Mercury Playback + second video card

Adobe Premiere Pro

Mercury Playback + second video card

Posted by Kevin Kratzke on March 16, 2011 at 11:56 pm

I recently built a new system for the CS5 suite, and have been thrilled with the performance of the Mercury Playback Engine with the GTX 570 that I chose. The one thing I miss from my old rig is a third monitor.

I know that the MPE won’t work with multiple cards in SLI, but will it still work if the two cards are not running in SLI? I’d love to add a second, lower-powered card to drive the third screen, but I don’t want to lose my GPU acceleration.

Thanks in advance!

-Kevin

Tim Kolb replied 15 years, 6 months ago 4 Members · 5 Replies
5 Replies

Tim Kolb
March 17, 2011 at 12:27 am

I light up four displays exactly this way…I’d simply recommend getting a like brand/product line card (even if it’s a less beefy model) so they can both run on the same drivers…I have two Quadros for instance.

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,
Vince Becquiot
March 17, 2011 at 12:45 am

Hi Kevin,

I use a 2nd card (Not CUDA powered) for extra workspace / ref monitor, it doesn’t affect playback in MPE.

Vince Becquiot

Kaptis Studios
San Francisco – Bay Area
Kevin Kratzke
March 17, 2011 at 1:00 am

Thanks! Exactly the answer I was hoping for. I’ll give my old 9400 GT a try.
Jeff Pulera
March 17, 2011 at 4:48 pm

Hi Kevin,

Another option is BlackMagic Intensity or Matrox MXO2 Mini hardware, providing a true video output signal to HDMI (or analog) displays.

I’ve tried the second PC monitor route running off the display card, and while not terrible viewing 1080i AVCHD on a 24″ LCD via DVI, was still a little choppy/rough around the edges in general, while MXO2 provided a perfect output all the time. I believe the issue is because computers don’t do interlaced display.

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor
Tim Kolb
March 18, 2011 at 3:52 am

[Jeff Pulera] “while not terrible viewing 1080i AVCHD on a 24″ LCD via DVI, was still a little choppy/rough around the edges in general, while MXO2 provided a perfect output all the time. I believe the issue is because computers don’t do interlaced display.”

Valid point. I’ve been working in progressive the overwhelming majority of the time since I started with HD, so the AJA LHi becomes my ultimate proofing system with my Sony video monitor.

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

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