video card for CS5 Production Premium

[Margthecar]

I was checking out the system requirements and I think I am okay on everything but the graphics card. I have:

ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB (almost wrote GB there--whew--wouldn't that be some card! )

But on the Adobe website it only lists NVIDIA cards as "Supported NVIDIA graphics cards for GPU acceleration"

Can I run the CS5 Production suite with my existing card or do I need to get one of the NVIDIA cards? Or is it only needed for the GPU accleration? What is GPU acceleration anyway and can I turn it off if necessary?

[Paul LS]

In software mode it will work fine. However if you want to take advantage of Cuda GPU acceleration you will need a new card. You do not necessarily need one of the officially supported cards, there is a hack that lets you use virtually any Cuda card with 1G of memory. I have a GTX250 and see vast improvement in render speeds... up to 5x quicker.

[Margthecar]

Sorry, I don't have great knowledge of hardware. What is Cuda GPU acceleration and why would I want it? Is it only to render video faster, or does it do other thing?. Right now I am only doing small (usually 5-10 minute SD video so maybe fast rendering isn't so important to me). I am most concerned with getting the software then finding out either it all crashes because of a graphic card incompatibiltiy (has happened to me before) or is REALLLLY slow or a bunch of cool features are turned off because I don't have the necessary GPU acceleration.

[Paul LS]

The Cuda acceleration not only speeds up rendering but helps with playback of the timeline, so you can play back multiple tracks without needing to render the timeline inorder to get smooth playback.

No features are turned off if you do not have a Cuda supported card. Apart from Cuda acceleration the graphics card does not impact the speed, so the software speed is independant of the graphics card in that respect.

[Margthecar]

Thanks Paul for the clear explanation.

[Paul LS]

I am seeing some issues when working on projects with the hardware GPU acceleration disabled. However before I get into that when using effects such as Basic 3D and Corner Pin I am seeing some issues with the alignment of media, there are differences in the alignment when I have the GPU acceleration enabled or disenabled... so you can not switch between GPU enabled/disenabled within a project.

Also, more of an issue is that if I have GPU disenabled for a project I am seeing issues during rendering. I have a photo with a reflection and I am then spinning the photo during the duration of the video (so using Track Matte, Corner Pin and Basic 3D effects). When I render the timeline (so using purely software render) the photo jumps around. This is nothing to do with the video card as the project has been set up without GPU acceleration. If I use the GPU there is no jumping around. So it appears there are some unresolved issues with the Cuda support.

[Margthecar]

I do not yet have the software so am unfamiliar with the effects you are talking about. However, I do love cool effects. So is what you are saying is that if I want to do some of the types of effects you describe, I am better off with a graphics card that offers CUDA support (that is, an NVIDIA card on the Adobe list) rather than the one I have, the ATI Radon HD 4850 (which I doubt supports CUDA)? If I were to change my graphics card, is there a general consensus on which NVIDIA card is the best overall for CS5 Production Premium?

[Bob]

CUDA is the proprietary architecture for the NVIDIA graphics processing engine. So, no, the ATI Radeon does not support it.

I don't feel you need to rush out and buy an NVIDIA card right now. Of the programs in Production Premium, only Premiere Pro is using CUDA excelleration. Photoshop and After Effects are using OpenGL and your video card supports that. I would say try it for a while and see how well it's performing. You can always buy a faster NVIDIA card later if you determine that you really want or need the excelleration.

I have not specifically seen the problem that Paul described. But, since I have Production Premium CS5, I do the more complex effects in After Effects anyway.

[Paul LS]

Having worked on this current project with and without GPU acceleration I am just stunned by the performance improvement with Cuda GPU enabled both for playing back the timeline and rendering. It would be virtually impossible to edit this video without Cuda... framerate of the playback without Cuda is like one frame per minute... and with Cuda it plays back smoothly. If I lower the playback resolution on software rendering mode to improve the playback frame rate the shading and track matte effects in the monitor do not represent what you get with the final exported video.

As I mentioned above I am seeing a number of rendering issues when rendering purely in software rendering mode. I am seeing jumps and movement in position when playing back the timeline and this is also apparent on exporting.

Regarding a suitable video card, the Adobe approved Cuda cards are all expensive. Most folks are using cheaper versions and using a hack to enable the cards in Premiere Pro CS5. I would take a look at the Adobe CS5 forum and see what performance folks are getting with various cards.

[Margthecar]

Thanks Bob and Paul for all your insights on video cards. I am really getting educated about them. I never gave video cards much thought before I started in with PreE8 a year ago! I have a follow up question. I will likely give the PrPro a try with my existing card and if I have problems look into upgrading, but I think I may have already have an issue. I was editing an SD AVI with 3 layers of video in PrE8. On layer two I added a 16-point garbage matte to block out a moving object on the frame. So every frame or two, I was keyframing probably 10 of the points to move a bit to follow the object I was blocking out. But I found that as I clicked and dragged each matte point for each keyframe I had to wait a second or so after each reposition for the computer to "catch up". Fortunately the video was only a few seconds long or I would still be keyframing now! So my question is this: was the need to wait for the computer to catch up a function of the video card? If I had had the CUDA acceleration is it possible I would not have had to wait for the catch up?

[Margthecar]

Or the mustard for that matter?

[Paul LS]

If you had the Cuda acceleration then the video would have played back smoothly.

Regarding my issues of strange things happening with various effects applied I have been able to identify some to known bugs... for example random generated linear artifacts when using the vertical flip effect.

[Bob]

Paul, would you mind doing a simple test of that using the 16 point garbage mask and report back? Please adjust the points by moving them on the monitor. You only need to adjust one point to see if cuda accelleration helps.

I find keyframing the 16-point garbage mask by moving the points on the monitor really takes a performance hit. Setting the points without keyframing is fast. But, the moment you turn keyframing on, moving a point on the monitor becomes very sluggish. It doesn't appear to affect the playback, just the setting of the points.

Looking at the task manager while doing this, it appears that only a single core is being used when the point is moved on the monitor while keyframing is enabled. When keyframing is off, all four cores of my quad are used. Also, if you click a different effects header in the effects panel to cause the garbage mask points to not display on the monitor, scrubbing the garbage mask point values in the panel also uses all 4 cores and the motion is faster. It is not faster scrubbing the values when the points are displayed. So, something about clicking on the effect header to display the points in the monitor while keyframing restricts it to a single thread.

It would be very interesting to see whether CUDA accelleration would help in this scenario.

Thanks!

[Paul LS]

Hi Bob, yes I am seeing similar things. Firstly the Cuda acceleration does not help... I am seeing GPU usage of a few percent while moving the keyframes.

When moving the points on the screen with keyframing off I see around 50% total CPU usage, one core is prominent at about 80% and the other 3 cores are at around 40%, the movement of the points is responsive. With keyframing on the total CPU usage drops to 25%, with the one core more dominate and the others down in the noise, response is sluggish.

Likewise, I am seeing similar effects to you when scrubbing the keyframes with the effect header selected, so with the points showing I get around 25% CPU usage and response is sluggish. If I select another effect header and scrub the garbage matte keyframes i get about 50% CPU usage and the movement is responsive.

[Margthecar]

This has been a very interesting thread for me. I learned about the Resource Monitor and spent some time mesmerized by those cool little graphs of the CPUs. Okay, after I came out of my hypnotic trance and think I figured out how to read the darn little things, I checked it out on my PrE8 scene with the 16 point garbage matte, with and without keyframes on, and I think I am more or less seeing what Paul is seeing in terms of percentages and such. So the sluggishness does not appear to be a function of the graphics card. Asking the obvious follow-up question--is there anything that can be done about it, or is it just some artifact of how the program processes keyframing a garbage matte that we have to live with?