[Rj Miles]

10.10.5 has been fine for us. However, I am waiting to upgrade to 10.11.x until I can see a good reason to do so.

As far as support for Yosemite… I don’t think you have anything to worry about for awhile. Apple is still sending out security updates, so…

I’d say… make a clone back up, and then jump into the pool.

[Rj Miles]

It really depends on how you’ll be using the card. I wanted the GPU to support a 4 screen 4K edit setup. The GTX 680 could not do it. The GTX 980 could do it but with limitations on screen resolutions of monitors 3 & 4. The GTX 980 Ti ended up being perfect for me.

As has been said, you don’t need a Mac compatible version if you have a work around to support the PC version. I have the PC version Zotac GTX 980 Ti which I got at B&H for $610 a few weeks ago. MacVidCards can install a Mac EFI flash for $180, but I don’t need that and it would also complicate any warranty claim down the road.

I use the Share Screen method for setting up the GTX 980 Ti. I use a Mac Mini with 10.7.5 installed which I keep around for dusting off legacy FCPro 7.0.3 projects. Screen sharing enables you to see everything you need on the Mac Pro for installing updates, upgrading nVIDIA web drivers, etc.

There is lots of “new” GPU rumored for next summer, but who knows what that means for any really product.

IMHO, I would choose the GTX 980 Ti and save the $$$ over a Titan X. If you’re not going to be pushing the GPU as hard as I want to, I think the GTX 980 is an even better choice in the $450 range. Lastly, given you can pick up a used GTX 680 Mac version for around $300, that would let you save more $$$ for what might come next year.

As far as what Adobe officially supports… they have updated the code to allow the important CC programs to access the GPU acceleration of all the GPUs we’re talking about. I’m using the 980 Ti with both Premiere Pro and AE without issues.

Good luck with your decision.

[Rj Miles]

Thanks.

I tested the MOVE source method and it worked. The only adjustment I needed to make was making sure the XAVC ProRes files were also 8 channel to allow PPro to make the substitution.

I’ll explore the Project Manager options next.

[Rj Miles]

Thanks

I went with 422LT for the H264 source and 422 for the XAVC source for the reasons you mentioned.

[Rj Miles]

Tom…

Here is my set up…

Mac Pro (2011 build) 3.46GHz X5690 12 core Processors
OS X 10.10.5
512GB Crucial SSD (OS and APPs)
GTX 980 Ti (not Mac EFI flashed)
(4) screens
-Dell u2711 (2560×1440)
-Dell u2711 (2560×1440)
-ViewSonic VP2780 4K (1080P)
-Dell 2408 (1080P)

Atto R680 SAS RAID controller
8 Bay SAS (non expander) enclosure
8x Samsung 850 EVO 1TB SSDs in RAID0

Sonnet Tempo Due (2x) 5G USB 3.0 + (2x) 6G eSATA
4 Bay Icy Dock Cube 6G eSATA
2 Bay Mobius Enclosure USB 3.0, 6G eSATA, FW800

I am running Premiere Pro CC 2015 and editing 4K projects. The set up can handle 3-4 streams of H264 or XAVC in the timeline. Converting the H264 and XAVC source to a 4K ProRes format greatly expands the number of 4K streams we can run in the edit timeline.

While this system costs a little more than your rig, it gives you an idea of what options you might chose to support further expansion and performance boosts down the road.

Cheers and good luck with your new rig.

[Rj Miles]

Just an update.

I test drove ProRes conversions of both the H264 and XAVC source material. I tried 422LT 4K, 422 4K, 422HQ 4K and 4444 4K. All but the 4444 4K offered a huge performance boost as far as how many 4K streams I could have going at one time.

4444 4K started to get choppy when adding a 5th stream. Makes wonder if the 4444 codec is not as friendly as the others, then again it has higher data I/O demands.

422HQ 4K started to get choppy when I added stream 12.

The others all let me just keep going and I stopped testing at 15 streams.

Any advice as far as the compromises of choosing among those ProRes codecs for converting all of the H264 and XAVC source for the edit? Comparing frames among the ProRes codecs and the source do not reveal any apparent visual artifacts in any of the ProRes conversions. I’d love to know about the color space compromises which might not be revealed until much later in the production workflow.

[Rj Miles]

I would follow up and say, it’s a random occurrence. I have been able to get the pull down menu happening one second and not the next. I’m not sure what I’m doing differently when it works and when it doesn’t, such as exact mouse placement, or number of attempts, or clicking fast or slow. Weird.

[Rj Miles]

Thanks Tero… a very informative read, especially as far as how the GPU processing is reflected differently in the presence and color of the bars. Thanks

Just curious… when that link mention the simple codecs of DV and DVCPRO… when it comes to 4K these are kinda replaced by ProRes and NDxHD?

I hear ya Alex. I will let the project work be the guide.

Bottomline… I was just trying to make sure I had not missed a technical aspect of the hardware/software set up. Appreciate the clarity you have both provided to help me better understand the limitations and what changes will impact those limitations.

Thanks

[Rj Miles]

Thanks… I am preparing a test with a H264 file converted to 3 ProRes formats. 422 LT 4K, 422 4K and 4444 4K.

H264 is actually worse than XAVC as far as playback stability.

If I create a timeline for H264 and one for XAVC, in either case I can have 3 layers before I get the yellow render line at the top of the timeline. I’ll see how many ProRes tracks I can layer before I get to the same render line. I know in the past working with FCPro 7.0.3, ProRes made all the difference at extending the number of tracks one you have in the timeline. I feel kinda silly for not assuming the same with 4K, but I guess I was kinda believing at advertising about working in raw camera source files.

Thanks again

[Rj Miles]

Yes… we have a cMP 2.93GHz 12 core set up with an R680 hosting a RAID built with (8) Samsung 850 EVO 1TB SSDs. We pull about 2500-2600 MB/s reads with a 1.5TB project on the RAID.

I started the thread because based on how the SSD RAID appears to be staying way ahead of the demand, it feels like we should be getting more streams going. There seems to be something else acting as a bottleneck.

I thought it might be the GPU and we upgraded to a GTX 980 Ti and that helped a little.

We’re running 64GB of ram and wondered about moving up to 96GB or even 128 GB to allow Premiere more ram or the system to have a bigger cache.

The goal is just to have a little more flexibility within a 4K edit session to work with rough compositing ahead of when the more serious After Effects action takes over.

Right now we get 3 4K streams to playback pretty well. Moving to 4 and 5 is iffy and playback is pretty random.

The 4K file formats are H-264 3840×2160 and XAVC 2K/4K 3840×2160 I have wondered about transcoding the 4K source into something more data I/O friendly.

Thanks for any additional advice.