> "[I]It would be interesting if somone knows the secrets inside the SCS VegasPro application.[/I]"

The "secret" is to buy a card that falls within the published specs because, unlike Adobe, Sony does not restrict what card you can buy. It just needs 512 MB of GPU memory and support CUDA or OpenCL with the drivers Sony specifies on their GPU acceleration page. That's about it.

IMHO what Adobe did was very smart. They limit support to the cards they have tested and known to work. If you hack their GPU support file and your card doesn't work you probably won't be surprised or very disappointed. Compare that to what Sony did and on the surface it seems that Sony took the better route by not limiting your card selection, until you make lots of customers angry because the card they bought doesn't work. I feel it would have been better to have an approved card list to pick from. The dozens of threads on this and other forums that start with "What graphics card woks with Vegas ...?" seems to indicate that Adobe's approach, while more limiting, is better for the customer in the end.

~jr

Here's the "skinny" from that SCS site:

"NVIDIA recommends NVIDIA Quadro for professional applications and recommends use of the latest boards based on the Fermi architecture."

Now, does SCS say that this is what is required for Vegas? Dimly lurking amongst that bland statement is no explicit, required, essential, direct request or plea we should purchase a QUARDO or not.

However, if then that is the case, boyz and gurlz, I/we/you have to consider spending as MUCH on the card as on Vegas itself.

Now that must have rattled and shaken the Marketeers at SCS to their very bones.

Discuss?

Grazie

The point of my initial post in this thread - was that according to some in the Adobe community, the ability to hack the default install and make non-Fermi architecture cards in the Nvidia group support GPU a great value for Adobe customers. It sounds incredible that this possible and I do not have direct proof that this is the case.

This is not "old news" because as Adobe adds new customers and upgrade customers every day - a lot of questions are being asked duing the purchase phase if Kepler based cards are supported.

This indeed may have been smart of Adobe to "allow" - so why in heaven's earth do we not have a similar strategy in SCS?

"This indeed may have been smart of Adobe to "allow" - so why in heaven's earth do we not have a similar strategy in SCS?"

As far as I know Vegas already "allows" the Kepler cards to work.

Bob.

I'm clocked at 4ghz & V11 GPU enabled gives me 60% increase in speed with AVCHD files. Timelines are faster as well. That is a FACT. GPU means everything to me at this point. I have plugs that were specifically updated for gpu access & Vegas 12's poor support for this promised benefit is unacceptable. Where is the update for V12? After the New Year?

V12 better get it gpu enabled act together soon or people will look elsewhere to buy better software.

Sony can't stop giving Vegas 12 away for free anyhow making the company look needy for new user.

> "This indeed may have been smart of Adobe to "allow" - so why in heaven's earth do we not have a similar strategy in SCS?"

I don't think you understood my post. SCS already allows EVERYTHING! Adobe actually DENIES cards that are not in their list so people hack the list to add their cards. No need to do this with SCS since there is no "list".

~jr

> "Now, does SCS say that this is what is required for Vegas? Dimly lurking amongst that bland statement is no explicit, required, essential, direct request or plea we should purchase a QUARDO or not. "

I bought an NVIDIA Quadro 4000 and I've had absolutely no problems with GPU acceleration in Vegas Pro. I can understand why a hobbyist would try and get by with a game card, but I don't see why any professional wouldn't buy the professional tools they need to get their job done.

> "However, if then that is the case, boyz and gurlz, I/we/you have to consider spending as MUCH on the card as on Vegas itself. "

You could say the same about plug-ins. Why would someone buy Twixtor, Boris Continuum Complete, Boris RED, Magic Bullet, or any plug-in that cost as much or more than Vegas? Vegas is only one link in the production pipeline. It is the back-plane that everything else plugs into. Much like buying a $1,000 lens for a $600 camera.

~jr

You could say the same about plug-ins. Why would someone buy Twixtor, Boris Continuum Complete, Boris RED, Magic Bullet, or any plug-in that cost as much or more than Vegas?

I didn't. You have. But now maybe SCS would care to second that advise? Up and until now SCS has provided a list of what card will work VP12. It is now essential to be aware of the limitations.

Lets go forward with something of a sense of transparency and clarity of purchase.

John, thank you for being candid. As it has been said - the truth will set you free. Maybe SCS will respond with equal candor?

G

I'm not a fan of the "recommended" hardware kind of thing. For my previous job I built a brand new machine based on Adobe recommended hardware (everything from the MB, CPU, GPU & OS). Had nothing but issues with it. Several months after I built the system Adobe took those specs off their site. so.......

I prefer Sony's way: say "it needs this to run" and let people go with that.

I give up.....

Grazie, don't give up! Jonny asks "why would a professional...?" and the simple answer is that one is always working within cost-benefit considerations. Same considerations stop me buying an F55. Grazie has been asking for factual guidance on the cost-benefits of replacing his GTX560Ti-2 card with something more expensive, such as a quadro 4000. So far the answers have been along the lines of "works for me" and "SCS indicates", and Bob has mentioned that Vegas doesn't use OpenGL anyway:

"been down the same road and lane and path and round and round in circles. We need to be careful not to put much weight on words written about applications that use OpenGL or similar. Vegas does not use OpenGL, it is not a "graphics" application in the same way as nVidea mean. It also does not use the video card in the same way as Resolve or Scratch use it."

However JonnyRoy pointed out that some plugins for Vegas do use OpenGL, and indeed professionally we do employ other software that does work a lot better with a server standard graphics card, but the question being asked is "does Vegas require a card with fermi architecture to perform efficiently?". Will spending $900 be cost effective, or just be a nice thing to have? I'd like to know that too.

Ah! Some "Serena-Serenity". Thank you.

I don't care (well I do!) splashing out 3x the amount for a video card. What I care MORE about is the almost fumbled way the inevitable and seductive way OFX ( which is a good thing), has been slipped out of the blocks and innocently embraced by this Editor without the guidance - that's guidance not "you most have" - reasoning to have made a purchase decision back then.

The other thing that crawls up my rear, like a blood thirsty tick, is that SCS wants us to post OUR specs? Including detailed updating info on drivers and so on. And I do do this. I even make a point to other User chums here to DO the same. Consequently, is it too much to ask to have the same from SCS? Having a vague statement about a card supplier suggests that for professional users that card A or card B not to be used is weak.

Seriously? Oh, and that word again, Professionally, as that phrase is being bandied about here, as opposed to being an amateur or dabbler (?) the search for "better" is what we are ALL seeking. And that's why for 10 years I've come back here and still use and enjoy making projects AND money from this software. I've kept my philosophy about this process simple: SCS wants to make Vegas work and be more workable. That'll do for me. On this one occasion, needing to have a clearer and better upgrade path needs to be carved out. If others have had a background in IT and hardware and has provided them some technical-leverage, jolly good for them. I'm just a non IT-specialist trying to cleft his way through, what has turned out, a jungle.

Serena, again, thank you. Mind you, sometimes I do feel like a GoodCop <> BadCop tag team is working on me!

Grazie

> "Jonny asks "why would a professional...?" and the simple answer is that one is always working within cost-benefit considerations"

So here is a "cost-benefit consideration". ;-) Let's say you charge $70/hr for editing. You buy a gamer graphics card for $200 and spend the next 10 hours over 3 days trying to get it to work. That gamer card just cost you $200 + $700 in lost work. Or you can buy a Quadro 4000 for $700 and just get to work right away. The choice is yours. I don't have time to fuss with things that "might" work. I have no regrets spending $700 for my Quadro 4000. It has more than paid for itself.

I understand that the GTX570 is also a solid gaming card that works with both Adobe and Sony products. I think people get into trouble when they start buying the latest and greatest 600 series Kepler cards that haven't been tested and it's hit and miss on it working or not. Just stick with the recommended cards.

That's the whole point of this thread. Someone wanting to know if they can buy a cheap card and try a hack to get it to work. The answer is, "you don't want to do that even if you could because you get what you pay for with graphics cards and all you will get is headaches".

~jr

"I understand that the GTX570 is also a solid gaming card that works with both Adobe and Sony products."

That's what I've bought but I would have bought the Quadro 4000 in a heart beat except I'm lucky to in actuality get $7/hour for most of my editing.

So far with SCS and Adobe's products no more grief than most and less than some using that card. Thing is though as I also have a 6 core CPU the 570 achieves little to nothing anyway. The only time it seems to deliver something of benefit is in the one AE plugin that I've tried that does use OpenGL, namely Zaxwork's Serpentine.

There's an aspect to this seemingly endless discussion that keeps getting overlooked that goes something like this.

Adobe does this GPU thing better than SCS.
So why aren't you using Adobe's code?
I prefer the way Vegas does things, I just wish they did this as well as Adobe do it.

I'm pretty confident is saying the way Adobe does things in Ppro makes it a much simpler coding task and one that would appear to wrangle more out of GPU acceleration than can be achieved with Vegas and the way it is designed to work.
Yes it would be nice if we could have it all, world peace would be nice too as would cars that fly and float on water. Until that miracle happens choose the best tool for the job.

Bob.

[I] Until that miracle happens choose the best tool for the job[/i]

And THAT'S my point. At the time of purchase, I didn't KNOW it was going to be the best tool for the job.

World peace and other "pie in the sky" wishes, which I hadn't made a prerequisite in getting SCS spec nailed for Vegas, aside, all I wanted and "wished" for was a non IT professional's option to gauge what I was to buy. Telling me that your list of worldly wishes is anything similar, is a tad negating of you Bob.

Oh, and BTW, yes I DO wish for World Peace. But I don't expect it to emanate from the software engineer's Bench at Madison. That would be too silly for words.

Grazie

"At the time of purchase, I didn't KNOW it was going to be the best tool for the job."

I was referring to trying to write a NLE that is the best tool for everything, nothing to do with the choice of video card for Vegas.

The discussion in this thread is along the lines of "Adobe does something, why don't SCS?"

My suggestion is that because of the way Ppro works it would be easier to make specific recommendarions regarding the choice of video card. I base this on the fact that Ppro will not playback FXs in realtime, it must be prerendered.

Bob.

This is a case where any thread concerning GPUs will get come around to the fundamental question "which GPU for Vegas?" The original question gets answered (in this case re Adobe) but the opportunity is taken to try once again to get a definitive answer to that basic question. I'm beginning to suspect that like that other famous question, the answer to this is also "42". I suppose I'll end up buying a Quadro 4000, but if so I'll do that without prior certainty of getting any improvement in Vegas performance.

Serena, I'm going to have to add "graciousness" too. Very well said.

And yes, being led by the nose into a QUADRO purchase without the assurance of improved success. And THAT, right there, ain't professional.

Cheers

Grazie

> "And yes, being led by the nose into a QUADRO purchase without the assurance of improved success. And THAT, right there, ain't professional."

It's not as simple as adding a GPU and get guaranteed results. Your CPU and motherboard architecture is going to play into this as well. I bought my Quadro 4000 when I had my Intel Core 2 Quad Extreme (QX6700 QuadCore). I was shocked to find a statement on the box that said that it required the latest Core i7 Series CPU. Nowhere on any web site anywhere did NVIDIA make this claim. I installed it anyway and I was very disappointed with the performance. The old CPU was actually faster then using the new GPU. I thought, this isn't right!

Then I upgraded to my current Intel Core i7-3930K Sandy Bridge-E 3.2GHz HexCore with Quad Channel Memory. I specifically did NOT get the new Ivy Bridge processor because it doesn't have quad channel memory anymore (or six cores) and I suspected that memory bandwidth may have been a problem with getting information to/from the CPU to GPU. I am extremely happy with my Quadro 4000 now because I can see on my GPU meter that it's now being used 87% when rendering where before it as being used only 18%.

My render times have dropped significantly and yes I did test with and without the GPU. I just did a test rendering 1 minute of HDV with no FX to MainConcept AVC and it took 1:41 on CPU and 0:54 on GPU (CUDA). That's almost a 2x improvement and slightly faster than real-time so if I can render a 1 hr project in 54 minutes instead of 1 hr 41 minutes, that's a big time savings for me. Will you get the same results? Probably only if you use the same components to build your workstation because of the interaction between CPU / GPU & memory bandwidth.

The bottom line is not the performance but the stability. The Quadro series is tested with professional graphics programs while the GeForce series is tested with games. You are paying for the stability of the drivers and support and stability should be important to any business.

~jr

... and so it goes on....

It will keep going on until you realise that the quest itself is wherein the problem lies.

Previously you said:

"And yes, being led by the nose into a QUADRO purchase without the assurance of improved success. And THAT, right there, ain't professional."

In fact anyone giving you an assurance of improved success would not be acting professionally. A professional would need to know:

1) A precise, quantitative, definition of success.
2) All the variables and their values that the outcome depends on..

At very best here 1) is vague.
SCS have no control over many of the variables in 2) e.g. type of media, 3rd party plugins, nature of projects.

By simply recommending something SCS are saying it will give you the best chance of success but there's no certainty because it is impossible for them to know for certain.

Bob.

So I need to buy blind?

Great

G