nVidia MainConcept AVC GPU Acceleration

TheHiveLeader wrote on 8/31/2014, 2:06 PM

Hello everyone. I'm currently using Sony Vegas 13 to edit up video reviews for different things (games, etc) delivered 100% through YouTube. I used to have a AMD card that worked great with the GPU acceleration with the MainConcept codec, cutting my render times to about 1/2 the length of the project.

Last week I upgraded to an NVIDIA 780ti, and cannot seem to get anywhere near the same results. Using Render with CUDA, it is nearly the same as rendering CPU only. Is there a fix for this or a different codec anyone would recommend?

I'm just looking for the best quality vs file size vs rendering speed, as some projects I have are near 30 minutes in length and I would love to keep render times down. Any help would be appreciated, thank you.

Comments

OldSmoke wrote on 8/31/2014, 2:24 PM

Sadly, the 700 and 600 series of Nvidia cards are not as well supported as the older 500 series; a GTX580 would have been a better choice. Which AMD card did you have before?

There is a small trick that might help. Increase the OpenCL Memory to 1024 or 1536. This has helped many but not all users. This setting can be found on the internal tab of the preferences which you can access by holding down the SHIFT key and then opening the preference menu.

TheHiveLeader wrote on 8/31/2014, 2:29 PM

I had an AMD 6870 before, which worked GREAT. Was in need of an upgrade for gaming purposes. I will try your suggestion and let you know if it works! Thanks.

Rich Parry wrote on 8/31/2014, 3:46 PM

I have the GTX680, if I were buying a video card today, is there one that is a clear winner in VP13?

Rich

DataMeister wrote on 8/31/2014, 4:22 PM

This probably depends on your definition of "winner", but the AMD FirePro W9100 is currently the clear winner winner with Vegas Pro 13. For the moment anyway.

Rich Parry wrote on 8/31/2014, 6:44 PM

Holy cow, $4,000 retail, $3,300 street. No thanks.

NormanPCN wrote on 8/31/2014, 7:44 PM

I had an AMD 6870 before, which worked GREAT. Was in need of an upgrade for gaming purposes.

Mainconcept AVC seems to hard code itself to specific GPU architectures. I know this is true with AMD, and I have read a little about it as far as Nvidia.

I had an AMD 5850 which hauled arse in MC AVC OpenCL, and my current 7950 falls back to the same speed as CPU only. You can also see that in GPU load % but I don't like to rely on that so much. A quick look into the MC AVC encoder DLL shows subroutines for older AMD architectures but not Tahiti and newer.

FWIW SCS has claimed MC AVC works with Tahiti and newer architectures. Laughable. It does encode. It just falls back to CPU. I guess that counts for "working".

Sony AVC and the Vegas video engine seem to have generic support. It's okay to have custom tuned code for specific architectures but you still need generic as well to work with everything out there.

OldSmoke wrote on 8/31/2014, 7:52 PM

I think in the more affordable class there are GTX580, HD6970 and R9 290.

bigjezza wrote on 9/2/2014, 4:38 AM

Any ideas on a card to drive a UHD/4K screen? I know the 580 wont :(
I've got a GTX770 and its woeful with Vegas.

OldSmoke wrote on 9/2/2014, 5:57 AM

There is a "tweak" that might help. I posted it in forum and it was with driver 334.89 I believe. The tweak is to increase "OpenCL Memory" setting from it's default of 384 to 1020, 1536 or even higher. This tweak has worked for some users but not all. It's worth a try and can be reverted easily if it doesn't work. The only newer card we know off that works well is the R9 290.

The "OpenCL Memory" setting is on the "Internal" tab under preferences and which can be accessed by holding down the SHIFT key while opening the preferences.

bigjezza wrote on 9/2/2014, 7:42 PM

I'm less interested in main concept acceleration so sorry for hijacking the thread, but I think what I might do is grab an r9 280 and do some experimenting. I'm mostly after improved timeline and preview performance with my projects. It's a struggle at the moment with 1080p50 in an interlaced project with a few sony color corrector plugins :(

NormanPCN wrote on 9/2/2014, 9:20 PM

I'm mostly after improved timeline and preview performance with my projects.

Look into this thread.
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=900988

NickHope wrote on 9/8/2014, 6:43 AM

Any ideas on a card to drive a UHD/4K screen? I know the 580 wont :(

Why not keep the GTX 770 to drive your monitor(s) and add a GTX 580 (perhaps from eBay) to do your Vegas GPU acceleration?