GPU acceleration as it should be

OldSmoke wrote on 5/11/2013, 10:37 AM

A number of people have asked me what they should expect from a good system that has been build around Sony Vegas and also which hardware they should use. I am not an expert per say but I have build numerous computers from the days when Windows 3.1 was still new and I am still building my own; my current system spec can be found in my profile. Hardware and hardware combinations always behave differently but still they should be very close especially if systems are identical. This is not to convince anyone to build exactly the same system. With VP11 GPU acceleration was introduced and all hell broke lose; at least from what I can read in this Forum. I changed from VP10 to VP11 the moment it came out because my system at that time, a Q6600 CPU with 8GB RAm and one GTX460 was ready to support it. Yes there where issues with it but none, at least on my system where GPU acceleration related. With VP12 I eventually upgraded to an i7-2600K, to an i7-3770K and to the system I currently use. I was also temped to upgrade my GPU to a GTX670 series but after much research on the Internet and in this forum I held on to my GTX570 and later installed a second one.

I have always used driver 275.33 since my GTX460 in 2011 and only with the addition of the second GTX570 did I switch, after many trials and errors, to driver 296.10 which to date is the fastest driver on my system.

I have made two short videos to show the performance of such a system in terms of render times and time line playback. For this test I used Sony's own benchmark project that I believe is still available for download from their website (the content of the project are also described on the website).

The first video is a render test using the MC AVC Internet 1080p template which I have customized to use CUDA if available.

The second video shows the time line playback performance at the default project settings as it was downloaded from the SCS website. Note: The screen capture software was focused on the Video Preview Window but in fact all my three monitors where active (left monitor is used as External monitor, center contains the time line, explorer, fx and other windows and right monitor I dragged the Preview Window to the max)

This post is not to brag about my system as I am sure there are better systems out there but to show how well VP12 GPU acceleration does work on my system. It would be nice to see how well other systems especially those with an AMD card work as I have absolutely no experience with those cards but on spec, the AMD RADEON cards have plenty more Stream processors and should do better.

P.S: the vidoes where done in a hurry and may not be up to standard; I know!

EDIT: the difference between using 1 or 2 GTX570 is marginal; 2-3% but my 3D CAD software does a lot better with 2 in SLI. Vegas however, doesnt like SLI; it does work but preview as well as render times drop by about 10-15%.

Comments

VidMus wrote on 5/11/2013, 11:54 AM

With my 560ti performance is a little bit slower and so is render time. Same CPU without the 'K' so I do not overclock. I need to dig that thing up and see what my render time actually is and compare it. Without GPU it would be terrible with both rendering and playback!

On the first video when you load Vegas it is easy to see your Vegas serial number.

You might want to edit that.

OldSmoke wrote on 5/11/2013, 12:19 PM

THANKS Vidmus... I am changing it now.

Edit: Ok, done... I blured it out.

The system may actually do better as only one fo the 2 monster 3slot cards is resting in a x16 PCIe slot, the other due to space constrains has to be in a x8 slot. The only way to get both into x16 is to watercool both cards and make them 2slots wide... another day.

I used HyperCam to do the screen capture and I set the recording frame rate at 30fps but somehow, when I import the captured AVI file into Vegas it played back at 2x the speed. I had reduce the playback rate to 0.5 to get it right. The media info in Vegas however shows 30fps and so does MediaInfo.

VidMus wrote on 5/11/2013, 10:43 PM

Ok, I dug up the project from my storage drive.

Timeline playback is mostly 100%. There are a few places where it will twitch a little bit below at about 28. That is with the preview only with 'Best-Full'. If I view it on my second monitor it will be the same except for one point it will drop to 24 but only for a couple of seconds.

On render, yours took 35 seconds. Mine took 59 seconds. I can overclock my CPU a little bit and so I did. Then it took 58 seconds. LOL!

Looks like the difference between my 560ti and your 570 is quite a bit when it comes to GPU performance. And if you were not using SLI it may be even more.

I do not remember the specs on my card while I type this. It is factory overclocked but not by much. I doubt if it has the fastest memory for the type of card it is. I just found the box it came in and all it has is the hype stuff. So I will have to reply again when I can figure out what the real information is.

Still, if one does CPU only and renders this project then they need to prepare for a long nap!

In my case it is GPU acceleration as it almost should be...

The slight CPU overclock is a waste of power and more unneeded heat so I will set it back to normal.

Danny Fye
www.dannyfye.com/ccm

OldSmoke wrote on 5/12/2013, 9:13 AM

There is now a new version of the 560Ti with more CUDA cores, 448 if I ma not mistaken. I found the 570 to be the bank for the bug as the difference to the 580 can be easily made up by overclocking it. I usually run the cards at 875MHz which improves performance by a good 15-20% making it 32sec, timeline is really smooth this way. There is hardly any additional heat as the 570 has a huge heat sink hence the 3 slot width. CPU only renders are really slow and even slower then yours on my system:

Change template to COU only: 90sec
Switch of GPU acceleration for Vegas: 127sec

Hmm...interesting.

NormanPCN wrote on 5/12/2013, 1:14 PM

I have an AMD 7950 card, previously a 5850 card and I had previously DL'd the Sony demo and played with it some. I have a core i7 860 2.8Ghz system.

I does playback 99.x% smoothly Best full. A few random tiny huccups. There appears to be a driver issue in the first half of region 5. Display corruption before the fade at the end of the clip of track 6. It only happens best full. Best auto/half is fine.

The Main Concept AVC OpenCL encoder does not work with new AMD graphics core next GPUs. It did work with my previous 5850 and hauled arse. Main Concept stupidly coded directly to each AMD architecture and Sony apparently does not have an implementation with support for the new stuff. Who knows what the deal is between Sony and Main Concept. If anyone wants a time I can pop the old card back in. Don't need to change drivers and such.

OldSmoke wrote on 5/13/2013, 9:05 AM

I would be interested Norman but really only if it isn't any trouble. I am always on the hunt for improvements on my system; specially timeline playback is still not as good as would like to see it. Sony's benchmark project does do some stuff but if you switch it to 32bit full, playback is a totally different story. Rendering can still be ok as many users like me can do it overnight provided it did complete and didn't hang or crash half way.

It would also be nice to know how the newer GTX600 cards fair in comparison. I am still tempted to get a GTX670 that can drive my 3 monitors as it would free many PCIe slots on my system, making space for additional cards I would like to install, Intensity Pro comes to my mind.

NormanPCN wrote on 5/13/2013, 4:56 PM

I put the old card back in. AMD 5850 765Mhz.
New card 7950 950 Ghz.
Core i7 860 2.9Ghz 8GB ram.

There are two distinct GPU usages in Vegas. Vegas itself rendering the video stream and individual file encoders, most of which do not support GPU.

Main Concept AVC, 5850 card.
58 sec, Vegas GPU, Encode GPU (OpenCL)
4:35, Vegas GPU, Encode CPU
5:59, Vegas CPU, Encode CPU

Main Concept CPU is one of the slowest CPU encoders, so I also ran Sony AVC

Sony AVC
1:53 Vegas GPU, Encode GPU
1:57 Vegas GPU, Encode CPU
3:11 Vegas CPU, Encode CPU

Also the system with old card does not have the driver display corruption problem in region 5. The issues does appear to be a driver issue with the new GCN cards.

With the new card.

Main Concept AVC
4:37 Vegas GPU, Encode CPU (OpenCL not supported with 7xxx cards)

Sony AVC
1:48 Vegas GPU, Encode GPU

OldSmoke wrote on 5/13/2013, 6:07 PM

Interesting. On my system the SONY AVC encoder takes 2x as long as the MC AVC. Which Sony AVC template did you use for the test?

My CPU only times where Vegas CPU and Encode CPU.

BTW, Thanks for doing this!

NormanPCN wrote on 5/13/2013, 6:58 PM

The templates I used are all my own.

For Sony AVC, I started with a memory stick template to get MP4 file output. Then changed everything. AVC type, 1920x1080, progresssive, 29.97, 20Mbps, high profile, CABAC

For main concept my template was created from an "internet template" and then set to 20Mbps average but still single pass, 29.97, progressive, 2 ref frames, high profile.

Same here about 2x difference.
GPU/GPU 58 vs 1:53.
CPU/CPU. 3:11 vs 5:59.

OldSmoke wrote on 5/14/2013, 11:51 AM

I had a bit of time today and took out one of my cards and the render time with a single GTX570 and "full" gpu acceleration is 45:00sec at stock speed which is close to 30% difference on this project... hmmm I have to correct my statement in the inital post.