Mac Pro 5,1 + Quadro 4000

[nerdo]

Premiere 5.03 is a big improvement, all my Canon stuff now plays smoothly and in real time. Even the parts that show up as needing to be rendered, so whoot!
Time to learn re-Premiere Pro again.

According to Adobe you must update to 5.0.3 in order to get the mercury engine working with NVIDIAs Quadro 4000.

Another weird problem I seem to be having is the Mac hanging when it tries to put the screens into sleep mode. Not a problem when using the 5770, but it is a problem with the quadro 4000.


As for the OpenCL, this is what I get from system Profiler:

Version: 12.3
Last Modified: 11/28/10 1:13 PM
Kind: Intel
64-Bit (Intel): Yes
Get Info String: 1.5.3, Copyright 2008-2010 Apple Inc.

Whatever Looks is using: it is bloody fast compared to the 1,1 mac pro.

As for dumping the Efi: how about being a bit more specific and use better english? Maybe just PM me with an actual link that tells me how to get it done instead of some vague reference? Nothing personal but I bought the official one because I don't want to waste time nerding around websites like finding a possible maybe solution !?!?

You can make the dump easy to use Zeus from netkas.org or send a PM to one of his ...

Don't mind helping out but... dude spend a bit more time being specific?!?!

 

[DCfilms]

Hi, I want to get a desktop mac pro 2.8 quad core for video editing.

I just spoke to Apple sales and they said this new Nvidia card is only for laptop macpros, not desktop macpros. Is that true? Why would apple not upgrade the Desktops in this way?

Can anyone tell me the best graphics configeration for the mac pro desktop that available. I don't have a clue when it comes to this technical stuff - i just like to edit!

Cheers

 

[goMac]

Hi, I want to get a desktop mac pro 2.8 quad core for video editing.

I just spoke to Apple sales and they said this new Nvidia card is only for laptop macpros, not desktop macpros. Is that true? Why would apple not upgrade the Desktops in this way?

Can anyone tell me the best graphics configeration for the mac pro desktop that available. I don't have a clue when it comes to this technical stuff - i just like to edit!

Cheers

The Apple reps are drunk, this card is only for the desktop Mac Pros.

I don't know why they would tell you that.

 

[DCfilms]

The Apple reps are drunk, this card is only for the desktop Mac Pros.

I don't know why they would tell you that.

Thanks, i had a feeling this must be the case. I was quite clear - i asked if i could have the Nvidia fitted instead of the Radeon in a mac pro desktop. He said they were macbook pro only!!!

In terms of video editing (using Avid Media Composer) do you know know if the Nvidia would indeed be the best solution, or should i stick with the Radeon?

I see there's some debate on the matter of which is best here, which i don't really understand.

Anyway, thanks for clarifying that Apple sales staff are just as thick as me when it comes to it

 

[goMac]

Thanks, i had a feeling this must be the case. I was quite clear - i asked if i could have the Nvidia fitted instead of the Radeon in a mac pro desktop. He said they were macbook pro only!!!

for video editing (using Avid Media Composer) do you know know if the Nvidia would indeed be the best solution, or should i stick with the Radeon?

I see there's some debate on the matter of which is best here, which i don't really understand.

Anyway, thanks for clarifying that Apple sales staff are just as thick as me when it comes to it

My experience with Avid Media Composer is more limited than my experience with Final Cut or After Effects/Premiere, but from what I understand there are a few GPU accelerated features that will be enabled with the Quadro. Nothing I know specifics about.

I would guess that you wouldn't see as huge a gain as a Premiere user would, though.

 

[loungecorps]

In terms of video editing (using Avid Media Composer) do you know know if the Nvidia would indeed be the best solution, or should i stick with the Radeon?

Anyway, thanks for clarifying that Apple sales staff are just as thick as me when it comes to it

Hello Avid user here. Right now Avid does not utilize cuda in any way, it is all open GL so you won't see any benefit with the quadro, at least not yet. But don't worry because you will get realtime playback with unrendered effects. When avid say's it's real time they mean it. unlike some others i don't need to mention

 

[goMac]

Hello Avid user here. Right now Avid does not utilize cuda in any way, it is all open GL so you won't see any benefit with the quadro, at least not yet. But don't worry because you will get realtime playback with unrendered effects. When avid say's it's real time they mean it. unlike some others i don't need to mention

From what I'm reading, there are Quadro specific optimizations. No CUDA like Premiere, obviously.

 

[DCfilms]

Thanks for your replies goMac and loungecorps.

Even if there is little to no current benefit to Nvidia with Avid, would i be future proofing myself with Nvidia, or are Avid unlikely to utilize this card much more than the present time?

 

[goMac]

Thanks for your replies goMac and loungecorps.

Even if there is little to no current benefit to Nvidia with Avid, would i be future proofing myself with Nvidia, or are Avid unlikely to utilize this card much more than the present time?

Entirely up to Avid. It doesn't hurt to futureproof with a good CUDA/OpenCL card...

I do have to ask though... What Radeon do you have now? If you have the 5870, I would honestly stick with that. The 5870 is a much better OpenCL card, although it doesn't do CUDA.

 

[DCfilms]

Entirely up to Avid. It doesn't hurt to futureproof with a good CUDA/OpenCL card...

I do have to ask though... What Radeon do you have now? If you have the 5870, I would honestly stick with that. The 5870 is a much better OpenCL card, although it doesn't do CUDA.

This will make you laugh - i have a Radeon 9600 Pro in a 2003 G5 PPC. Very out-dated and the Avid Xpress Pro struggles badly when i have the waveform sowing on the audio track (a necessity really). So anything is going to be better.

I'm about to get a new mac pro 2.8 single quad core (Nehalem) and was going for the 5870 (rather than 2x 5770). Then i read about this Nvidia and don't know which way to go.

 

[goMac]

This will make you laugh - i have a Radeon 9600 Pro in a 2003 G5 PPC. Very out-dated and the Avid Xpress Pro struggles badly when i have the waveform sowing on the audio track (a necessity really). So anything is going to be better.

I'm about to get a new mac pro 2.8 single quad core (Nehalem) and was going for the 5870 (rather than 2x 5770). Then i read about this Nvidia and don't know which way to go.

Ehhhhhhhhhhh. I MIGHT lean toward the 5870 (again, I spend most my time in the Adobe/Apple apps, I am NOT an Avid user.) The Quadro, while bringing CUDA to the table, is a slower card overall.

One thing to keep in mind, from what I'm reading on the Avid forums, the Quadro 4000 is NOT a certified card for Avid, and it even sounds like GPU acceleration may be disabled. The Quadro 4000 was also not benchmarking that well:

http://community.avid.com/forums/p/90991/521821.aspx

It may be worth it just to stick with the 5870, and instead bump your CPU count, which would be a better investment for the future (also, one that can only be made when you order the machine.)

 

[DCfilms]

Ehhhhhhhhhhh. I MIGHT lean toward the 5870 (again, I spend most my time in the Adobe/Apple apps, I am NOT an Avid user.) The Quadro, while bringing CUDA to the table, is a slower card overall.

One thing to keep in mind, from what I'm reading on the Avid forums, the Quadro 4000 is NOT a certified card for Avid, and it even sounds like GPU acceleration may be disabled. The Quadro 4000 was also not benchmarking that well:

http://community.avid.com/forums/p/90991/521821.aspx

It may be worth it just to stick with the 5870, and instead bump your CPU count, which would be a better investment for the future (also, one that can only be made when you order the machine.)

Thanks for the very helpful advice goMac - it's clarified things for me. As you suggest, i'll go for the 5870 and bump up the MP from 2.8 to 3.2 (xtra £320).

Along with the £170 for the 5870, that's £490. I imagine the Nvidia card would've set me back further.

Cheers

 

[nerdo]

Yep go for the 5870 when using Avid and get the speedbump. You can always get another video card later when Avid catches up with the new tech. I imagine it will take them a year or so

With the Quadro and premiere pro 5.03 I am now where DVExpress 3.5 was all those years ago when it comes to real time effects... then again now i'm cutting HD and not DV. Maybe I should have used the Quadro cash to upgrade media composer lol.. premiere is pretty awfull... oh well.

 

[goMac]

Honestly, they're all pretty awful at this point...

Premiere CS5 is a horrible porting job. Avid is overly complicated. And FCS has a nice clean interface but has an outdated foundation.

If I were looking to spend money on an editor right now I would just put all my cash in a giant pile and burn it. It would be a better use of money.

(I'm hoping Apple can get FCS back on track.)

 

[shorafix]

Quadro 4000 tested with Premiere CS5

Before I had the Q4000 installed in a MacPro 3.1 yesterday, I was hoping to keep the GTX 285 in the second 16x PCI slot. However, this was impossible since the GTX occupies both 6 pin power sockets of the Intel mother board.

First results of Cinebench were disappointing:

MacOS X
GTX 22,59
Q4000 21,88

Windows 7 Home Premium
GTX 35,95
Q4000 35,69

Even though the differences are not significant, the Q4000 obviously is not an improvement in terms of OpenGL performance under MacOS X and neither under Windows 7 (with original NVIDIA drivers).

Open GL extensions viewer showed a more differentiated picture:

MacOS X (Open GL 2.1/single head/Multisample 8/Anisotropy 16))
GTX 537
Q4000 633
Here the Q4000 outperformed the GTX 285 by less than 18%.

CUDA/Mercury Engine support on Premiere Pro CS5:
(Hint: First you need to update Premiere to 5.0.3)

With the Q4000 Adobes mercury engine performs nicely at least on my MacPro 3.1 with APP CS5. AVCHD clips in a sequence can be loaded with color correction, effects and much more, as long as those effects are supported by the mercury engine.

I have tested a clip adding randomly 3-way color correction, Luminance Curve, Gaussian smooth, 3-D-effect, scaling 50%. I even added another AVCHD clip below the first one in order to make a clip-in-clip effect. All the effects turned on at the same time the sequence played back smoothly without the need of rendering.

Conclusion: an "improvement" of 18% would not justify to spend all the $ for the Quadro 4000 if there was an alternative for CUDA and Displayport support on the Mac with the same GPU.

 

[nerdo]

Sadly I agree.

Ran into my first real Quadro problem today: Livetype. the livetype font preview window doesn't really work on my main 30 inch screen. It sort of works on the second 24 inch one, but only shows a cache like version of the previously selected font. So a non animated preview of the font you viewed before the one you are viewing right now. Making it a weird preview where you have to jump down the list checking the preview for the previous font.

Also having a weird letter spacing problem, livetype fonts don't do spaces anymore.

So here is to a nice 64bit FCP with build in livetype based titler and no more bloody "out of memory"

As for burning money: I would give it to Ted Williams for a share in his voice over business...

Honestly, they're all pretty awful at this point...

Premiere CS5 is a horrible porting job. Avid is overly complicated. And FCS has a nice clean interface but has an outdated foundation.

If I were looking to spend money on an editor right now I would just put all my cash in a giant pile and burn it. It would be a better use of money.

(I'm hoping Apple can get FCS back on track.)