The new Intel HEDT High-End Desktop W2400 and W3400 processors are finally making it to Canada retailers.
I will be building a workstation using either a 16-Core W5-2465X or 20-Core W7-2475X processor.
These W2400 processors are in the latest Intel Xeon series and support up to 2TB of memory.
I would like to go with a W3400 series processor such as the 16-Core w5-3435X, which supports up to 4TB of memory, but the extra processor cost and motherboard cost (for 8-Channel memory) will probably push it out of my budget.
My plans are to use this new workstation with TerreSculptor and Unreal Engine 4 and 5.
TerreSculptor supports heightmap terrains up to 18 Exabytes, which is 2 Billion x 2 Billion pixels.
With 512GB of memory I will be able to test the software up to 370727 x 370727 maximum terrain size (370km x 370km at meter spacing).
With Unreal Engine 4 and 5, my current top-end computer with 128GB of memory can import heightmaps into World Partition up to 32km x 32km. This is 1024 sq km.
With 512GB of memory that will quadruple the area that I can import, meaning that my importing service will be able to handle heightmaps up to 64km x 64km or 4096 sq km.
Unreal Engine is poorly optimized for Landscape heightmap importing, so even with the heightmap data being half the resolution quality (UE 16-bit vs TS 32-bit), Unreal Engine can only import a heightmap that is a fraction the size that TerreSculptor can work with.
Epic needs to work on improving this.
The 64km x 64km 4096 sq km import would only be possible with Unreal Engine 5.0.3, as 5.1+ limit the import size to 16384 x 16384 (16km x 16km).
With World Composition Tiling I should be able to do right up to the full 370km x 370km that TerreSculptor supports, with 512GB of memory.
The actual World Composition size would be a tile set of 45 x 45 tiles of 8129 x 8129 which is a total world size of 365805 x 365805 or 365km x 365km.
I will have to wait until I get the workstation built, and perform a number of Unreal Engine tests, and then update my Services page for the additional new Landscape sizes that I will be able to support.
My current services are limited by my current top-end computer which is an AMD R9-5950X 16-Core, ASUS ROG X570 Crosshair Hero, 128GB DDR4, ASUS ROG RTX-3090 24GB.
Bumping up the maximum memory that I will have available is more important than cores, so starting off with 512GB upgradable to 2TB will be a great start.
With 2TB of memory (the workstation future maximum) TerreSculptor will be able to work with heightmaps up to 741454 x 741454 (740km x 740km).
-eof-