NVidia cards and CS3

[Tim Kolb]

The driver version numbers tend to be most important for NVIDIA compatibility.

I’m running a QuadroFX 4500 and a QFX 560 on the same machine and CS3 seems fine with it. I am not running the latest driver version however. this is the key. Really research what the ‘driver’ version is that’s compatible. It’s more important than the card model number in my experience.

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

CPO, Digieffects

[Warren Morningstar]

So how would you find out which driver is stable with CS3?

[Tim Kolb]

Well…

I would start by searching Adobe’s website for approved GeForce drivers…

I reference the NVIDIA page at https://www.nvidia.com/object/IO_27118
but I think those are strictly for QuadroFX cards…

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

CPO, Digieffects

[Omid Aladini]

Thanks Tim. The point is that the interoperability of NVidia cards and Adobe products are quite vague. For example, we know that GeForce 8400/8600/8800 support GPU-accelerated HD playback but they’re not explicitly listed as cards that does the accelerated video playback/preview for CS3.

Also, I’d like to know what features of Premiere Pro uses what features of Quadro/GeForce cards (in order to decide which one is the right choice according to my needs)! But neither Adobe nor NVidia provide such information. Am I getting too much into unnecessary details?

—
Omid

[Peter Corbett]

Omid,

I’m just about to put a new 1gb GTX 280 into my CS3 setup. I’m not how it will work with GPU-accelerated Adobe effects, but I know that plugins like Magic Bullet make good use of the shaders and clock speed of the fast NVidia cards. My current 8800GTS 512mb works very well in Vista 64 with CS3.

Unless you are doing high-end animation and have bundles of cash falling out of your pockets, I’d avoid the expensive Quadro cards. Personally I’ve never had any trouble with any Nvidia card with any version of CS* Premiere. There are sometimes dodgy drivers but these affect the whole system, not just Premiere. I always use the latest official drivers from NVidia as driver development invariably goes forward.

Peter

Peter Corbett
Powerhouse Productions
http://www.php.com.au

[Vince Becquiot]

I myself go by Aja’s list of compatible drivers for the Quadro FX (which I would say is the way to go even if you don’t have an AJA card). You can buy something like a Quadro FX 3500 for about $150.00 on Ebay. I have one of those on a Quad Core machine and it handles itself really very well in Premiere.

One of the the reasons they are better is because the drivers are tested much more extensively than the 3D game cards.

Vince

[Peter Corbett]

In light of the new GPU acceleration in CS4, I’ve revised my thoughts on VGA cards. I have a GTX280 which performs very well, but I’ll be replacing it with a mid-range Quadro FX like the 3700 or 4600 when CS4 ships. The goal posts keep moving….

Peter Corbett
Powerhouse Productions
http://www.php.com.au