Mercury Playback Engine and NVIDIA mobile cards

[Ben Pierce]

Has anyone had any experience running Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 on an NVIDIA Quadro FX 3800M video card or any of NVIDIAs other cards that are built for laptops? I know the NVIDIA Quadro FX 3800 is supported for the MPE, but I don't know if the mobile version of the card is.

Thanks for the advice.

[Perrone Ford]

I have the card in question in my laptop. Sadly I don't run CS5. What is it you are trying to find out? If the MPE will work fast enough with the card?

[Ben Pierce]

Yes, I want to know whether or not the MPE will run well on the NVIDIA Quadro FX 3800M. I know the NVIDIA Quadro FX 3800 is on the list of approved cards, just not sure about the mobile version that is including in the laptop I am considering.

By the way, are you pleased with the performance of the NVIDIA Quadro FX 3800 while editing in Premiere Pro?

[Harm Millaard]

Go to the PPBM5 Benchmark and look at the Benchmark Results page. There is a link to the MPE Performance Chart, which shows a number of 'hacked' mobile video cards that run successfully with CS5, among them the 3800M.

[Ben Pierce]

Thanks for the link. I'll try the hack when my laptop arrives.

[Shawn McCalip]

I'm running with a QuadroFX 2800M in my laptop, and MPE will not work only because I'm stuck with 512MB of memory. You need to have at least 768MB of video memory to get the Mercury Playback Engine to work (even with the hack someone mentioned above). I can't remember what the 3800M has, but I thought it was 1GB, so you should be good to go.

I'll also add that the Quadro cards are better suited for doing heavy-duty work with CAD and 3D modeling/animation applications. You'll get nearly identical performance using a gaming card with Premiere and/or After Effects. So, if you don't do a lot with AutoCAD, Maya, 3ds Max, etc., you might be able to save a TON of money.

[Harm Millaard]

Shawn,

You are correct that the 'hack' requires 768 MB VRAM, but that means you have to turn off the Windows UI, and that makes it a bit hard to edit. Windows uses up to 128 MB of VRAM for its UI, so effectively for the 'hack' to work the minimum memory requirement is 768 + 128 = 896 MB VRAM.

[Shawn McCalip]

Ah, yes. Good point, Harm. I completely forgot about the needs of the Windows interface...

[David Dwyer]

I'm just about to purchase a Dell with 2GB GT 435M GPU so I'm hoping for some luck with that!

[Ed Przyzycki]

I have a Toshiba Qosmio X505-Q898, Intel I7-740QM, GTX 460M (1.5GB) and 6GB RAM. About a 57% on PPBM5.com. Not bad for under $2K and portable. Handles my XDCAM-EX just fine.

[Francisco Pupo]

Hey, just letting the people who are interested know that I got it to work using the hack with my Clevo D900F and GTX 280M.

It works well, just wish it would accelerate Magic Bullets better. I have a i7 950 with 12GB RAM, one SSD with OS and CS5, and two 7,200 SATA drives... and it is still super slow!

[Andrew Clark]

Originally Posted by Ben Pierce

Thanks for the link. I'll try the hack when my laptop arrives.

Just curious Ben, what laptop are you considering getting?

The reason I ask is that I'm in the market for one as well. Utilizing the FX3800m may be overkill for PPro....don't know, but I think that Shawn may have a point in saving money and going with a GTXm version instead...like a 460/470/480, etc...

But a plus for this card (and most Quadro cards) is that, per nVidia's site, it states that this card can output 30bit color thru the DisplayPort. Nice for PS work and if you are editing 10bit video.

[Ben Pierce]

@Andrew: Here is the laptop I went with:

Newegg.com - HP EliteBook 8740w (XT910UT#ABA) Notebook Intel Core i7 740QM(1.73GHz) 17.0" Wide UXGA 4GB Memory DDR3 1333 500GB HDD 7200rpm DVD Super Multi NVIDIA Quadro FX 3800M

HP EliteBook 8740w (XT910UT#ABA) Notebook
Intel Core i7 740QM(1.73GHz)
17.0" Wide UXGA
4GB Memory DDR3 1333
500GB HDD 7200rpm
DVD Super Multi
NVIDIA Quadro FX 3800M

The laptop just got here yesterday and the hack worked with the Quadro FX 3800M. I am waiting for Adobe to send my registration info for CS5 Master Collection, so I haven't had a chance to test any HDV footage from my Canon XH-A1s yet. With the trial, as far as I can tell, you can't capture HDV footage. That said, I did play around with a DV clip and applied a number of effects in both Premiere Pro and After Effects and the system is running nicely with CUDA acceleration.

I will probably add some more RAM after I have a chance to test HDV footage. The computer comes with 4 GB, but has three open slots so I'm not wasting the RAM that is already in it by upgrading. It's also got a Firewire connection for capture from my camera.

I feel the specs on the laptop are pretty good, but not exceptional for the price I paid. As Shawn added, the Quadro cards are geared for CAD and 3D work, so I may have blown some money I didn't need to there. Newegg sells the desktop version of the Quadro FX 3800 for (yikes!) $869.99.

The build quality, speed and ergonomics of the HP EliteBook 8740w are all amazing. It also runs nearly silent, which is a nice improvement from my last machine. So far I am very, very happy with my purchase.

I also looked at some of the high-end ASUS laptops that have better specs for less money, but lacked compatible graphics cards with the Mercury Playback Engine or didn't have a Firewire connection (or room to put one in) or didn't have the screen I was looking for, etc. The HP EliteBook 8740w has all the stuff I need, though a second hard drive might be nice.

I later read on this forum about Sager laptops which look really nice and I might have purchased one if I'd known about them earlier. Some of them look very well set up for mobile video editing.

I work as an outdoor writer and photographer for a small newspaper in Bozeman, Montana, and just started to get interested in video recently. So far I have just made a few shorts for our website and my blog (Chronicle Outdoors | Pictures of Montana - Bozeman Fishing - Yellowstone Wolves - Yellowstone Hiking). My old computer was just not cutting it to produce even 3 or 4 minute clips.

My paper is celebrating it's 100-year anniversary in 2011 and I'm working on a documentary about the town and how the newspaper covered events in our area like the Yellowstone wildfires of 1988 and the outbreak of WWII. It will be a significantly larger project if I can pull it off.

Anyway, I'll post again after I get the chance to run some HDV footage in Premiere.

Thanks all for the previous helpful comments.

[Andrew Clark]

@Ben -

Looks like you got a sweet deal on that laptop; pricing it on HP's site came out to be significantly more $$!! For the configuration of that workstation, you got a pretty good bargain. You could always up the RAM to 16gb by purchasing four (4gb) sticks from NewEgg as well for about $60/ea. Newegg.com - CORSAIR 4GB 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1333 Laptop Memory Model CMSO4GX3M1A1333C9

I was also looking at the Sager's too. They are the only company, that I know of, that uses desktop processors in one of their laptops. custom gaming laptops - Welcome to Sager Notebooks. I can only imagine the noise that it must make when the fans kick on full speed when rendering!!

But the one of the many advantages that you'll have with this HP mWorkstation over a gaming video card laptop, is that you will be able to hookup via the DisplayPort a 10bit monitor if you so desire.

You made a great buy...and I am actually thinking of picking up one of these as well...so, thanks for posting; much appreciate it!!

Great website and video work that you do. Watching the "Exploring The Grand Loop" makes we really want to get to Jellystone (yes, I know it's YELLOWSTONE!!) to see it's beauty. Thanks for sharing that as well.

[Jeff Anselmo]

Hi Ben,

Glad you're happy with your new laptop. I'm also in the market for one, but it'll be for my wife. She ran a Dell (forgot the specs) a few years ago, that barely ran Premiere Pro CS2; but was great for Photoshop, Illustrator, and even After Effects (but frustratingly long render times!).

I like the HP specs that you bought, but we only have a below $2,000 budget sadly. So we're looking at the Toshiba Qosmio X505-Q898 18.4" Notebook PQX33U-05G025 B&H (like Ed Przyzycki has) or the ASUS G73Jw-A1 17.3" Notebook Computer G73JW-A1 B&H Photo

I'm leaning towards the Toshiba for it's larger screen, an eSata and firewire inputs, and an express card slot.

Best,