Hi all,
I currently have a Dell 390 computer that is about 4years old. I am running premiere pro CS3. I wondered what your thoughts are on whether it is worth the effort to upgrade my system to 64bit to run CS5. I don't want to have to buy a totally new computer at this time. My Dell can run 64bit windows XP. I tried running Windows 7 on a Sony notebook single p4 2.8 chip and it ran ok but it is a little slow. Mainly the graphics card does not support all the new stuff in Windows 7. Currently my system is running stable for the most part. Every now and them encore crashes. But not that often. It did help cutting my projects into smaller chunks. As someone on this forum suggested. I have the NVIDA quatro FX 3500 graphics card. Xeon dual core 3ghz CPU and 4GB ram. I heard I would need at least 8GB RAM to run well under 64bit. RAMs cheep so that is not an issue. Windows in general is known for needing a lot of Ram and Hdd space that is unused. So whenever windows get low on memory/ Hdd space it starts to have problems.
Is CS5 that much better vs CS3?

Thanks,

John Gerard

Well, strictly from a money standpoint...
If you're happy with export times and workflows, and it's not bottlenecking your business, then why spend anymore money?
Unless you're forced to edit AVCHD natively, or needing MPE then perhaps CS5 isn't necessary...

stay with CS3. With your system the difference will be hard to notice. For CS3 to work properly, the recommended RAM is 12GB, among other things.

I upgraded the memory in a mobo to its maximum of 8gb, installed Win7 to dual-boot with WinXP, and installed CS5. I sold the old memory on eBay for about 60% of what it sells for new. My PPro CS3 experiences are acceptable as I have no complaints. However, CS3 Encore has gone out to lunch. It started in late winter of this year and has now gotten to the point where Encore CS3 is not even usable. I even went to the trouble to reinstall everything from the ground up including the WinXP OS. It made no difference. Encore CS5, however, is smooth as silk.

I have not upgraded the video card to the Fermi line that CS5 likes so I don't think I can reasonably comment on performance differences between CS3 and CS5 except that PPro CS5 is reasonable to work with. PPro CS5 is also smooth as silk, though. Crashes are probably a little fewer with CS5 PPro.

I use Matrox RT.X2 which has not released drivers for CS5 PPro yet so I do my NLE work in CS3, export to m2v, and author in CS5. Matrox is scheduled to release CS5 drivers this month (October) but I'll wait until the dot release which will fix bugs.

stay with CS3. With your system the difference will be hard to notice. For CS3 to work properly, the recommended RAM is 12GB, among other things.

I don't quite understand your above commment. am I correct that Cs3 is only a 32bit program? If so, then under windows 32 I can only use about 3GB RAM. So I am not sure how I can use 12. That's my problem. I believe that cs3 would run better if I had 12GB RAM to use.
CS5 is a 64bit program and I could then add that much RAM to my current system. My current system is 64bit capable. My question again is whether it is worth the hassle to upgrade to CS5 without buying a complete new system. I currently have windows 7 both the 32bit and 64bit. My thinking is that I be better getting the Windows Xp 64bit. I think this might run better on my system. Better chance to have all the correct drivers for my system.

John Gerard

The 32 vs 64 bit discussion is a common source of confusion.

CS5 is a 64 bit program, you need a 64 bit system to run it.

However, 64 bit systems run 32 bit programs...quite nicely actually.

A 32 bit OS only sees 4 GB of RAM.

A 32 bit software application only sees 4 GB of RAM

On a 32 bit system, the OS takes what it needs and the apps that are running have to make due with what is left, On Windows, depending on whether you're using the common RAM 'hack', etc, oftentimes PPro may actually only have 1GB or less actually available to it...start another app (Media Encoder for instance) and slice that pie even thinner...

On a 64 bit system, let's say you install 16 GB of RAM...

Your 32 bit app can still only see 4 GB of course...BUT it actually can USE 4 GB. Suddenly PPro has its 4 GB, AE has its 4 GB, Photoshop has its 4 GB...and the OS has 4 as well.

CS3 in general was a fast and relatively stable set of software on 64 bit systems loaded with RAM. Most of the users I ran into who had CS3 issues had 32 bit systems and were trying to use multiple dynamic-linked AE comps in any given PPro project while exporting the sequence directly to Encore, etc, etc, etc... There just isn't enough juice there to alllow all those apps to run efficiently...page file becomes gargantuan...system falls over.

So...you will benefit from a big, fire-breathing 64 bit system, even if you stay with CS3.



However,

CS5 is a leap forward that is substantial for some workflows, and as of CS4, the ability to have sequences with different frame sizes and settings really added flexibility to the package. If you really utilize Premiere Pro for heavy duty work, CS5 is worth the leap.

(I am teaching a class on PPro CS5 on fxphd.com, which is typically the domain of high end applications like Nuke, Shake, Avid, etc... They have professors (their term for us) from organizations like WETA and Pixar... And they approached me about doing an intermediate level PPro class...it was so popular that it's running again this semester. I think it's safe to say CS5 is a different animal.)

I agree in principle with the poster who advised to hold steady if what you have works... Upgrading always takes time for adaptation...but if you're getting a new system anyway, keeping the old one running through the transition probably would be a way to smooth that out...

And keep in mind that software manufacturers are commonly only supporting the current release and one version back these days...it just isn't cost effective to manage older code than that. A lot has changed since CS3 and even software plugins are moving forward... So, there are some reasons to upgrade that aren't "shiny-object" oriented.

...something to consider.

I have a duel quad, with 12 gigs of ram, cuda enabled graphics card, 64 bit OS, raid work drive, four terabyte of storage, and I still manage to crash on a daily basis. I am so glade I upgraded yet again to Premiere. When will I ever learn.

Did I mention the Matrox mini? Did you know you can only use it during a matrox sequence. So glade I got that too.

???

Matrox, AJA, Black Magic... They all have their own sequence setings. so I'm unclear as to what makes the mini working with Matrox sequence settings unusual... The same basic premise exists in FCP with hardware I/O...

Have you tried PPro CS5 without the Matrox installed?

PPro CS5 is pretty stable overall... even on systems with no CUDA card.

Not so, on my old Matrox Parahelia card I could play windows media player on the external monitor.

Not so, on my old Matrox Parahelia card I could play windows media player on the external monitor.

That is not a video I/O device like an AJA Kona card or Black Magic Decklink card...the Parhelia was a display card...not a video I/O card. I had one too. three VGAs out...big time for that time.

Matrox makes (or made) both display cards and video I/O cards. On the parhelia, there was no "external" monitor but the one display output you could change to feed a video monitor...NVIDIA had their Quadro 540s, etc, which were similar, but still only display cards. The Parhelia had no dedicated effects within any edit system, it was a display card like your Quadro card is in your new system..

The Mini has dedicated capture modes to specific codecs, augmented effects, all these things are only implemented on a sequence that uses the Matrox settings...it's the way I/O gear works.

So...it will affect how your editing runs... And the first step in troubleshooting problems is to eliminate something and see if things improve. Any third party card can add some quirks, particularly if there's some subtle hardware conflict that hasn't been encountered yet...

PPro CS5 runs significantly better. My only problem is waiting for all the plug-ins to catch up.

I am glad you guys are having a good experience with CS5. I am just saying that has not been my experience. I spent a considerable amount of money on a new system built to run CS5 and have just not been that thrilled with it. It crashes daily. I will just have to live with it until I get the bugs worked out or something better comes along. I hear Vegas is a good program.
I get what you are saying about I/O gear. It would have been a nice touch if they would have made it work with windows media player.

I am only running CS3 as you know but I understand what you are saying when it comes to CS3 at least. I got a Dell system which I researched and researched what specs hardware I would need in order to run Premiere. In hind-site I would get a turnkey system if I decided to get a completely new system today. I found that Premiere is really tied to the type of hardware you are using and that includes having just the right drivers. Once I installed all the correct drivers for video card, etc. This helped a lot. So the drivers that run best for Premiere Pro may not necessarily be the latest drivers. And then having to go through my system to shut down every service in Windows that I don't need. That took a long time. Having this already done for me in a turnkey system would have been nice. Also, I got a good suggestion to brake up my project into smaller parts and that helped a lot. As we have been discussing here having a lot more RAM would probable help a lot. I keep getting memory low errors but I can't add any more ram until I make the jump to lightspeed, I mean 64bit. I am still thinking about that for a while. Since right now my system does not crash as much. It probably crashes 1 or 2 times in 2-3hours of use, or so. Lately it's mainly been crashing in encore CS3. I learned to save my work every few minutes just to be on the safe side. A pain in the butt. Also I finially got myself not to ever connect this system to the Internet. This makes it difficult when I want to install a new program or register a program like Premiere. I shouldn't need to do that very often.

John Gerard

I second what Tim said above about running CS3 under Win 7 (or Vista 64). I add the following six comments to the intervening discussion.

1. First, for Ron Little and John Gerard and your "crashing" problems: have you tried cleaning the media cache database? An overfull, unattended media cache database can produce those symptoms. In CS4 and CS5, you click on Edit -->Preferences-->Media and then click "clean" next to the second item down. It has been a couple of years since I last used CS3, so I do not recall the exact keystrokes (and I can't find my CS3 manual) but I believe the process was similar.

Also, for Ron, if you are working with AVCHD when you are getting crashes, you might want to try an Adobe CS5 "AVCHD" sequence preset to see if the crashing issues persist.

2. Second: for John: before moving from Win XP to Win 7, check to be sure that there will not be any hidden hardware gotchas before getting and installing Win 7. Dell systems have a reputation for being finicky about this so you want to run the Microsoft Windows Upgrade Advisor. (Google it to find the free MS download site).

3. Also for John: as for whether it is worthwhile upgrading from CS3 to CS5, it ultimately depends a lot on what you edit and what you edit for. In addition to what Tim pointed out, I'll offer a few more specific things to consider.

Are you working mainly with SD video or are you mainly working with HD formats? If SD, stay with CS3. If you are using mostly HD video, I can say that. CS5 has been a very good thing for me. I do mostly mutli-cam editing with HDV and AVCHD, and also (like Tim) I happily use a Matrox Mini for an external display . I have found CS5 much preferable to CS3. While I've had to figure out some quirks and work-arounds, working with HD under CS5 has been as easy for me as working with SD under CS3. (Come to think of it, there were quirks and work-arounds there, too.)

If using HDV, do you use a third party capture utility like HDVSplit or Cineform's HDLink? These cure the audio synch problems that some CS3 users -- myself included --- had when using PPro CS3's own capture utility; a problem that has gone away with CS5.

Do you need to work with mixed formats, such as SD and HDV and/or AVCHD in the same timeline If you got Cineform's Neoscene or NeoHD, you can convert everything to run under CS3. CS5 does not need necessarily the conversions (though there are be other reasons to use Cineform.)

Do you need/want the ability to make Blu-ray disks with menus. Encore CS5 does this, CS3 does not, If you are not burning BD, you don't care.

How much multi-cam and multi-track editing editing do you do and how much do you work with layers of effects? The more of this you do, the more you may want to consider CS5.

Can you add a Cuda capable video card to your system? This not absolutely necessary. Some folks find software MPE sufficient for their needs. This is subjective, though.

Do you need to edit LPCM audio with your video? CS5 does this, CS3 does not (although NeoHD will now ingest it.) If you do not have a Sony NX5 or somewhat specialized audio recording equipment you do not care about this.

There was discussion above about using an external editing display for HD editing with a Matrox Mini. You need CS4/5 to run the Mini. Since you are holding off on upgrading your computer hardware, I'd guess that you do not care about this.

4. Be aware that perceptions of suitability are subjective. For example, I think your system specs are a bit underpowered for CS5. While I'm not sure that 8 mb of RAM and a dual core processor is enough, there are numbers of forum members who have reported happily using CS5 to edit on laptops with lesser capabilities than your current system.

5. If you want to add to your RAM and going to Win 7, consider getting a separate hard drive for this if there is room in your Dell case for one. From experience with my own and several other folks upgrading to Win 7, I can tell you it is far easier to do a clean install on a new hard drive. You still have you XP drive available if and when something does not work under Win 7. There is something to watch out for here, though. You probably know that you can install your copy of CS3 (or CS5) on two computers (as long as they are not used at the same time, Adobe treats installations under different operating systems as separate computers.) So, if you've got CS3 on the laptop you mentioned, you probably want to deactivate it before trying out CS3 under Win 7 on your main system.

6. Finally, the easiest way to deal with the internet is to just unplug the ethernet cord from your editing system. You only plug it in when you need to update.

...and also (like Tim) I happily use a Matrox Mini for an external display . I have found CS5 much preferable to CS3.
.

Actually, I use AJA products myself.

Over the last three Adobe releases, my personal experience with helping people unravel Adobe PPro/Production Premium problems seems to have been Matrox-related vs. any other 3rd party I/O solution in an overwhelming majority of instances, so no, I am not using a Matrox mini.

Now...maybe that's because the issues are because the workflow isn't documented as well as it could be...maybe it's because there happens to be some unknown software conflict with some other popular piece of production software...or with a hardware component...obviously many users are using Matrox products without issue, so I have trouble believing that the product is somehow fundamentally flawed, but in the majority of these circumstances, bypassing or sometimes uninstalling the Matrox product made the whole system suddenly snap out of its funk.

Anyway...the short story is that uninstalling the Matrox mini and seeing if the PPro crash problems persist would be my first step in tracking what the problem is for a system like Ron's...until he starts to troubleshoot the system and actually narrows down where the crashing problem is...the system will continue to perform as it has.

Sorry, Tim, I though you were using the Mini. The AJA products are a step up.

Agreed on the problem solving.

I just suggested a some preliminary steps for trying to isolate the problem. Before going to the hassle of pulling the hardware, I would only suggest some other steps.

1. Ron should be sure that he has the latest Matrox Utils installed. In the US, I think that would be ver. 3.0.1. The 2.x versions were problematic for some PPro CS5 users.

2. Try non-Matrox-presets for sequences, particularly when using AVCHD. If instability goes away, then try uninstalling the Matrox software and hardware. If the instability problem persists, then it is something in PPro not the mini. If the problem goes away then, it was the Mini.

3. If the problem goes away after unistalling the Mini software and hardware, it could be: (a) he had a defective unit; (b) there is something incompatible in his system with the Mini or (c) he might have run into one of the peculiarities of the Mini which is that Matrox tells you to uninstall the Mini software before installing new versions of Premiere and then reinstall it afterwards. It is possible that Ron has upgraded to PPro CS 5.2 and the Mini software takes that as a new program.

4. If Ron wants to try a different NLE, I'd suggest a trial version of Edius. If he has stability problems with Edius, then he's got a computer hardware issue.

Interesting as this is, I'm afraid we're getting a bit off the OP's topic, which is whether there would be any benefit to him trying to run Win7 and CS5 on his 4 year old Dell.

Interesting as this is, I'm afraid we're getting a bit off the OP's topic, which is whether there would be any benefit to him trying to run Win7 and CS5 on his 4 year old Dell.

I have to agree on that..

Hi... I'm having the same dilemma... I have a nice twin processor 3.2ghz xeon 2Tb raid5 edit system running XP pro anc CS5.

I just pre ordered the new Panasonic AF100, so I'm thinking I might need to run CS5 to edit AVC natively.
The plan at this point is to cannibalize the raid from the CS3 system and place it either in the new 64bit box or externally... I plan to keep the old CS3 machine running through the transition... but I was thinking of keeping it around as a backup.

The question is about a "safety backup" in case the 64bit machine dies with an impending deadline, can I use CS3 to complete the project if I have saved the project and project files on an outboard drive as a safety...
Can CS5 save as to an earlier version as a safety? (like Microsoft Word for example)

Brad Parlor at Tapeworks Texas is recommending an HP workstation that they would optimize and set up with CS5 and all the necessary drivers etc... for a "turn key" edit system. BTW, they recommend the Matrox Mini as a breakout box and for monitoring...

What to y'all think?

Thanks in advance

Dale

While CS4/CS5 can open CS3 projects, I don't believe that CS3 can open CS4/CS5 projects, particularly when they include native AVHCD files.

However, the CS5 package also includes a version of PPro CS4. This was done to allow users to upgrade from CS3 on 32 bit systems such as your old XP box. The Adobe license lets you load programs on two computers as long as you don't use the software simultaneously. I know that CS4 will open CS5 projects since I have done that. When you get your new system, I'd suggest that you install the CS4 on you old XP system. You don't have to uninstall CS3 and can still run it if you want to even after you've installed CS4.

You asked for comments on having Tapeworks configure an HP system for you. This is probably the wrong thread in which to ask for useful feedback. You would be better served by starting a new thread, either here or maybe in the "Non-Linear Editing on the PC" forum. Include the proposed system specs and details about your editing plans and ask for feedback. I have the impression that there are a number of knowledgeable DVinfo members who use HP workstations and could better answer any questions you might have.

As far as the Matrox Mini, you know (from above) that I am mostly satisfied with mine. Having Tapeworks configure it for you with CS5 on a new system will be expensive but doubtless avoids the possibility of the kinds of problems that some have encountered and discussed above. I believe I have read several postings from folks who use a Mini with HPZ800 twin-quadcore workstations.

Hi,
IMHO using CS3 I used to have crashing all the time. Now only some times. In my experience I would go back and make sure the drivers especially graphics driver is indeed PPro CS5 certified. This may not be the latest version of the driver. Check Adobe's site if you have not done so already. Also, on the discussion I started here once I broke up my project into smaller parts things just worked better. That is my thinking on going to 64bit. For awhile I was getting read/write errors on my RAID 0 2 drive project disk. I found out after many months of work on this issue that the drives have to not only be the same size but have to be identical in every other specification. So if I use a WD Carver black drive I have to use the exact same drive as the second drive.
I hope some of this help.

John Gerard

I am glad you guys are having a good experience with CS5. I am just saying that has not been my experience. I spent a considerable amount of money on a new system built to run CS5 and have just not been that thrilled with it. It crashes daily. I will just have to live with it until I get the bugs worked out or something better comes along. I hear Vegas is a good program.
I get what you are saying about I/O gear. It would have been a nice touch if they would have made it work with windows media player.

Hi again,

This is a good discussion and good comments. I am still going to use CS3 for a little while until I get some current projects finished. I just think a 64bit program will run all around a little more efficient and maybe a little bit faster than the 32bit version. If I upgrade to 64bit I will be upgrading to CS5 that is a given. And upgrading RAM. RAM is pretty cheep. My system can handle 32GB. Has anyone run CS5 on Windows XP 64bit. If it work good then I will go that way. I tried upgrading my Sony notebook single P4 2.8Ghz CPU and 1GB RAM. It worked ok but slow at any graphics intensive type tasks.

John Gerard

Hi yet again,
For those of you that are using CS5 what if any features were added to speed up editing. Mainly for routine tasks. Being able to cut down significantly or eliminate routine tasks like adding transitions and some other tasks that I can't think of right now would really save me 2-5 hours of editing. These are tasks that the computer could do quite well and is timeconsuming and boring taking me off the creating process. Plus getting my projects done quicker. Right now in my project I want to create an intro. that uses very short clips for high energy. I would like to be able to do something like select in and out points then hit copy between in/out point, then past to the beginning of the time line. Right now I have to cut the clip then copy, then past. I don't want to have to cut the main clip in the time line to do this. I know that I can do it another way by cutting the clip/ section out of the source monitor but this is not the most efficient way to go about it.

John Gerard

To John and Jay,
Just wanted to thank you for the replies. I am looking forward to CS5, but am dreading the transition process. One thing that is going to be nice is the rendering in the background as opposed to having to stop everything and wait on it.

I have pretty much decided on having my new box built locally by the guy who built my current one. If it breaks, I can drive it over and have him look at it. In addiiton, he is going to make my present system a dual boot. One with 64bit while keeping the CS3 32bit drive still working.

Your suggestion about installing CS4 is much appreciated, I will be doing that on both my current workstation as well as my "big" laptop (Dell M2010) which is a great machine for client on-tite demos and tweaks in their office.

I will be combing the archives here to glean valuable nuggets of wisdom to help in the build..... "search".....
Best Regards
Dale

Hi yet again,
For those of you that are using CS5 what if any features were added to speed up editing. Mainly for routine tasks. Being able to cut down significantly or eliminate routine tasks like adding transitions and some other tasks that I can't think of right now would really save me 2-5 hours of editing. These are tasks that the computer could do quite well and is timeconsuming and boring taking me off the creating process. Plus getting my projects done quicker. Right now in my project I want to create an intro. that uses very short clips for high energy. I would like to be able to do something like select in and out points then hit copy between in/out point, then past to the beginning of the time line. Right now I have to cut the clip then copy, then past. I don't want to have to cut the main clip in the time line to do this. I know that I can do it another way by cutting the clip/ section out of the source monitor but this is not the most efficient way to go about it.

John Gerard

I'd suggest you post your question in the Adobe Froum where you will be more likely to get help from people who do the kinds of things you do. I mostly do mult-cam editing, and am not sure that what I do would be relevant to the kind of editing you are doing.

Has anyone run CS5 on Windows XP 64bit. If it work good then I will go that way.
John Gerard

Unfortunately Adobe deliberately disabled installation on XP64, which is still my favorite OS. Supposedly much of the new 64bit code was specifically written to run on Vista and Win7 (Using those shared libraries and DLLs and such) I definitely tried to make XP64 work with CS5, but eventually upgraded our entire facility to Win7-64 instead. We have been quite happy with the final result.

I'd suggest you post your question in the Adobe Froum where you will be more likely to get help from people who do the kinds of things you do. I mostly do mult-cam editing, and am not sure that what I do would be relevant to the kind of editing you are doing.

Thanks, I am curious about the above. Is CS5 still limited to 4 different multi-cam views? I am thinking of doing a project that will include 6 different views.

John Gerard

Unfortunately Adobe deliberately disabled installation on XP64, which is still my favorite OS. Supposedly much of the new 64bit code was specifically written to run on Vista and Win7 (Using those shared libraries and DLLs and such) I definitely tried to make XP64 work with CS5, but eventually upgraded our entire facility to Win7-64 instead. We have been quite happy with the final result.

Thanks, for adding that information. I would not have thought of that issue. I already have Windows 7. I got the 3 license family pack that included both the 32bit and 64bit versions. But I will have to spend some time checking my system for needed drivers, etc. I think I will probably need a new Graphics card at least.

John Gerard

Is CS5 still limited to 4 different multi-cam views? I am thinking of doing a project that will include 6 different views.Yes. If you want to do more than 4 you need to do it in two passes with two different nested sequences.

Following up on what Adam said, I use that method when I am working with dance and stage performances where I need to mix perfromances from two different times.

Where I have shot one event with more than 4 cameras, I often have at least two tracks for cut-aways that I do not need to see all the time. (For example, in a shooting weddings in large venues, I may have one camera stashed in the back or a different room to catch folks as they are waiting to enter the processional and, later, to catch them right after the recessional. Likewise, when musicians are placed away from the main action in a place where it is hard for me to record them or the audio with the main camera, I may stash a camera close to them). For those kinds of cut-aways, I often have the multi-cam sequence on track 1 and the other one or two above it on tracks 2 and 3. I can refer to them when my main cams do not have a shot.

Otherwise, if you want to do the equivalent of live mix with more than four multi-cam panels, you need to look elsewhere than CS5. I suggest Edius 6 or Vegas 10 as alternatives. I think Vegas will do up to 12 tracks and Edius will do 8 or 9. Avid MC5 will do up to nine tracks, but: (a) it is a lot more expensive --- although it was was available at an 80% discount to upgrade Avid Liquid which was EOL, I do not know if that deal is still available; (b) the hardware requirements are pretty steep; and (c) it will have a pretty steep learning curve.

I actually do it exactly the way Jay describes it as well. For the occasional cutaway, this method works fine. But if you wanted the real time live cutting feeling, I suppose you'd just sync up cams 5 and 6 with your first multicam pass, then drag that to a new sequence and repeat the process, using cams 5 and 6 (presumably on tracks 2 and 3) as necessary.

Hi,
I actually have the Dell 490 not the 390 as I said in my original note. I am about to install Windows 7 on a new 500 GB HDD. So if the install does not work I can pop back in my current drive with Windows XP and be back in business. HDDs are cheep. I like to do it this way better that trying to do the dual boot way because if Windows 7 works then I have no need to go back and forth with XP. I talked to Dell and they think I should have no major problems. I also am going to get the nvidia GTX 470 CUDA graphics card and CS5. Probably a 16GB RAM upgrade. I think CS5 is going to be worth the upgrade for me just for the CUDA support if nothing else. Rendering the timeline is taking forever to complete about 8-12 hours to complete yes that correct. My CPU a dual core 3GHz. Xeon version runs at 100% usage during rendering. I have been told that with a 470 card I will not need to render the sequences any more. That will be a welcome site. :-)

John Gerard

Some suggestions and comments.

1. Not sure if you are adding 16gb to your existing RAM or going to a total of 16 gb. I think I read somewhere that Windows 7 and CS5 may encounter slowdowns with certain RAM configurations which were, maybe, 8, 16 gb and 20 gb of RAM. 12 and 24 may be the preferable configurations. I believe I ran across it in DVinfo's Adobe forum and that there was some discussion of testing of this by Harm Milaard and Randall Leong. I don't have time to search for the thread right now, but will try later if nobody else does chimes in.

2. Not every rendering task is avoided with MPE/CUDA under CS5. Some things still require rendering. When you look in the effects panel, the MPE effects are marked so you can tell which ones are which. For instance, some dissolves and some color correction effects are marked as MPE but others are not. The playback is pretty good, regardless.

3. I also kept my XP disk and got a new disk for Win 7. I have a big enough case that I kept the XP disk in the system. When I've needed something under XP, I just change the boot selection in the BIOS. You could do a dual boot but I found that I wanted to boot to XP so infrequently that I dispensed with that complication.

As far as RAM goes, there are limitations about certain configs working better, but it has nothing to do with Win7. 5500 based Xeons (Nehalem Based) and newer use triple channel RAM, while 5400 series Xeons (Core2 based) use Dual chanel RAM. That is channels per CPU, so with dual sockets it becomes 6 channel vs 4 channel.

In order to utilize all of the channels in dual proc workstations, RAM sticks should be installed in sets of 4 or 6. The Precision 490 is Core2 based, so you want sets of 4 sticks. This gives you the options of 8GB (4x2GB) 16GB (4x4GB) 24GB (4x4GB+4x2GB) 32GB (8x4GB or 4x8GB) and any other config you can create wth sets of 4. With a newer Nehalem based system, you need to install sets of 6, giving you the options of 12GB (6x2GB) 24GB (6x4GB) 36GB (6x4GB+6x2GB) 48GB (6x8GB or 12x4GB) etc. If you use a different number of sticks, the system will revert back to single channel failover mode, cutting your memory bandwidth by 33 or 50%.

(Apple was selling Nehalem based MacPros with 16GB as a default option, which cut memory bandwidth by 33% compared to 12GB. So the lower amount of RAM would give better performance.)

Good info. Thanks for the comments. I realized that I already had 4 1GB RAM chips. I was going for 4 4GB chips until I realized duh... that I could use the 4GB I already have. My Dell has 8 RAM slots. So I ordered from Dell just 2 4GB chips for a total of 12GB saving me about $300USD and see how that goes. It is strange that some memory configurations don't work well. As for upgrading to Win 7 64bit.I installed Win7 on a separate HD the WD Carver Black. I changed out all my drives to WD Black drives. One 500GB system/program and 2 640GB RAID 0 drives. I formatted the RAID 0 drive 16k cluster size, it could have been 8k size. This allows the drive to work faster since there are less clusters to read but you do lose a little bit of Hdd space in the process. Also the Black drives are some of the fastest drives out. I have an esata Adaptec card and an external HDD case so I can still get stuff off my Win XP drive if I need to without consuming internal power and/or taking up the extra room. I got a case where I can just plug in and out drives without having to physically remove the case top,etc.
I just received cs5 and Photoshop cs5 extended. This is my next upgrade to perform. The RAM has not come yet maybe later today. I got $50 off by ordering through the adobe store and they gave me a discount on shipping. I got it in 1-2 days.
The one glitch is getting the Adptec esata card driver to install under Win7. Win7 will only allow you to install certified signed drivers without a complicated work around. And my Dell needs a new pws. I might be able to upgrade the pws according to Dell but I will have to wait and see. Just by reinstalling the OS and upgrading to Win7 64 plus new HDDs my computer seems really fast already. I am just about to start on another project so I will see how it goes.

John Gerard

Some suggestions and comments.

1. Not sure if you are adding 16gb to your existing RAM or going to a total of 16 gb. I think I read somewhere that Windows 7 and CS5 may encounter slowdowns with certain RAM configurations which were, maybe, 8, 16 gb and 20 gb of RAM. 12 and 24 may be the preferable configurations. I believe I ran across it in DVinfo's Adobe forum and that there was some discussion of testing of this by Harm Milaard and Randall Leong. I don't have time to search for the thread right now, but will try later if nobody else does chimes in.

2. Not every rendering task is avoided with MPE/CUDA under CS5. Some things still require rendering. When you look in the effects panel, the MPE effects are marked so you can tell which ones are which. For instance, some dissolves and some color correction effects are marked as MPE but others are not. The playback is pretty good, regardless.

3. I also kept my XP disk and got a new disk for Win 7. I have a big enough case that I kept the XP disk in the system. When I've needed something under XP, I just change the boot selection in the BIOS. You could do a dual boot but I found that I wanted to boot to XP so infrequently that I dispensed with that complication.

Hi,
I am getting closer and closer in getting my computer upgraded to CS5 and CUDA. I installed Windows 7 and Premiere Pro CS5 and Photoshop CS5 extended. I download and installed one codec pack for Windows 7 but that did not correct the problem described below....
The problem is as follows.....
I captured a file through the black magic capture card in Premiere Pro CS3. I assume the file is in the AVI format. Windows 7 64bit will not play the file. All that plays is the audio. Windows 7, I think, thinks the file is an audio only file. At 104GB in size I believe all video data is still there. I then installed a windows 7 codec pack and now I see video 1 frame that is all. The video still does not play. In CS5 the file is only imported as audio only and CS5 think the file is also audio only. I am thinking all that is wrong is that I do not have the correct codec installed. Any help in getting the right codecs will be greatly appreciated.
For those that are running Windows 7 64bit have you figured out the Windows 7 problem where a USB HDD is not recognized correctly in Windows My Computer. An USB HDD on my computer will show up and even has a drive letter assigned to it but Windows says that I need to format the drive. I tried a thumb drive and that works great.

For a BlackMagic file, you may have a BlackMagic proprietary codec. For CS5, you'lll need the 64 bit version of that codec.

Caution: Adobe does not endorse the installation of any aftermarket codecs like k lite or similar...they are potential problems waiting to happen.

You need to install one of the Blackmagic driver and software packages. You don't need the hardware for the installer towork, and it gives you access to the Blackmagic file formats. I install the Multibridge drivers on most all of my systems, even if they don't have the hardware, specifically for the file format support. You can download all the software from their site for free.

A far as RAM goes, adding 2 4GB sticks will increase your memory capacity, but will cut the bandwidth (speed) in half, as your computer reverts to 2 channel mode. Not the end of world, but not ideal by any means. The extra 2 4GB sticks to bring the total to 4 should be well worth the upgrade, more so than the first two, even if you never actually use the full 20GB. You could have instead bought 4x 2GB sticks to add to your 4x 1GB sticks to give you a total of 12GB, without lowering the bandwidth.

3. I also kept my XP disk and got a new disk for Win 7. I have a big enough case that I kept the XP disk in the system. When I've needed something under XP, I just change the boot selection in the BIOS. You could do a dual boot but I found that I wanted to boot to XP so infrequently that I dispensed with that complication.

I have a quad boot system, XP, Vista, Win 7 32 and Win 7 64 bit. When I boot up it asks me which OS I want to use and I just select the OS I want to work with. By default I have Vista selected and this will launch automatically after 20 seconds, unless I select another option.

To set this up, right click on Computer and select Properties, in the next window select Advanced System settings, then select Startup and recovery and now select your Default OS. You can also alter the time delay before your default OS kicks in, I have it set to 20 seconds.

No need to dive into the BIOS each time you want to change OS.

ps. I keep the four systems going because I have applications that work better under XP or Vista etc. and I also review software amongst other things. I use Win 7 - 64 bit for video editing and do not have any anti virus software on that OS, just to keep it running smoothly.

Hi all again,

I appreciate all the info, advice, etc. I got my replacement pws installed yesterday I had a Dell tech come out to my house to replace it. My Dell is 3.5 years old. This is the main reason one goes with a Dell. I got the EVGA GTX 470 CUDA card installed and installed all the latest drivers. Everything is running very well. My computer at the moment is very quite. I added 2 additional case fans in the direction blowing air out of the case. So now I have 5 case fans 2 on the front. 1 that points down at the memory. 2 that draw air out of the case, and 1 heat sink HDD fan unit with 2 fans that I connected to my third HDD.
I have run my computer for a total of 2-3 hours now with the CUDA card installed and my system is still very quite. I ran the benchmark test stress test program from EVGA for about 6 minutes and the temperature did not go up very fast maybe in the area of 1 degree every couple of seconds or so. I think the top reading was about 81 degrees C. This is after I over clocked the card just a little. At first I had gotten the EVGA OC card then people that I talked to thought I was pushing the thermal limits of the Dell so I decided to exchange it for the non OC clocked card. I thought that it may run a little cooler. I played around with CS5 before I installed the 5.0.2 update by adding a brightness filter and a color correction filter. This is what ground my computer to a halt in CS3. when I hit play. Play back was slightly jerky for about 1-3 seconds and then smooth as silk playback. This is without CUDA being activated yet. A 1000% improvement over my previous setup.
Installing the Blackmagic drivers fixed the AVI playback problem. I did have to remove my Intensity Pro card. I don't use it that much anyway. I have a Canopus 110 external unit that I can try using when I need to convert from an analog source.
I have not upgraded RAM yet, I received 2 x 4GB RAM chips from Dell. Then I found out that Dell recommend using 4 chips at a time. 4x 2GB chips instead of 2 x 4GB chips. There are four memory channels on my board. So I have to decide whether to return the ram or get 2 more 4GB chips. I here that 20GB is not a good configuration. I could just use 16GB or just go with 12. It is another $260 in cost difference if I don't really need it?

John Gerard

You need to install one of the Blackmagic driver and software packages. You don't need the hardware for the installer towork, and it gives you access to the Blackmagic file formats. I install the Multibridge drivers on most all of my systems, even if they don't have the hardware, specifically for the file format support. You can download all the software from their site for free.

A far as RAM goes, adding 2 4GB sticks will increase your memory capacity, but will cut the bandwidth (speed) in half, as your computer reverts to 2 channel mode. Not the end of world, but not ideal by any means. The extra 2 4GB sticks to bring the total to 4 should be well worth the upgrade, more so than the first two, even if you never actually use the full 20GB. You could have instead bought 4x 2GB sticks to add to your 4x 1GB sticks to give you a total of 12GB, without lowering the bandwidth.

20GB is a fine option if configured properly with sets of 4 stick. So 4x1GB plus 4x4GB should give you optimal performance, as would 4x1GB plus 4x2GB for 12GB total. (Don't be confused by the fact that Nehalem systems have totally different requirements for optimal performance, those limitations don't apply to your system.)

Hi Mike,
I am thinking of getting another 2 x 4GB RAM. So will that configuration work for PP CS5?
My other question is regarding using 16GB vs 20GB RAM. Jay thought that PP CS5 would have a problem with that configuration. If so, then I will only use the new RAM and take out the 1GB chips.

Thanks,
John Gerard

As far as RAM goes, there are limitations about certain configs working better, but it has nothing to do with Win7. 5500 based Xeons (Nehalem Based) and newer use triple channel RAM, while 5400 series Xeons (Core2 based) use Dual chanel RAM. That is channels per CPU, so with dual sockets it becomes 6 channel vs 4 channel.

In order to utilize all of the channels in dual proc workstations, RAM sticks should be installed in sets of 4 or 6. The Precision 490 is Core2 based, so you want sets of 4 sticks. This gives you the options of 8GB (4x2GB) 16GB (4x4GB) 24GB (4x4GB+4x2GB) 32GB (8x4GB or 4x8GB) and any other config you can create wth sets of 4. With a newer Nehalem based system, you need to install sets of 6, giving you the options of 12GB (6x2GB) 24GB (6x4GB) 36GB (6x4GB+6x2GB) 48GB (6x8GB or 12x4GB) etc. If you use a different number of sticks, the system will revert back to single channel failover mode, cutting your memory bandwidth by 33 or 50%.

(Apple was selling Nehalem based MacPros with 16GB as a default option, which cut memory bandwidth by 33% compared to 12GB. So the lower amount of RAM would give better performance.)

Thanks Mike, I am then going to use the 2 x 4GB now and get 2 more chips. I didn't know that he was talking about a specific system. Dell also does recommend using either 4 or 8 memory slots.

John Gerard

20GB is a fine option if configured properly with sets of 4 stick. So 4x1GB plus 4x4GB should give you optimal performance, as would 4x1GB plus 4x2GB for 12GB total. (Don't be confused by the fact that Nehalem systems have totally different requirements for optimal performance, those limitations don't apply to your system.)

Wow. Thanks Jay..... I needed that! So very helpful. You seem to have answered all my questions too.
I'm saving your comments for future use. See next post........

BTW I'm using CS4 and I've had some lip sync problems with HDV...... Do you know if CS5 does a better job than CS4? or should i just go ahead and use Split??

Great infromation here: I second what Tim said above about running CS3 under Win 7 (or Vista 64). I add the following six comments to the intervening discussion.

1. First, for Ron Little and John Gerard and your "crashing" problems: have you tried cleaning the media cache database? An overfull, unattended media cache database can produce those symptoms. In CS4 and CS5, you click on Edit -->Preferences-->Media and then click "clean" next to the second item down. It has been a couple of years since I last used CS3, so I do not recall the exact keystrokes (and I can't find my CS3 manual) but I believe the process was similar.

Also, for Ron, if you are working with AVCHD when you are getting crashes, you might want to try an Adobe CS5 "AVCHD" sequence preset to see if the crashing issues persist.

2. Second: for John: before moving from Win XP to Win 7, check to be sure that there will not be any hidden hardware gotchas before getting and installing Win 7. Dell systems have a reputation for being finicky about this so you want to run the Microsoft Windows Upgrade Advisor. (Google it to find the free MS download site).

3. Also for John: as for whether it is worthwhile upgrading from CS3 to CS5, it ultimately depends a lot on what you edit and what you edit for. In addition to what Tim pointed out, I'll offer a few more specific things to consider.

Are you working mainly with SD video or are you mainly working with HD formats? If SD, stay with CS3. If you are using mostly HD video, I can say that. CS5 has been a very good thing for me. I do mostly mutli-cam editing with HDV and AVCHD, and also (like Tim) I happily use a Matrox Mini for an external display . I have found CS5 much preferable to CS3. While I've had to figure out some quirks and work-arounds, working with HD under CS5 has been as easy for me as working with SD under CS3. (Come to think of it, there were quirks and work-arounds there, too.)

If using HDV, do you use a third party capture utility like HDVSplit or Cineform's HDLink? These cure the audio synch problems that some CS3 users -- myself included --- had when using PPro CS3's own capture utility; a problem that has gone away with CS5.

Do you need to work with mixed formats, such as SD and HDV and/or AVCHD in the same timeline If you got Cineform's Neoscene or NeoHD, you can convert everything to run under CS3. CS5 does not need necessarily the conversions (though there are be other reasons to use Cineform.)

Do you need/want the ability to make Blu-ray disks with menus. Encore CS5 does this, CS3 does not, If you are not burning BD, you don't care.

How much multi-cam and multi-track editing editing do you do and how much do you work with layers of effects? The more of this you do, the more you may want to consider CS5.

Can you add a Cuda capable video card to your system? This not absolutely necessary. Some folks find software MPE sufficient for their needs. This is subjective, though.

Do you need to edit LPCM audio with your video? CS5 does this, CS3 does not (although NeoHD will now ingest it.) If you do not have a Sony NX5 or somewhat specialized audio recording equipment you do not care about this.

There was discussion above about using an external editing display for HD editing with a Matrox Mini. You need CS4/5 to run the Mini. Since you are holding off on upgrading your computer hardware, I'd guess that you do not care about this.

4. Be aware that perceptions of suitability are subjective. For example, I think your system specs are a bit underpowered for CS5. While I'm not sure that 8 mb of RAM and a dual core processor is enough, there are numbers of forum members who have reported happily using CS5 to edit on laptops with lesser capabilities than your current system.

5. If you want to add to your RAM and going to Win 7, consider getting a separate hard drive for this if there is room in your Dell case for one. From experience with my own and several other folks upgrading to Win 7, I can tell you it is far easier to do a clean install on a new hard drive. You still have you XP drive available if and when something does not work under Win 7. There is something to watch out for here, though. You probably know that you can install your copy of CS3 (or CS5) on two computers (as long as they are not used at the same time, Adobe treats installations under different operating systems as separate computers.) So, if you've got CS3 on the laptop you mentioned, you probably want to deactivate it before trying out CS3 under Win 7 on your main system.

6. Finally, the easiest way to deal with the internet is to just unplug the ethernet cord from your editing system. You only plug it in when you need to update.

Hi,
I finished upgrading to CS5 already and waiting for my Epson R1900 to arrive. So far CS5 is so much better than CS3. First CS3 would not recognize my Sony Fx7 camera. Cs5 has no problem. There are just so many features in CS5 that make the workflow just so much more streamlined and easier to use than CS3. So far CS5 has not Crashed yet. I Finally got CS3 not to crash as much after making sure I was using only certified drivers. Cleaning the cache did not help me. One other problem with cs3 was that in the titler if I clicked on any of the fance type styles I would immediately get a low memory message. This I could reproduce. Before I upgraded to Win7 and CS5 I was still getting an occasional crash in Encore. Not much if any crashes in premiere pro Cs3. My one thought is like Windows Premiere Pro just likes having a lot of RAM and 32bit was just to limiting. So far everything about CS5 I love much better than CS3. from CUDA through being able to still edit in Premiere Pro at the same time as editing in Encore. This is really nice. I could go on and on. I also bought 100 of the TY WaterShield DVDs. I paid about $75usd.