-
Best graphics card for AE
Today I upgraded my XP Pro 32 bit, 4 gig ram machine to Vista Ultimate 64 bit and 8 gig of ram. I have a core 2 quad processor. Hope to get the Quadro graphics card in about 45 days. I currently have the ATI Radeon HD2600 Pro with 512 onboard ram. Short of the Quadro, what is a good graphics card for After Effects. Most have 1 gig ram.
-
6 Replies
-
Bill: Go to Preferences > Previews and press the OpenGL Info button. You’ll get a dialog with a list of OpenGL-accelerated capabilities. If all capabilities appear as “supported”, you probably don’t need to upgrade your graphics card for now. As you surely know, OpenGL acceleration in AE is more about speeding up interactions (dragging elements around in the Comp panel, adjusting parameters, etc), than it is about speeding up actual rendering (the OpenGL renderer won’t give the same results/quality as the software renderer).
A more powerful graphics card will take more operations to be defeated, sort of speak, and may also give better looking results. But it’s also fair stating that using effects or operations which are not OpenGL-accelerated will make OpenGL less relevant.Your recent OS/RAM upgrade, plus the quad core processor, will affect performance more clearly than a high-end graphics card.
Adolfo Rozenfeld · Adobe
-
Thank you. All of the options came up as supported.
Problem. When I chose to “make movie” I didn’t receive the usual options in the render window. The movie name, file type, etc is already chosen and all I can do is select render. Also, when I start AE there is a small warning window but the contents don’t show. Like I’m out of video memory (just a guess)
-
Bill, did you re-install AE after upgrading the OS?
Adolfo Rozenfeld · Adobe
-
Yes I did. Going to reinstall now.
-
I have reinstalled everything. Picked up some rendering speed. Would like to increase that further.
Spoke with Nvidia about a graphics card. They felt that an upgrade in the graphics card, short of perhaps the Quadro, would not help with rendering times. Is that correct?
My CPU is a Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.10 GHz.
-
That’s actually not correct.
OpenGL rendering is not meant to be a means for producing high-quality end results in rendered files from AE. So graphics cards, no matter how powerful, will not affect Render Queue renders at all. The exception is enabling the OpenGL renderer, but this will give you different results (more draft-like) than the software renderer.Nvidia has a model tailored for the CS4 applications (Quadro CX).
This and other high-end models should give you a very nice experience in terms of having smooth interactions when adjusting parameters and dragging layers around, but they will not improve rendering speeds. This card will also provide advantages when using OpenGL accelerated features in Photoshop CS4 (3D, zooming/panning, etc), and I understand it also provides acceleration for some features in Premiere Pro. Overall, you can expect the drivers for this card to work nicely with CS4 apps, which is of course a good thing. So, it could be a good investment – just don’t expect it to speed up AE renders.Finally, bear in mind that with a configuration like you have now, you probably are getting render times 10-20x faster than you would have had a couple of years ago. This is nothing short of amazing, and it’s not only a consequence of modern hardware, but also of the multi-processing feature in AE.
Adolfo Rozenfeld · Adobe
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up