“New” graphics card

[John Rofrano]

[Jeff Bauer] “Did Pro 13 address any of the support issues for newer video cards as discussed in this thread or do the recommendations made here stand?”

Nope, and I contacted Sony and they basically said, “Problems?… What Problems?”. So they seem to be unaware of any problems. Now in fairness, perhaps what they are referring to is that the GPU accelerated timeline playback works fine with newer cards and really that’s all they have control over. They cannot control the fact that MainConcept has not updated their GPU support. I just don’t have a newer card to test with. I only have a ATI Radeon HD 5870 and an NVIDIA Quadro 4000 which are both quite old (circa 2010) by today’s standards. I’d love to see some timeline benchmarks with newer cards.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Jeff Bauer]

Oh, my head hurts… I re-read this thread several times trying to figure this whole GPU thing out. John, thanks for all your insights, Dave Haynie, thanks for the awesomely detailed discussion, you really know your stuff!! So here are my conclusions.

Using a current video card should result in improved performance EXCEPT when using Main Concept CODEC’s. The reason is that Main Concept CODEC’s use a “list of video cards” embedded in the CODEC to tell them a GPU is available for use. Since the Main Concept CODEC’s are not being updated, a newer card will not show up on the list, therefore the CODEC will not attempt to use the GPU.

So, when using Vegas with a newer video card, one should make sure the preview and render formats are not set to any of the Main Concept formats/CODEC’s.

Does that sound about right? I realize this assumes the video content would benefit from a GPU in the first place.

I assume the reason you would want to use a Main Concept CODEC is that it matches your input source format or, as in the case of the Main Concept Blu Ray format, it results in a higher bit rate/resolution than other formats.

As far as a buying guidance, if you plan on using Main Concept CODEC’s you should look for an older card (e.g. Radeon HD 6970). If you don’t plan on using Main Concept CODEC’s or your content would not otherwise benefit from a GPU, a more current video card is recommended. Correct?

Jeff

[John Rofrano]

That’s a pretty good summary Jeff. Since most Sony plug-ins are GPU accelerated, any new card can improve timeline playback, but only older cards will work with Main Concept GPU encoding.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Jeff Bauer]

Thanks for the confirmation John.

Jeff

[Malcolm Matusky]

Are you running the Radeon and the Quadro on the same system? I am looking to update my second card as my system is running a little slow on playback with Vegas and Resolve, the second Quadro was an improvement, but not enough. Do you think I would be better off getting a GTX690 or replacing both Nvidia cards for one AMD workstation card for 10 bit GUI and a faster gaming card for playback/rendering acceleration?

Regards,

Malcolm

Malcolm
http://www.malcolmproductions.com

[John Rofrano]

[Malcolm Matusky] “Are you running the Radeon and the Quadro on the same system? “

No. The Radeon is in my Mac Pro and the Quadro is in my Windows PC.

[Malcolm Matusky] “I am looking to update my second card as my system is running a little slow on playback with Vegas and Resolve, the second Quadro was an improvement, but not enough. Do you think I would be better off getting a GTX690 or replacing both Nvidia cards for one AMD workstation card for 10 bit GUI and a faster gaming card for playback/rendering acceleration?”

I would not mix drivers from NVDIA and AMD. Go with all one vendors card or the other. Having both is just asking for trouble.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Malcolm Matusky]

Ok, that makes sense. At this point in time should I dump the Q4000 and go with a low end firepro for 10 bit gui and another Radeon card for GPU processing, or just get a Nvidia card like the GTX 680 to replace my second Q4000?

Thanks’

Malcolm

Malcolm
http://www.malcolmproductions.com

[John Rofrano]

[Malcolm Matusky] “At this point in time should I dump the Q4000 and go with a low end firepro for 10 bit gui and another Radeon card for GPU processing, or just get a Nvidia card like the GTX 680 to replace my second Q4000?”

I’m not a big fan of using “Workstation” class cards for video editing. IMHO it’s overkill so I would never buy another Quadro card and therefore could not recommend that you waste your money on a FirePro. I would get a good consumer card because Vegas Pro doesn’t really care (i.e., it doesn’t have any specialized instructions to take advantage of a FirePro or Quadro). I find that AMD Radeon cards work better with Vegas Pro than NVIDIA cards but your mileage may vary.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Paul Mcdermott]

Hi John & Co,
I’m jumping on the end of this thread as it relates to some info I’m looking for-

I’m looking to replace my graphics card. I’ve a video editing pc using SV11. Now I have to turn GPU acceleration off on long renders,it crashes a lot and using the stabilisation function is hit and miss.

I edit with sony vegas 11 and I’m looking to start using CS6 Premier next year. I also want to future proof as I may start editing in 4k in the next year.

Which graphics card would you recommend?

This is my system
Antec 900 Full Tower Case
2 TB 7200RPM SATA 3 Hard Drive
OCZ 128GB Solid State Drive
AS Rock x79 Extreme 4 Motherboard (Firewire, USB 3, esata and PCI-e 3)
750 W PSU
Core i7 3820 Quad Core 3.6 (NOT Overclockable)
Corsair H80 Watercooler
Blu-Ray Writer – Pioneer as discussed
32GB (1600Mhz) DDR3 RAM (4 x 8GB)
Asus GTX 580 Direct CU Graphics Card
Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit

[John Rofrano]

[Paul McDermott] “I edit with sony vegas 11 and I’m looking to start using CS6 Premier next year. I also want to future proof as I may start editing in 4k in the next year.”

Unfortunately those two programs have requirements that are diametrically apposed. Premiere Pro will work best with the latest NVIDIA cards and Vegas Pro will work best with the oldest video cards. If you are really moving to Premiere then you should buy hardware that works well with that and not worry about Vegas Pro.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com