Pr CS5 - List of supported CUDA Cards

[Curt Wrigley]

Adobe is working on a playback and rendering engine for Adobe Premiere Pro called the Mercury Playback Engine. This new engine is NVIDIA® GPU-accelerated, 64-bit native, and architected for the future. Native 64-bit support enables you to work more fluidly on HD and higher resolution projects, and GPU acceleration speeds effects processing and rendering.

The Mercury Playback Engine offers these benefits:

• Open projects faster, refine effects-rich HD and higher resolution sequences in real time, enjoy smooth scrubbing, and play back complex projects without rendering.
• See results instantly when applying multiple color corrections and effects across many video layers.
• Work in real time on complex timelines and long-form projects with thousands of clips — whether your project is SD, HD, 2K, 4K, or beyond.

Ensure your system is ready to take advantage of the Mercury Playback Engine in a future version of Adobe Premiere Pro. The Mercury Playback Engine works hand-in-hand with NVIDIA® CUDA™ technology to give you amazingly fluid, real-time performance. See it in action

* PR CS5 supports the following list of CUDA cards:

	GeForce GTX 285	Windows and MAC
	Quadro FX 3800	Windows
	Quadro FX 4800	Windows and MAC
	Quadro FX 5800	Windows
	Quadro CX	Windows

More hardware details:

http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere/systemreqs/

[John T Smith]

Hmm... I am "about" 2 months away from buying CS5 in June, according to http://prodesigntools.com/when-will-adobe-cs5-be-released.html

Since there is no way to know for sure if/when the GTX 480 will be supported for MPE (and since the 480 shows as "pre-order" status anyway, at least where I've looked) it looks like I will buy the GTX 285 to use with AVCHD via the Canon Vixia HFS10 that I also plan to buy

Whatever limits the 285 has now, due to nVidia marketing and instructions to Adobe, it should do very well for my hobbyist use... someone doing a full-blown Hollywood style movie may, of course, decide to buy one of the more expensive cards that does not have an artificial limit

Plus... it *might* be reasonable to hope that the 285's limits will be removed someday, when nVidia decides to allow Adobe/MPE to make full use of the card's CUDA cores... but, even if not, I will have a card that I can afford and that will work with MPE well enough for my video efforts and personal spending budget

[Animation Guy]

Hi John,

hmmm, I thought that the GTX 480 is one of the cards that is already officially supported by PS5 .  That's what I understood,

are you saying this is NOT the case ?

ok I'm puzzled.

Dave.

[John T Smith]

Ok, puzzled... always start with the FAQ http://forums.adobe.com/message/2738623

No... the 480 is NOT currently supported, while the 285 is supported

[Mike_Brent]

I just spoke with Nvidia live chat. The MOBILE versions of the supported cards are ALSO supported!!!!!

[Harm_Millaard]

What was the question? Did you  ask ATI and Intel as well? What did they say?

Whatever the answer all of them gave you, only ADOBE can answer your question, not nVidia, not ATI, not Intel, not even me.

[Jeff Bellune]

Harm is spot-on.

What, exactly, did you ask them? And what, exactly, did they say? The

stakes for purchasers of laptop/graphics card combos is much higher than

for purchasers of desktop graphics cards alone.

Adobe, and only Adobe, can tell you for sure.

-Jeff

[Wil Renczes]

"I just spoke with Nvidia live chat.  The MOBILE versions of the supported cards are ALSO supported!!!!!"

Sorry, but that's not correct. While some mobile chipsets support CUDA, none of them are presently supported by MPE in Premiere.

[Mike_Brent]

Well, that's what they said. Are you saying that they are lying? And what does it mean "ask adobe"? This is their forum. So they should be here answering these questions...

[Harm_Millaard]

This is a USER to USER forum, with limited Adobe presence. Wil is one of few Adobe employees who helps out here with all his expertise and his input is much appreciated.

nVidia is probably not lying, but you probably asked the wrong question in the wrong context or misinterpreted their answer. Just miscommunication.

[Jeff Bellune]

Let me clarify.  Wil is one of the Premiere Pro engineers.  'Nuff said.

-Jeff

[steve lyles]

I just got off the phone with Adobe tech support regarding the GTX 295 and was informed that there will be a lot more supported cards added to the list before the release date....and the ONLY reason there are not more at this time is that they have not been tested by Adobe to give them their "blessing" so as far as I understand at this point the MPE is not just "switched on" by the cards in the initail list.  Crazy stuff this really....we are all such a bunch of sensitive creative types or what

steve

[John T Smith]

>added to the list before the release date

I find that to be VERY interesting!

CS5 announcement/launch was April 12 and according to what I've read in other messages, it will be ABOUT a month until product is physically available to purchase... I would presume that is the time it takes to make disc copies from the masters and put everything in packages to ship

Since that would (again, my presumption) mean that the masters have already gone to production... just how will changes be made?

Is there going to be a 5.01 update available to download at the same time as the product ships?

Does the "to production" copy already contain code to activate more cards?

What you were told just seems really odd to me!

[Harm_Millaard]

Guys,

I think you are all running around making guesses. Nothing has been said other than "Adobe will look into supporting other cards".

Given the track record of Tech Support, I would not put much trust in them. The contacts between TS and the Development Team are not very intense, so the remark has to be taken with not a grain, but with tons of salt IMO.

Just wait for the release and you will know. Making wild guesses has no value whatsoever.

[sync2rhythm]

aaargh!

I have 2 QuadroFX 1800's.

I would LOVE to see them on the Supported list.

[tclark513]

A GREAT new demo at this link:

http://vimeo.com/10935283

Awesome!

[Moxtelling]

Apr 15, 2010

Re: Pr CS5 - List of supported CUDA Cards

A GREAT new demo at this link:

http://vimeo.com/10935283

Awesome!

Hey yearh - that looks really great. That´s excactly what I wanted to hear and see....more of that please....

And thanks Wil for sharing all your info from inside Adobe. I can see you have done a great job making the new CS5...

As I wrote before I never doubted that I would upgrade - I can´t wait to upgrade to CS5 actually - getting the Master coellection this time.

It is only the concern about having the best hardware solution at hand when installing the software so one does not have to make a lot of trial and error work before having a descent system running. And spending a lot of money - maybe even on the wrong or non-supported hardware...

The demo from vimeo looks awesome....and I could understand that there is some difference between the Nvidia cards performance after all.

I think I´ll just wait and see if my old GTX260 does a descent job for my needs or I will have to do an upgrade....maybe even upgrade my CPU too? Or is that just waist of money - I have a i7 920 2.67 Ghz - 12 GB DDR3 RAM and 2 X 1,5 Seagate ATA. I mostly edit AVCHD 720 50P.

thanks guys - you are great!

Morten

[John T Smith]

Moxtelling wrote:

I have a i7 920 2.67 Ghz - 12 GB DDR3 RAM and 2 X 1,5 Seagate ATA. I mostly edit AVCHD 720 50P.

Similar to what I plan to build in 2-3 months, except I will have the slightly newer i7 930 and 3 Sata hard drives - 320G software + 320G scratch + 1T data

I also plan to buy a Canon Vixia HFS10 and will be editing AVCHD at, most likely, the full HD resolution (which I will, until I someday buy a BluRay burner, downconvert at the end to have Encore author to DVD... these are just family video, nothing professional)

According to my calculations, based on Canon saying 2:55 will fit in a 32Gig space, the AVCHD files are about 11Gig per hour... which is actually less than the about 13gig per hour for the DV AVI files I now use with my old computer

Since you don't mention RAID, I presume you do not notice any data transfer problems with reading AVCHD off of a regular hard drive?

[jabloomf1230]

First, I'm not going to say much, if anything about the MPE, but I am going to try to clear up  (Haha, I'll probably just make things worse ) some semantic and technical issues raised in this thread.

First of all, very few if any software will use CUDA and SLI at the same time. It's not impossible to do, but it's just an added hassle and most companies have just decided to ignore multiple GPUs used in tandem to render partial frames or alternating frames (SLI). The GTX 295 is just two slower nVidia GPUs slapped together in one video card and operating in SLI. That's great for SLI-enabled video games, but at the moment useless for CUDA-based acceleration. With a 295GTX, you only get CUDA on one of the slower GPUs. I suggest not purchasing a 295GTX for CS5. Other than the new Fermi (4xxGTX) cards, the 285GTX is the fastest single GPU consumer video card that nVidia makes.

Software vendors use the term "not supported" very loosely. It could mean that the video card won't work at all with the software. Next, it could mean that it might work somewhat with the software, but not optimally. Lastly, it could mean that the video card will work optimally, but the software vendor won't guarantee that it will and won't provide any technical support to you, if it doesn't work properly. Now some software vendors even put a check in their software to look in the Windows registry (or interrogate the video card directly) to see what device ID it reports. The vendor can block usage of hardware that they don't want being used with their software. As some of you know, users have gone to great lengths to tweak nVidia consumer cards to make them appear to the OS as being a Quadro card. nVidia has fought back recently against this "piracy" and has pretty much blocked that type of hacking, except on older model 8xxx and 9xxx series cards.

Lastly, there are three factors you should look at when choosing a video card for NLE & compositing work. First the clock speed of the "CUDA cores". Second the number of CUDA cores within each GPU. Third, the amount of RAM on the card. here's the reference specs on the two Fermi cards that have been announced:

GeForce GTX 480 : 480 CUDA cores, 700/1401/1848MHz core/shader/mem,  384-bit, 1536MB, 295W TDP, US$499

GeForce GTX 470  : 448 CUDA cores, 607/1215/1674MHz core/shader/mem, 320-bit, 1280MB, 225W TDP,  US$349

The 470GTX appears to have 32 CUDA cores disabled (or absent), slower core and RAM clock speeds and a little less RAM. That's what you get for US$150 less in price. For more on this see:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-480,2585.html

In order to understand how well the CS5 MPE will perform, it will be necessary to see benchmarks of various cards under controlled situations with CS5. Until that happens, only Adobe knows for sure what's going on.

[Danbo342]

Heya guys,

I've read all the posts to this thread as well as a few other posts started back in December and have seen this list of the same 5 cards as old as January or February. Yeah, I too applaud Adobe for the heads up, but after this many months it's still the same 5 card list so I do not applaud them maintaining their approach and good intentions. Have they not done anymore testing since January? Even one of the videos on their web page states a web address to go to for the latest information for the latest supported video cards, however there is 0 mention of even this whopping 5 card list, of course this type of thing I find myself getting quite use to which isn't a good thing for any company.

Anywho, before I go off on my own tangent or rant does anyone know when the powers to be will delight us with an updated list?

Sorry if I appear disapointed or aggitated, it's not my nature I just figured more would have been made available by now since as many stated this will be the most expensive CS upgrade yet for many of us.

For the record I own a GTX-295 and a GTX-260 (so pretty much I own 3# 260's since the 295 is 2 combined 260's).

Thanks,

Dan

[Harm_Millaard]

One never knows what direction Adobe will go, although in this development cycle they have been surprisingly forthcoming with information, almost uncharacteristically so.

I have no idea how much development work and time is required to certify a card for MPE, but keep in mind that Adobe is not only talking about PR. There are more than 10 different programs in the Master Collection, there are numerous dynamic links between several of them, there is advanced memory management between these programs and there are continuous driver updates from nVidia. All of these aspects need to be tested and checked extensively, so it is not a simple matter of only testing MPE in PR, but also what repercussions it may have on memory management, on the dynamic links, the impact on response time and speed in other applications, etc.

It is not simply a single application. It is way more complex. Whether it takes 4 months to certify a card in light of the whole Master collection, or more, or less, I simply don't know, but rest assured it is complex and time consuming.

Whether Adobe would prioritize end-of-line 2xx cards or prefer Fermi cards or even new Quadro cards, using the Fermi chip, is another unknown, but it makes sense in my perception to look ahead to the Fermi archtecture and not back to the old 2xx series.

Just my 0.02

[idar_lettrem]

Make this a sticky - and keep it updated for a while. please

[joshtownsend]

Adobe is disabling motherboards that haven't been fully tested by Adobe and older computers with a shortage of RAM that won't run Premiere stable and fast like advertised. Right now the only high-end Intel i7's are supported with more processors possibly being added before release next month. Also harddrives that are too slow to playback native 4k will not be accessible through Premiere. This is to guarantee stability to all customers.

[John T Smith]

You do not show as "Adobe Employee" so just what is your source for saying that motherboards or drives will be disabled?

[Harm_Millaard]

Although the remark is incorrect, I assume it was based on the underlying assumption that GTX cards are limited in their support of MPE to 3 tracks versus unlimited tracks with Quadro cards, even though the Quadro's have inferior specs, which leads to the speculation that the limitation is artificial and may have been coerced by nVidia for marketing reasons.

Whatever the reasoníng behind the limitation, do not be fooled. MPE will give a significant performance gain and ask yourself, how often do you need more than 3 tracks with Cuda enabled effects and when you do, what negative effect will that have if you need to render a slight part of your timeline?

[idar_lettrem]

very good Harm.The 3 track limitation is of no significance to me as a hobbyist.

besides: The fx 3800 card lists at an equivalent of 1200 usd here in norway while the GTX is less than half ! THAT is also something to consider.