HMC40/Windows users here?

[Brad Neal]

CS4 will not take advantage of CUDA technology. CS5 does, but you have to be using a Quadro 5800, 4800, 3800, or GTX285. More will be coming on board after the release of CS5, but for now, those are the only cards that can take advantage of CUDA. You can pick up the GTX285 for a lot less compared to the others, which I would recommend as there are new cards coming out from NVIDIA based on the [FONT=&quot]Fermi technology[/FONT] which should smoke the CUDA stuff.

If you are a Premiere Pro user, you definitely want to upgrade to this new technology! It's a game changer!

 

[hazydave]

CS4 will not take advantage of CUDA technology.

Doesn't nVidia have a plug-in or two that do? That seems to the way they go with any new tech... someone will use a plug-in with MMX, SSE, CUDA, etc. Then in a revision or two, it goes mainstream.

CS5 does, but you have to be using a Quadro 5800, 4800, 3800, or GTX285.

So they're intentionally restricting lower-level CPUs that still support CUDA? Doesn't seem a great way to establish a standard. Also, at this point, I'd hope for GPGPU or OpenCL, thus allowing AMD Streams boards to accelerate as well. Particularly given that, at least until Fermi actually ships, AMD is now in the performance lead. Also one would hope for acceleration using specific purpose acceleration like DVXA 2.0, where applicable.

I had rather imagined that the split between Streams and CUDA is what prevented mainsteam NLEs from tapping GPU computing -- they're certainly among the dwindling class of applications that really need every compute cycle one can muster.

If you are a Premiere Pro user, you definitely want to upgrade to this new technology! It's a game changer!

Not a Premiere Pro users (Premiere was so primitive, it really sent me looking elsewhere... I've been happy with Vegas since version 1.0... of course, not for video until 2.0). But I believe that GPU acceleration will be a game-changer, particularly given the real need for it. And NLEs that don't take advantage of this will cease to be competitive, for editing or rendering.

 

[dan.carter]

Macfionn,

Though I've experimented with Neo2, and it appears to work well with native AVCHD files, I'm not excited about learning another editor.

I've had real good luck with Vegas Pro 9c and HMC40 files on a Windows Vista Centrino Duo laptop with 3gb memory. You can find some good Vegas tutorials here http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/support/trainingvids.asp?prod=vegaspro

Unfortunately, I did not have much luck using Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 9 which is much less expensive than Pro.

Good luck with your adventure.

 

[Mike Harvey]

hazydave, it's not so much that they've restricted it, as much as these are the only cards they've tested enough to feel comfortable saying will support it. More cards will be supported (I have high hopes for the GTX480 which ships next Monday) eventually.

Also, they've been pretty open on why it's CUDA only... OpenCL simply isn't at a point where it's stable enough. That's on AMD/ATI.

 

[Brad Neal]

It's not that simple as there are lots of variables at work here - many of which have just recently been worked through. The restriction of only a few cards are left over from beta, so you'll see more cards coming on board after the official release of CS5 by way of Adobe updates. Support for the new NVIDIA 480 will be out in just a few weeks. But keep in mind that CUDA is already yesterday's news. The real focus from here on out will be on the newer technology.

As for the other card manufactures, they are clamoring to get on board, but they were late getting in the OpenCL game so they missed the last train out.

So they're intentionally restricting lower-level CPUs that still support CUDA?

 

[hazydave]

It's not that simple as there are lots of variables at work here - many of which have just recently been worked through. The restriction of only a few cards are left over from beta, so you'll see more cards coming on board after the official release of CS5 by way of Adobe updates.

Ok, that makes sense.

But keep in mind that CUDA is already yesterday's news. The real focus from here on out will be on the newer technology.

As for the other card manufactures, they are clamoring to get on board, but they were late getting in the Open CL game so they missed the last train out.

Well, Open CL is definitely the way forward, at least you'd think. nVidia was far enough ahead with CUDA that they didn't need Open CL, at least in the beginning. ATi/AMD were not as far ahead with Stream/Close to Metal, so adopting Open CL was probably a little easier, politically. But now some people even think Open CL == AMD, despite nVidia moving to support it too.

I wonder though... given that Open CL came from Apple, and Microsoft seems to be suggesting that you're going to get better performance using DirectX Compute Shaders, is this really likely to get resolved (and thus, generally useful) on Windows anytime soon?

I suppose it's not a huge issue... if useful levels of support for any form of GPU computing shows up in my favorite NLE, I'll have no big problem swapping in a new GPU, if my present one doesn't support that flavor of GPU computing.