GPU acceleration in Pro 11

[Jeff Harper]

Thanks for the earlier link Adam, very helpful.

But how much will Card A speed up things vs. Card B, that is what I wonder. Rather than blindly buying a card with a vague hope of improved performance, I would like to know specifics, as I'm sure we all do.

This info will become clearer as the dust settles and more reports come in, I suppose.

[Leslie Wand]

i HOPE!!!!

[Adam Stanislav]

Originally Posted by Jeff Harper

But how much will Card A speed up things vs. Card B, that is what I wonder.

Let us remember why a GPU (graphics processing unit) makes things run faster. Not because it processes graphics but because to process the graphics, modern GPUs are PPUs (parallel processing units). They have large numbers of cores, each of which can run the same code on different data. In our case, each can process a number of different pixels at a time.

So, all other things being equal, the more CUDA cores a card has, the more it speeds things up.

Now, the one I have is a GT 430. It costs less than $80 and has 96 cores. So it can process 96 pixels at a time. There is some overhead (the pixels have to be copied from computer memory to the device, then the results have to be copied back to computer memory). So, let us be conservative and say it speeds things up 50 times.

Let’s say some other card may have twice as many cores and cost twice as much. Is it worth the double price? I’d say no. The first $80 increases the speed fiftyfold, but the second $80 only doubles that. That is not a big difference compared to the 50.

Many cards cost a lot more money but the increase in speed is not great in comparison with the cheaper models. The GPU’s main functionality is to process graphics so people can play computer games. Essentially they are hardware-based ray tracers. That is their main purpose, the PPU is just a pleasant side effect. But most people who are looking for a fast GPU could not care less about video editing, they want to play games. We are a highly specialized type of GPU users, so we are not a priority to GPU manufacturers, just a niche market.

So, many of the expensive cards will not give us a much better performance than the more affordable ones, though they will make the games run faster.

These things are important to consider when deciding which card to get. Is the better performance worth the price difference? Up to a point, perhaps. But do not go overboard. We are not the target market for GPU performance. We are an afterthought.

[Nicholas de Kock]

Originally Posted by Gerald Webb

Lol, I'm feeling like I own a Pentium next to that monster Ian.

Can anyone answer this, would Ians GTX 580 give any better previews in Vegas than a GTX 560TI?

The GTX580 (512 CUDA Cores) is serious showing off Ian, hehe, monster card & price. Gerald it's hard to say how much faster Ian's card will be over a GTX560Ti (384 CUDA Cores) but it will be faster. I tend to stick to mid range products because in a month or two something new comes out that out performs the previous best, helps me sleep better knowing I didn't spend too much.

[Jeff Harper]

I could be wrong, but dollar for dollar I suspect it's best to put this money on a faster processor rather than sink $500 into a video card. Then afterwards think about a card.

[Ian Stark]

Like I said - first time I've ever had bragging rights!

Seriously though, this was not a purchase made just to show off. If I had more budget I would (possibly) have gone for the 590 with dual GPUs, but what I did was to spread my (pre-determined and fixed) budget over the core components, basically to get the best OVERALL spec I could. As I mentioned elsewhere, there is a diminishing return on such things and I appreciate that my choice is possibly overkill, however . . .

Vegas is the primary tool in my arsenal for me to pay to pay the mortgage and put my kids through college. The faster i can open it up, load projects, edit, preview, render, convert, etc, etc, the more money I make, or put another way, the quicker I recover my investment. Simple as that.

With regard to double the speed being worth double the money, I respond with a resounding YES, OF COURSE IT IS if you're making a full time living with it! The difference in price between the 580 and the 430 is about $380, based on NewEgg prices after rebates. I charge up to four times that per day. If I only benefit from ten minutes saved time per day I recover that difference in 12 days. After that I make a further $32 margin each day. Of course this is all a bit academic as I'm actually establishing the ROI based on the overall cost of the system, but the point is, if I get a decent ROI in an acceptable timeframe, who cares what the initial cost is? This ain't down to whether or not I have x CUDA cores or y VRAM, it's purely down to 'how quickly do I start earning from it?' (with a fair bit of 'and how much more will I enjoy working with Vegas as a result?' thrown in).

Additionally, I have little doubt that over the next few years software (and video) requirements will place even greater demands on the pc so I'm as much thinking for the future as for now. My current quadcore (which was highly specced at the time) is five years old and other than adding some more RAM and disk to it I haven't spent a penny more in upgrades. It paid for itself certainly within 2 years if not sooner. I have every hope that the same will be true of the new system.

Finally, despite my promise to myself to keep this as a Vegas only box, I have no doubt I will succumb and install the only game I possess, Flight Simulator X. Now, that should be something to behold :-)

[Nicholas de Kock]

I'm also still on Quadcore Ian but I have two PC's so I spread the load, like you say it's business. Post results when you get your card, we should look at creating a benchmark Vegas project with generated media and effects and comparing results between PC's.

[Ian Stark]

As luck would have it, Sony already has!

www.sonycreativesoftware.com/vegaspro11benchmark

It's 2.5Gb, before you leap in! I haven't explored exactly what it contains so I don't have any further knowledge about it. When my new system is bedded in I'll give it a whirl . . . then sit back and wait for the 'told you so's to roll in ;-)

[Andreas Neubert]

Originally Posted by Jeff Harper

Any video card will work with Vegas 11. It's a matter of which ones will speed up rendering and playback, and by how much. The latter is what is cloudy to me.

I can´t select GPU acceleration under the video settings - the option is not available.

I have a Nvidia GTX 275 - it was a upper middle class GPU of the 2XX series - back then 285 and above where the hi-end cards.
But all 2XX series cards are listed with compute capability 1.3 on the nvidia site - and the vegas pro 11 site says any 2XX card will work!

[Ian Stark]

Andreas, what Jeff is saying is that any card will work will v11, but not every card will take advantage of the new GPU acceleration. The 2xx series still work as they did before. If you want to take advantage of the new GPU acceleration you will need a higher end card.

My wife drives a Honda Civic 1.4. She uses the same freeway as I do in my Audi A6 2.4. But if she wants to get to her destination faster she will need a better car. Simple as that.

Sadly I have just spent all my spare cash on a new pc so she will have to wait. Also, she is not borrowing my car. Period. Just thought I'd mention it ;-)

[Jeff Harper]

We need someone with the time to create a list of facts and common issues with this GPU thing and to create a sticky, maybe, complete with links to the manufacturer websites, Sony websites, and a list of FAQs or something.

For example, if the "enable GPU rendering" cannot be checked or is greyed out or whatever, it means your card is not up to spec.

[Bill Koehler]

From the Sony Creative Software website here:

Vegas Pro 11 GPU acceleration

Supported cards for GPU-acceleration:
To take full advantage of the GPU-acceleration in Vegas Pro 11, you will need a supported card with at least 512 MB of GPU memory.

GPU-accelerated AVC rendering:
NVIDIA: GPU-accelerated AVC rendering requires a CUDA-enabled GPU and NVIDIA driver 270.xx or later with a GeForce GTX 4xx Series or newer GPU.

ATI: OpenCL GPU-accelerated rendering requires an OpenCL-enabled ATI GPU and AMD Radeon Catalyst driver 11.7 or later with an AMD Radeon HD 57xx or newer GPU. AMD FirePro GPU should have 8.85 or newer.

GPU-accelerated video processing:
NVIDIA: GPU-accelerated video processing requires an OpenCL-enabled GPU and NVIDIA driver 270.xx or later with a GeForce GTX 4xx Series or newer GPU.

AMD: OpenCL GPU-accelerated video processing requires an OpenCL-enabled AMD GPU and AMD Radeon Catalyst driver 11.7 or later with an AMD Radeon HD 57xx or newer GPU. AMD FirePro GPU should have 8.85 or newer.

[Jeff Harper]

Bill, well done, thanks for your effort and the excellent specific information. We need to refer those who are having trouble to your post, for sure.

Do you know if the amount of RAM affects things much beyond 512MB? For example my card has 1 or 2GB of ram, I forget. I'm not seriously thinking about ditching my card, it's a new card with around 200 bitstreams or whatever they are called, and it would be frivolous for me to do so. I have an i7 980 processor, so I don't know how much more a $400 or $500 card would help.

If Adam is correct in his discussion of the diminishing returns, it would seem in my case I'm OK where I'm at.

[Bill Koehler]

Originally Posted by Jeff Harper

...Do you know if the amount of RAM affects things much beyond 512MB?...

I have no idea - I am in the same boat as most folks here. I have an ATI 6670 Series card with 1 GB of memory. I like the x670 series because they don't require an auxiliary power connector and don't turn my desktop into a space heater.

But how well it performs - or if - I won't know until I test it, probably later this week.
I do know that on my Core 2 Quad Q6600 AVCHD/MPEG-4 encoding to almost any HD format is so slow that I don't. If I need to do an encode to HD, I use MPEG-2.

[Sean Seah]

how do u know if the GPU is recognized?