM |
|---|---|---|
| Navigating The Interface | 2GB | 4GB |
| Navigating The Viewport | 2GB | 8GB |
| 3D Modeling (Low Poly) | 2GB | 8GB |
| 3D Modeling (High Poly) | 4GB | 8GB |
| Scene Creation | 4GB | 16GB |
| Sculpting | 8GB | 16GB |
| Geometry Nodes | 8GB | 16GB |
| Material And Texture Application | 4GB | 16GB |
| Animation | 8GB | 16GB |
| Photo Editing | 8GB | 16GB |
| Video Editing | 8GB | 32GB |
| Physics Simulations | 32GB | 64GB |
| Hair Systems | 16GB | 64GB |
| Image Rendering | 4GB | 16GB+ |
Is RAM Required For Rendering Images?
If you look at the settings with the Cycles render engine, you will notice that you can choose between your CPU and GPU for image rendering. But what about RAM? Is random access memory required for video rendering?
Random access memory is used in conjunction with the CPU or computer processing units. It is used in place of graphics cards, video RAM, or video random access memory.
The amount of RAM you have can be helpful in certain situations for rendering, as most mid to higher-tier computers will have more RAM than VRAM with their GPU.
If a scene requires more memory to render than the graphics card, then the render will fail. You will want to change your rendering target from the GPU to the CPU in this situation, using the RAM instead. An example of this would be when attempting to render a scene that requires 10 gigabytes of memory.
If your graphics card only has 6 gigabytes, the render will fail. However, if your computer has 16 gigabytes of RAM, you can change the CPU, and it will render the image without any issues.
The only drawback here is that, in most cases, the GPU will render much faster than the CPU.
Thanks For Reading
We appreciate you taking the time to read through this article, and we hope you found the information you were looking for. If you’re interested in learning more about the specifications of using the blender software, you can try out some of the other articles listed below.
