Vegas Can TELL you if you have CUDA Support

jerald wrote on 10/17/2011, 7:47 PM

Hi, All,
I've seen a number of questions & answers regarding how to know which display adapters provide CUDA support for Vegas.

FYI, Vegas has a button that you can click to have it check to see if your system has CUDA support.

I spotted this originally in 10.0 & verified that it's also in 11.0.

I don't know if Vegas' CUDA support is 'all or nothing' or if there are various degrees of CUDA support (in terms of Vegas Pro's ability to use it). If someone else knows, please post facts on this as you know them... especially if I'm mis-interpreting what I see in the Vegas user interface. :-)

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To have Vegas Pro 11.0 Check your system for CUDA availability, do the following:

0. Open Vegas Pro 11.0
1. Place video event on timeline (e.g. open an existing project with video media or drop video media onto the timeline).
2. Open the 'Render As' dialog (File|Render As)
3. Under the second heading ('Output Format:') in the dialog there is a list of render templates that are organized by output file format. Find and, if needed, expand the 'Sony AVC/MVC (*.mpr;*.m2ts;*.avc) heading to list the templates under that heading.
4. Select one of the templates under Sony AVC/MVC...
5. Click on the 'Customize Template' button.
6. Click on the 'System' tab at the bottom.
7. Click on the 'Check GPU' button in the middle of the dialog. On my system (with a rather old NVidia adapter that came with the system), it reports that 'CUDA is available.'
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Please post if you have any questions or if you have insights that might help on this topic.

Thanks so much,
Jerald

Comments

Kimberly wrote on 10/17/2011, 9:54 PM

I have a 2008 Dell Inspiron 1420. I tried your approach and I did see the message "CUDA is available."

So now that I know I have it, what does this mean? Sorry to be dense -- I used my allocation of brain cells this past year trying to understand ProType Titler . . .

jerald wrote on 10/17/2011, 10:14 PM

CUDA is a technology that some display adapters have. It allows Vegas Pro to use the display adapter to speed up rendering.

If a system has a display adapter with CUDA capability, Sony Vegas Pro 10.0 can give the display adapter some of the tasks required to render to the Sony AVC video format, but not other video formats.

Sony Vegas Pro 11.0 has enhancements that allow it to use CUDA-enabled display adapters for a lot more, including rendering for preview playback to the screen. This is the biggest enhancement for a lot of users who work with high definition video. It helps to make preview playback during editing better, more fluid, with less hesitation due to faster rendering of each video frame.

So you may notice a lot of discussion on this forum about that feature, which display adapters have CUDA, etc.

Does this answer your questions? If not ask again & I'll try to help.

Jerald

Wadro65 wrote on 10/17/2011, 10:20 PM

I don't see the selection for "Sony AVC/MVC"

it's in 9e but not 11?

Kimberly wrote on 10/17/2011, 10:22 PM

Yes, thank you Jerald.

wilvan wrote on 10/17/2011, 11:14 PM

Why make it so difficult .

Options>Preferences>Video

There is added a tab for GPU acceleration.

When it is off and you can't put it ON and think you need it -> go shopping new video card

Which one ?

nVIDIA GPUs with Compute Capability prior to 2.0 are currently not available for GPU-accelerated video processing.

See this Web page for a list of Compute Capability levels for various nVIDIA GPUs:

http://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-gpus.

Red Prince wrote on 10/17/2011, 11:26 PM

Jerald,

It’s not just CUDA that is needed, it’s CUDA 2.0 or 2.1. nVidia developed CUDA quite a few years ago. About a year ago they developed a completely new CUDA hardware, which is incompatible with the old CUDA hardware. A different kind of chip with a different machine language. CUDA 2 cannot run CUDA 1 software and CUDA 1 cannot run CUDA 2 software. And neither will run CUDA 3 software (which nVidia is already working on).

nVidia suggests to developers to compile their CUDA software for versions 1, 2, and 3, and include all three. It is kind of like what Apple did with the Mac, asking developers to compile their software for all the mutually incompatible versions of Mac hardware. But since CUDA 2 can do many things CUDA 1 cannot, many software developers have just decided to forget about CUDA 1 (especially since CUDA 1 does not support 32-bit floating point, so common in video editors). And in a few years the history will repeat with CUDA 3. (This is another reason to buy an inexpensive nVidia card. No point spending hundreds let alone thousands every couple of years.)

Red Prince wrote on 10/17/2011, 11:31 PM

See this Web page for a list of Compute Capability levels for various nVIDIA GPUs:

Or just look for the word Fermi in the card name. The old Tesla cards have CUDA 1.x architecture. The Fermi architecture uses CUDA 2.x, which is what Vegas Pro 11 supports.

wilvan wrote on 10/17/2011, 11:34 PM

Indeed , Prince .

And what I also don't like is that these so-called preview booster video cards do consume lots , really lots of power and are real heating machines.

Our preview has always been fine with a fully tuned windows ( minimum processes ) , lots of cores and lots of RAM ( although this last one vegas doesn't use unless when rendering and that I find strange)

jerald wrote on 10/18/2011, 12:03 AM

Hi, woelf,
Thanks so much for your post.
I did find the drop-down list box. I only have the 'off ' choice. Oh, well...

But now I'm confused. In the render tab I described, I press the 'check GPU' button & it says CUDA is available. That means that either there are multiple levels of CUDA support available, or Sony Creative Software Development is sloppy (i.e. if the indication that 'CUDA is available' does not mean that it's being used then it is misleading -- therefore worse than useless).

I'll cling (for now), to the hope that there are multiple levels of CUDA support. If you're certain that there is not, or if you're able to confirm my hope, I'd really appreciate it.

In any event, thanks a heap for your info.

Jerald

jerald wrote on 10/18/2011, 12:12 AM

Hi, Red Prince,

Thanks so much for your informative post. It would be nice to know a little more about the facts that are true for SVPro 11.0. As I posted above to woelf, I get an indication that 'CUDA is available' in the Sony AVC render, customize, system tab but only have the choice of 'off' in the preferences, video tab, GPU acceleration drop-down list.

Hence, *seems to* imply multiple levels of CUDA support.

Maybe Sony will post a whitepaper that clarifies.

Jerald

jerald wrote on 10/18/2011, 12:30 AM

Hi, Wadro65,

I don't know why you don't have it in your list.

Just in case it may be a matter of understanding the list structure:
Formats & Templates are all in one heirarchical list box. (Prior versions had two separate lists.)
There are two levels in the list: Formats & Templates. Templates are nested under Formats. Formats are collapsable & expandable by clicking the triangle to their left.
Sony identifies this as an improved, simplified interface. Seems arguable, to me.

One thing that helped me get the idea of the list, is to think of it like the heirarchical checklist in the multiple build script (if you've ever looked at that).

Other than that, I have no idea.

Hope you get your answer.

Jerald

jerald wrote on 10/18/2011, 1:10 AM

I found some further hints that Multiple levels of CUDA are supported.

In the SVPro 11.0 manual, on page 50 I found:

"GPU-accelerated AVC rendering rquires a CUDA -enabled GPU and NVIDEA drive (sic) 185.xx or later. We *recommend using a GEForce GT 2xx Series or newer GPU.

*asterisk added on 'recommended. This word comes very close to a confirmation to me that Multiple levels of CUDA support exist in SVPro 11.0

j