Is my laptop good enough for learning Houdini?
Specs: MSI GE73 Raider 8RF
-Intel I7-8750h 6cores 12threads 2.2Ghz to 4.0Ghz 9Mb cache
-nVidia GTX1070 8gb GDDR5
-16GB DDR4 2666Mhz
-512GB SSD
-1TB HDD
Currently it struggles with basic fluid suction. Is there a way to optimize some settings? Or there is no hope?


Any information would be appreciated.
Thank you

For learning, I would say yes. 32gb is generally the "minimum" for simulation work (most would argue 64gb), but for learning, just run your fluid simulation at a lower resolution (that means a larger, not smaller particle separation). Remember to crop the bounding box as tightly as possible for fluid and smoke simulations.

Thank you for your answer.
Currently I have low fps even doing basic stuff...
With this basic set-up I can only get about 5fps. Particle separation is at 0.075. Everything is on default values.
Currently it's using 8gb of ram. Graphics sits at 17-20%. CPU at 100% but clocks at 3.0ghz If I keyframes for example first frame to have SuctionForce outside distance at 0.5 and 240 frame at 0.1. My viewport gets 43fpm. Is that normal? How can I get more frames? It's really hard to work with low amount of fps




I've worked on some particles like on picture. While previewing in viewport it really struggles at 40fpm.



Thank you for you time

AnticMilan
My viewport gets 43fpm. Is that normal? How can I get more frames? It's really hard to work with low amount of fps

It's hard to say what normal is. What framerate do you get after caching? If it's that low playing back a low res cached sim, there might be something going on. It is totally normal for playback to be slow while caching (calculating) the simulation. You're lucky to have 43 fpm, that's almost a frame every second. Many fluid simulations will be much slower, closer to one frame per minute.

You preview using Mplay, not the timeline.
Click this button instead, it will create screen snapshots of your viewport over time that you can playback in realtime.