Lumion is a great visualisation tool for architects. It’s used to quickly produce high-quality images, panoramas, and video. These can even be 360° VR videos. The minimum requirements for Lumion are just 4GB RAM and a 1GB graphics card – it will even run on a Core2 Duo. As you can imagine, there’s much more you’d need for a great PC for Lumion.
Before going into more detail on the parts we recommend, we should point out some of the other benefits of getting a Modena Computers workstation:
Parts like CPU cooler, Power Supply Unit, and chassis are often glossed over when putting together a system like this, but these parts have such a massive effect on the lifespan and performance optimisation of the CPU, GPU and RAM. We only use parts that guarantee excellent cooling, airflow, and power delivery.
We’ve also got a lot of experience in putting these systems together, and our cable management is flawless. This not only means dust will be a lot less of an issue, but it will also be really easy to see what’s happening inside when you eventually do need to upgrade any part of the system, several years down the line. Our cases also just look fantastic.
Each Modena Computers Vulcan Workstation is tailored to the personal needs of the user, but the features below offer a great starting point for a PC for Lumion.
In this article, we’ll be talking about the components you need to build the best workstation PC for Lumion.
Why choose us?
Parts like CPU cooler, Power Supply Unit, and chassis are often glossed over when putting together a system like this. Surprisingly, these parts have a massive effect on the lifespan and performance optimisation of the CPU, GPU and RAM. We only use parts that guarantee excellent cooling, airflow, and power delivery.
We’ve also got a lot of experience in putting these systems together, and our cable management is flawless. This not only means dust will be a lot less of an issue, but it will be much easier to work with when you eventually need an upgrade. This will only happen several years down the line, of course. Not to mention our cases just look fantastic.
Each Modena Computers Workstation is tailored to the personal needs of the user, but the features below would make for a great starting point for your PC for Lumion.
CPU – Frequency
Lumion’s CPU requirements are quite balanced between frequency and thread count.
AMD’s Ryzen 5000 series CPUs are great choices in this regard. They’re able to boost to very high frequencies, and they also have excellent IPC. This means that they’re able to outperform Intel CPUs with the same core count at the same frequency.
For these reasons, a Ryzen CPU would be a perfect fit in a PC for lumion.
CPU – Core Count
Lumion also benefits from more CPU cores, and thankfully CPUs with 12 to 20 threads have become much more affordable in the past year or two.
Our default choice would be an Intel based system, as these currently offer greater overclocking potential, but an AMD Ryzen CPU and motherboard could offer greater value for money.
GPU
The most important factor for a Lumion is without a doubt the graphics card. This component should be the centrepiece in your PC for Lumion. Every other component chosen to help the GPU reach its full potential.
This is especially true if you plan on working with VR, in which case we’d recommend at least a Nvidia RTX3060Ti Super.
Apart from the outright speed of the graphics card, another very import factor is the amount of VRAM present on the GPU. Lumion loves GPU’s with a lot of VRAM. If you are a Lumion user and experience a lot of crashing, chances are that your GPU is running out of VRAM. We recommend a card with at least 6Gb.
If it’s within your budget, the new RTX3080 with 10Gb of VRAM provides performance that would have cost a lot more money even just a year or two ago.
RAM
16GB RAM is generally a good starting point for workstation builds, but workflows involving VR quickly use up a lot of RAM. For that reason, we would recommend opting for 32GB if it is within your budget. This will allow for optimal performance, and will also leave enough headroom for other applications. It will also make the computer a lot more future proof.
Storage
Storage technology has come a long way over the past decade. Solid State Drives are known to be much faster than mechanical hard drives, but they’re also seen as pretty expensive.
It was pretty common to install the OS on a 120GB SSD, and everything else on a 1TB HDD, so that you could at least start up your PC super quickly.
Recently it’s become more viable to just use a larger SSD, from around 500GB to 1TB, and this is exactly our approach with our PCs. Having everything stored on SSDs means you’ll be able to save and load programs, and also transfer data, at incredible speeds. The SSDs we use are M.2 form factor and use the NVMe protocol, which means they take up no additional space in your case, and are even faster than standard 2.5” SATA drives.
These drives save a lot of time, and that means the PC will pay itself off a lot faster. You also still have the option of adding in some HDDs if you need to.
Conclusion
As we said before, each Modena Computers Vulcan Workstation is custom built to the workflow and budget requirements of its user. It’s important to consider other programs you may want to use with this workstation.
During our consultation process, you can let us know exactly which programs you want to use with your machine, and we’ll be happy to help you understand what you need.
Keep in mind that opting for higher performance right out of the gate offers much greater value than getting exactly what you need right now. A higher performance PC won’t need downtime to upgrade any time soon, and will also allow you to complete more work in less time. It could pay itself off a lot sooner than a more affordable option.
