Best video card for AE (PC)

[Brendan Coots]

Your best bet, if you can afford it, is to get an Nvidia Quadro series card. They range in price from $300-$3,000+, but even the lower end models are better equipped for CAD work than standard gamer cards because they have certain pro features enabled.

That said, most of the Nvidia gamer cards have the same basic pro features, the pro features are just disabled to keep people buying the Quadros. There are applications out there that help you “soft-mod” your gamer card into a Quadro by unlocking those features (do a google search for RivaTuner Soft Quadro). Nvidia does not approve of doing this needless to say, but it isn’t illegal or immoral since you paid for the card, you can do whatever you want to it. It’s really no different than unlocking a cell phone for use on other networks. I will say that it’s not as simple as pressing a button, you have to follow the instructions closely, and it’s a good idea to research in advance which gamer cards work best for this operation.

[Darby Edelen]

Does a Quadro really help very much for an application that barely uses OpenGL? Even if you’re going to be doing OpenGL previews (which always look wrong on my setup, even though I run 2.0) will a Quadro really be that much of a benefit?

Maybe I’m old school, but I still think RAM is more important than the video card. If you’re doing other things on your computer such as CAD or other 3D design/modeling then I see some reason for it, but in AE I don’t think you should fork over extra thousands of dollars that could be better spent on RAM or more HD space.

Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA

[Steve Roberts]

If the card is supported by Adobe, it’s good.

I agree with Darby – a high-end card for AE and Premiere is a waste of money. Instead, spend it on RAM, RAID and an I/O card such as the AJA or Decklink.

… and a very, very good chair.

Right now, hot graphics cards are only useful for 3D apps and gaming. Which is basically 3D.

[Brendan Coots]

Without a doubt I agree with you on that. It would almost be a waste of money to get a Quadro for AE. But hey, the guy asked which card would be best! 😉

[Scott Roberts]

Ram, processor, raid or 10,000 rpm hard drives – more than one drive is key. Read more about video card open GL2 and AE on the Adobe site: https://www.adobe.com/products/aftereffects/opengl.html

Color Grading presets for After Effects, Premiere, etc., plus free presets and more.

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https://www.littleblackbird.com

[Accountneedsrealnameupdate]

Wow, checking out the Adobe page it seems like no OpenGL at all on the Mac? That’s crazy, we’re mostly mac based here and it’s going to make a big difference to us, I’m already sick of hearing how “responsive” Motion3’s particles and 3d space is compared to AE, this is going to make AE seem like a dinosaur.
Maybe I need to take off the tinfoil hat but any chance Apple is purposely dragging their feet to give Motion3 an unfair advantage?
It seems a bit fishy that despite using the same hardware as a windows box there is no way for Adobe to tap into the OpenGL features of these cards when Motion can do it so well?
Don’t want to restart any slagging matches here but this does seem like a big deal, or am I overrating the advantages of OpenGL for day to day work?
Remember CS3 is a big launch for Adobe, the new 3d stuff in Photoshop can really use OpenGL too, (I don’t know what kind of system he had but the tutorial videos of the new 3d features in photoshop seemed to run ten times quicker on his PC than my mac with OpenGL disabled). I don’t know about Flash and Premiere but surely it would be better to have it working?
Anyone had a chance to demo CS3 on a nice PC with a decent graphics card yet?

Glennser