OpenCL acceleration on Macbook Pro with Certified card is BAD

[Todd Kopriva]

There’s information here about OpenCL processing and other GPU acceleration in Premiere Pro CS6: https://adobe.ly/Je20M2

Note the part toward the end about how updating software now or in the near future is the best way to get the best performance and stability with OpenCL in Premiere Pro CS6.

We can’t make promises about the future, but… well, stay tuned.

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
product manager, professional video software
After Effects team blog
Premiere Pro team blog
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[Erik Mickelson]

I wait with foot ready, to kick butt with! Go Open Cl Adobe kick butt! With!

CrippleBook Pro 2.3Ghz i7, 16GB ram, Lion 10.7.3, FCPStudio 3, QT 7

[Todd Kopriva]

Mac OSX v10.7.4 update improves OpenCL performance. See this for details of OpenCL in Premiere Pro CS6: https://adobe.ly/Je20M2

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
product manager, professional video software
After Effects team blog
Premiere Pro team blog
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[David Mcgavran]

If that wasn’t clear enough from Todd, please go get 10.7.4 if you use OpenCL 🙂

Thanks

Dave

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David McGavran, Adobe Systems Incorporated
Engineering Manager Adobe Premiere Pro
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[Erik Mickelson]

Might want to hold off on the update. I have had two straight system crashes while using Open CL. It appears to happen with Non-Adobe plugs, BCC key, Smooth Tone, Light Wrap when at Full Resolution playback. Dropped to half res playback and it seems stable for now, although I already had smooth half res playback without Open CL. That’s all I got for now.

CrippleBook Pro 2.3Ghz i7, 16GB ram, Lion 10.7.3, FCPStudio 3, QT 7

[Thomas Smet]

I just tried the update to Lion. Pretty much same exact experience as before.

Phenomenal performance with OpenCL for about 45 minutes. Played with a 3 way CC and all of a sudden OpenCL performance died even at 1/4 resolution. Even raw AVCHD footage would only play at around 10 fps at 1/4 resolution. Delete all clips in the timeline and drag new clips still playback jerky.

Close project and open again with no change. Close CS6 and launch again fixes the problem for awhile until I tinker with some filters again.

Overall OpenCL support is pretty darn slick and is lightyears faster on my 17″ MBP until it stops working. I’m starting to think certain combinations of filters or just tinkering with the settings in the filters are whats killing it for me. Perhaps I should experiment with the filters and see if I can come up with a consistant cause of the problem.

[Thomas Smet]

For fun just launched CS6 fresh and tried beating it up in gpu mode with tinkering with filters. Could not break the gpu mode so I’m back to thinking it just dies after 30 to 60 minutes of use with the gpu mode. Restarting CS6 seems to fix it every time. I am also always able to switch from gpu to cpu mode once the gpu mode croaks.

[Todd Kopriva]

Check the power management settings for your computer. Is it possibly using a power-saving mode where the graphics processing is switching over to the the Intel graphics chipset?

(We saw something like that when testing GPU acceleration with After Effects, which is why I ask.)

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
product manager, professional video software
After Effects team blog
Premiere Pro team blog
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[Thomas Smet]

Under the energy saver setting I have the automatic graphics switching turned off. That was the first thing I tried when I tried CS6 on Monday.

I do have:

put hard drives to sleep when possible checked
Wake for network access checked
Automatically reduce brightness before turning display off checked
And the Display set to go to sleep at 1 hour.

Every time the gpu fails however I am actively tinkering with gpu effects or editing so no part of the system is going to sleep as far as I know.

[Thomas Smet]

Just ran CS6 with gpu mode on my 17″ and now was able to go for a good 2 hours without the performance dropping. I wasn’t adding filters this time and was mostly cutting with a bit of audio EQ and a few dissolves. I stopped editing and the gpu was still going strong. I’m now thinking it wasn’t so much a failure after X amount of time but a failure due to some odd combination of filters or just the gpu portion crashing randomly. In fact in almost every situation I was tinkering with gpu effects such as 3 way CC. It doesn’t always do it and today was messing around with CC for 45 minutes and didn’t kill the gpu. Then the next time the gpu dies after 30 minutes of minor use.

At this time I’m thinking it is more of a random crash of the gpu portion of the application when the gpu effects are being adjusted. It doesn’t always happen but that seems to be when it can happen.

Overall I am very happy with the gpu performance in CS6 and look forward to when these gpu crashes can be fixed. For now I have a solid workflow.

use gpu until the gpu mode gives out. Then either switch to cpu mode or restart CS6. If it gets too annoying I can just use cpu for now. It also seems like I may be able to use gpu for most of my cutting and minor assemble of my projects and can expect the gpu to only have problems once I start getting into heavy CC. I do most of my heavy effects work in AE anyway so CC seems to be the only area where I could run into problems.

I do look forward to a fix in the future however and I know eventually we will get there. As a developer myself I totally understand how hard it is to shift gears and start with a new technology and try to bring it up to the same level of performance as the existing technology.