Benefit of extra Graphics Memory (Frame Buffer)

[Michael Szalapski]

I can’t explain in which way frame buffer plays a role in OpenGL performance, but I can tell you that most of us have Open GL turned off in AE. In nearly every case, AE runs much smoother and better without it.

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble’)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

[Todd Kopriva]

I actually have OpenGL rendering turned on for the OpenGL-Interactive preview mode. That helps for faster updates (with a transient tradeoff in visual fidelity) when I’m interacting with a layer property—like moving a layer.

But, other than that, Michael is right. Beyond making sure that you have a supported OpenGL card, there’s no point in spiffing up your graphics card just for After Effects.

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
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If a page of After Effects Help answers your question, please consider rating it. If you have a tip, technique, or link to share—or if there is something that you’d like to see added or improved—please leave a comment.

[Rik Mahieu]

Thanks for your answers so far! The reason I’m asking:

I recently upgraded my system and I would like to figure out if I should replace my old 7900GTX (which is OpenGL compatible) for a newer model (like a GTX275 or a more expensive GTX295) or wait for the new GTX300 series which are supposed to be released in 2010 as well as Adobe CS5 which has some promising statements regarding OpenGL, CUDA and GPU based encoding..

https://forums.adobe.com/thread/511974?tstart=-1
https://aeportal.blogspot.com/2009/09/adobe-demos-nvidia-cuda-acceleration.html
https://blogs.adobe.com/davtechtable/2009/10/its_official_the_future_of_ado.html

The bottom line is, I (like everyone) just want a more efficient workflow and I’m just curious about what parts of a video card really boost performance in software like Adobe CS4/CS5, because I’ve read a lot about CUDA, OpenGL/OpenCL, GPU encoding and Nvidia’s gain over ATi with plugins like Red Giant Looks etc. There has to be some performance gain, but in which way, I just can’t find clear answers…

[Todd Kopriva]

> Adobe doesn’t exactly have a stellar record for true, no-fine-print-needed, 100% support of items it claims it supports.

We try to make the limitations, caveats, and tradeoffs clear. Really. For example, I have this near the top of the “Render with OpenGL” section:

“Important: Because not all features of a composition can be rendered with OpenGL—and because some features that can be rendered with OpenGL are rendered with different results—you may only want to use OpenGL rendering to accelerate previews and to provide faster rendering for non-final results.”

If you think that there are some areas that could use some additional details, warnings, or tips, please add a comment to the relevant page of After Effects Help on the Web so that everyone who sees those pages will know what you think.

For example, I wouldn’t mind seeing Dave’s stock answer about MPEG codecs on this page:

“Supported import formats”

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
———————————————————————————————————
If a page of After Effects Help answers your question, please consider rating it. If you have a tip, technique, or link to share—or if there is something that you’d like to see added or improved—please leave a comment.

[Steve Roberts]

OpenGL is relevant for 3D apps such as MAX, Maya, C4D, Lightwave and so on. Gives you better previewing capabilities.

It’s also important for apps that lean heavily on a graphics card, such as Apple’s Motion or Color. If you were on Mac.

But for AE … not so much. Spend the extra money on RAM, faster processors, plugins, a big monitor or a really nice chair. I’m serious on the chair thing.

[Todd Kopriva]

[*raises a shovel toward Dave in noncommittal salute*]

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
———————————————————————————————————
If a page of After Effects Help answers your question, please consider rating it. If you have a tip, technique, or link to share—or if there is something that you’d like to see added or improved—please leave a comment.

[Steve Roberts]

“Lucille, God gave me a gift. I shovel well. I shovel very well.” – The Shoveler

[Michael Szalapski]

The chair! An oft overlooked item in one’s arsenal. I didn’t realize the importance of a chair until my current job. God bless military contracts! We have amazingly expensive nice and comfortable chairs and my body no longer feels worn out at the end of a day. They’re not cushy; they’re supportive.

I had no idea life could be this good!

Sorry, I’ll stop with with the infomercial. But seriously, Steve’s right; consider the chair.

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble’)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

[Rik Mahieu]

I defenitely agree on the chair, luckily I have a good one 🙂 Must not get too comfortable, as I might not want to work anymore at all..

But about the video card, I use Premiere and Photoshop as well, but regarding to AE I just want faster Interactive previews, image quality doesn’t matter too much until final render, just for motion tweaking etc. But it just has to be faster than my old 7900GTX..

So if graphics memory size (frame buffer) doesn’t make much difference, I’ll just save some money for now and use it for a nice monitor indeed (Dell U2410 or Apple’s 24″ Cinema), any comments about those monitors are welcome as well, but that’s probably a different topic.

[Dumeyni Arnaud]

Hello,
I always had OpenGL turned off but I used it recently for rendering a heavy RAM-eating composition.
So when playing with the Multiprocessing, with the RAM settings and caches isn’t enough it might be interesting, but I won’t buy a expensive card just for this.