A couple of things. A 9800 GT will utilize CUDA, but it is too slow for any practical improvements, unless you have a slow CPU. The minimum card that will show noticeable improvements over a fast 4+ core CPU is a GTX 275 (275, 285, 465, 470, 480 and the high end Quadros all work well).

Second, does anyone with VMS 10 know whether it uses the licensed version of the MainConcept CUDA-enabled H.264/AVC encoder?

http://www.mainconcept.com/products/sdks/hw-acceleration/cuda-h264avc.html

As an aside, a Quadro FX4800 is the exact same card as a GTX 275 with 1792 MB of RAM (non-reference design, but still available online here and there). You can overwrite the GTX 275's BIOS with the Quadro BIOS and you then have a working Quadro for a fraction of the cost (and void your GTX's warranty).

I am pretty sure that even card like 9800 gt which i have has plenty of power.
Now I tell You guys , if i run splash player which is GPU accelerated and optimized I play AVCHD or H264 at 30+fps constantly having 4%CPU at load.

So 9800gt IS able to decode and deinterlace FULL AVCHD and H264 at 30fps.
I get 2-10fps in VEGAS! There must be just 1 explanation - it must be terribly unoptimized.

It is a total waste not to impement GPU acceleration.
Check out that splash player for yourself, you will see its possible.

JohnnyRoy

I should know better than to try and drink coffee while reading this forum.

I realize this is just one test, but my QuadCore is almost as fast as using my CUDA enabled GeForce 9800 GT

The later GTX series GeForce are supposed to be a lot faster, however I do think this helps prove Sony's point, when I saw an online demonstration of their Blu-Code (I was curious, it's way above my pay-grade). Their philosophy was that while hardware encoders may be faster now, pure software encoders will catch up, and are unbeatable in flexibility. CUDA may have a point, but only as an assistant in the form of a co-processor.

Besides, I think we'd be better off had they used CUDA for decoding h.264 streams instead.

> I should know better than to try and drink coffee while reading this forum.

Sorry... I guess i owe you a new keyboard. lol.

> Besides, I think we'd be better off had they used CUDA for decoding h.264 streams instead.

Since we spend a whole lot more time playing back than rendering, I tend to agree with you. Playback optimization is very important but that means GPU enabling all of the FX because I've never had a project that i didn't color correct even a little.

~jr

JohnnyRoy

Naah, I avoided the Keyboard, my shirt however was a casualty, and I'll probably be smelling coffee the rest of the day :)

My test case. 22 sec, slow pan, Added a 1 second liniar wipe to start and end, and dropped a color corrector (Blue highlights) to force a re encode, as testing with smart render is no test in this case :)
AVCHD source, 1092x1080 50i.

PC: AMD Phenom X4 9950 BE @ 2.6 GHz. Win 7-64bit, 8GB RAM
GPU: nVidia GeForce 8800GTS, 512MB

Outout profile: Sony AVC, BluRay 1920x1080, 50i template

VMS10 (32-bit) with CUDA: 2:35
VP9.0e-64-bit: 4:08

With VMS the 4 CPU's were hovering at 60%, with VP9, all 4 were sitting at a solid 100% all the way, so something tells me that CUDA was working.

In case anyone is interested, and would like to use a comparative test, here's the test cases I used for both VP9 and VMS10: [url=http://www.grandt.com/Vegas/HD CUDA.rar], it's about 43MB.

"See, the fing is man, is that all other products ONLY have 10 tracks . . yeah? . . Right . . but wid Pro, man, we have, like, get this DOUBLE unlimited tracks - yeah? See? Now that's awesome! Double unlimited. They'll be going to 10 tracks and where as I can have DOUBLE unlimited"

. . major apologies to the Spinals . . I AM not worthy . . .

Grazie