GTX 285 getting hard to find... [Archive]

Tom.Wong

01-04-2011, 01:36 PM

Been holding out on building my Resolve system, getting ready to in the next few weeks. Getting hard to track down a gtx 285 for mac right now... used to be able to find brand new ones flashed on ebay from "macvidcards" but they seem to be sold out, and every other site i'm looking online seems sold out.

All that's left are refurbed ones on ebay, and I'm wondering if anybody has bought these and can vouch they work properly. I'm wary of refurbed products from vendors I don't know.

quadros are out of my budget too.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Mac-Pro-2008-2010-nVidia-GeForce-GTX285-1GB-Video-Card-/280600368052?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item415515d3b4#ht_3222wt_1141

any review on these or alternatives that would be great. Or if anybody knows how to flash a gtx 480 or 580 for my Mac Pro?

Matt Gottshalk

01-04-2011, 02:24 PM

Tagged.

luigivaltulini

01-04-2011, 03:01 PM

hi Tom,
You can install a gtx 480 on Mac Pro originally published, but 'we must change the boot loader and other minor changes, but honestly I will not recommend you are better than the GTX 285. Edit an original mac does not make sense.

Kwan Khan

01-04-2011, 03:15 PM

applemacanix (on ebay) has it but his prices are skyhigh

Frank Weeks

01-04-2011, 03:21 PM

My graphic card went down last month so I started looking for the GTX 285. I was able to find one at Mac Pro online. Did not realize it was used until it arrived (my fault). It works fine but for how long? New ones are getting harder to find. Good luck

eric a wahl

01-04-2011, 03:49 PM

I purchased mine from Ebay Seller macvidcards, but I currently see he does not have any advertised.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rt=nc&nma=true&item=330485223695&si=VUR%252F2dk7NVkJviwd7TUdMnDL9F0%253D&viewitem=&sspagename=ADME%3AL%3AOU%3AUS%3A1123

Shane Betts

01-04-2011, 06:31 PM

sander kamp

01-04-2011, 06:45 PM

Guys. The free 7.1 update includes support for the ATI 5770 for the GUI. You no longer need to run the GTX285. You still need Quadros for the GPU, only now you can run more than one in an expansion chassis for that Linux feeling on your Mac - at a fraction of the cost.

No, the GTX285 is meant as the GPU and is according to Blackmagic still faster than the Quadros - and if you can find them a lot cheaper.

albert rudnicki

01-04-2011, 06:53 PM

+1
to macvidcards
My PCversion GTX 285 works flawlessly in the mid2010 Mac pro.

jake blackstone

01-04-2011, 11:24 PM

+1
to macvidcards
My PCversion GTX 285 works flawlessly in the mid2010 Mac pro.
Do you mean, that PC version of GTX 285 runs correctly on a Mac with no ROM reflash whatsoever?

Jeff Kilgroe

01-05-2011, 08:20 AM

Do you mean, that PC version of GTX 285 runs correctly on a Mac with no ROM reflash whatsoever?

It needs the ROM re-flashed for Apple EFI support if you wish to boot the system using it for primary display. Beyond that I don't know, I have not had time to test lately.

As for the GTX285 itself, it's out of production. Any new cards entering the market are from oddball vendors who are releasing cards using overstock chipsets, or they're generic brand cards that never sold and are being picked up by eBay sellers. All the name brand suppliers are done making GTX285 cards, this means EVGA no longer makes them, including the Mac version, which was just a PC model with different ROM flashed to it and a different sticker on the fan housing.

In my little bit of testing I've done so far, the Quadro 4000 seems to be performing about on par with the GTX285. Some differences between the two, but overall about the same. They can be had for around $750 if you shop around (same price as the PC version of the card). Yes, that's pricey and near 2X what the GTX285 was going for before getting the axe. But it is a viable solution and probably the best solution for the Mac at this time since it occupies a single slot space.

As for Shane's note above about the ATI 5770 being supported, that's OK if you have one, but it's a poor choice for the GUI card in a Resolve system due to power requirements and the need for a double-width slot space.

I finally have Resolve up and running and I'm still playing with various benchmarks and configurations. I still have not purchased a PCIe expander and I'm looking into the Cubix GPU expander thing. I will probably hold off for now, since it's running great so far, in order to see what the next round of Mac Pro hardware brings. The upcoming chipsets from Intel are very promising, it will be interesting to see what Apple will do with them. I'm thinking it won't be until around May or June though. New server/workstation chipsets don't release until mid April.

Current best-performing configuration I have put together:

'09 Mac Pro 8-core 2.83GHz
16GB RAM

Slot-1: GTX285
Slot-2: RED Rocket
Slot-3: Decklink HD Extreme 3D+ (HDMI 1.4 packed frames!)
Slot-4: nVidia GT160

1TB system/apps HDD
8TB internal RAID-0 (software RAID - sustains over 350MB/s)

Backups of this system are a painful process over Gig-E for now. Would like a more robust RAID solution.

Swapping the GTX285 for the Quadro4000 lets me run the HDMI and SDI connectors for the Decklink and Rocket out of the extra slot space, if I wanted to mess with re-routing cables. Performance is nearly identical.

I have to physically power-off the display via an external switch, that is connected to the GTX/Quadro card (or physically unplug the DVI cable), before launching resolve so that the 24" I have connected to the GT160 will re-assign itself as the primary display. I have to then do the same to that display after reconnecting the other to get primary display back onto the GPU card for other apps. Now that there's support for multiple GPUs, I will be moving to a dedicated system for Resolve at some point. Just not sure when...

Tom.Wong

01-05-2011, 09:34 AM

macvidcards on ebay is currently out of stock, since resolve released they have been selling like freakin hot cakes. so hard to find one right now, and I'm hoping they'll be in stock again by the time I'm ready to buy. Worse comes to worse I'll try to scrape up the extra cash for the quadro 4000, it's just that gtx 285 is such a better buy for even slightly better performance than the 4000 can offer.

reflashing a gtx 480 is tempting, but I got a big job lined up as soon as I get it set up and have some time to work with it. Can't afford to have any hiccups. It really pisses me off they'd discontinue this version of the card when they are selling better than ever right now. ::shakes fist in anger::

Tom.Wong

01-05-2011, 09:43 AM

I have to physically power-off the display via an external switch, that is connected to the GTX/Quadro card (or physically unplug the DVI cable), before launching resolve so that the 24" I have connected to the GT160 will re-assign itself as the primary display. I have to then do the same to that display after reconnecting the other to get primary display back onto the GPU card for other apps. Now that there's support for multiple GPUs, I will be moving to a dedicated system for Resolve at some point. Just not sure when...

can't you just plug both ur monitors into your gt 120? it has a dvi and a mini display port, the gt120 is all for your gui monitors (dual display) and the gtx exists in the system just for hardware acceleration of the software, unless there is something i'm missing...

Jeff Kilgroe

01-05-2011, 10:49 AM

can't you just plug both ur monitors into your gt 120? it has a dvi and a mini display port, the gt120 is all for your gui monitors (dual display) and the gtx exists in the system just for hardware acceleration of the software, unless there is something i'm missing...

My graded output comes out of the Decklink card. So the only other display I care about within DaVinci is my 24" GUI monitor. Unfortunately, the nVidia GT160 I'm using isn't much of a GPU. To put it bluntly, it sucks balls. So it's absolutely worthless for other GPU-accelerated apps and GPU tasks. So I need my displays connected to the GTX285 (or Quadro, if I go back to it) for nearly everything on this system except for Resolve.

Resolve needs to be on a dedicated system. I'll get it there, eventually. But I'm going to wait and see what Apple's next round of systems bring. And I need to save all my current available budget for EPIC purchases coming up...

Uli Plank

01-05-2011, 02:16 PM

Why not use a DVI switcher?

Jeff Kilgroe

01-05-2011, 02:35 PM

Why not use a DVI switcher?

Uh... Because it doesn't work? I have the Gefen DVI|DL switcher and when the monitors are switched away from the GTX, the switcher still maintains a baseline signal with the video card. Just as if the monitor was put in standby mode. This does not allow the OS to release the video card as the primary display adapter, leveraging the GT160 as the primary.

Other than complete power-off of the display or disconnection, the other solution that works is via software. Disable the GTX and then re-load the driver for it. Seems to work most of the time.

So I guess I need to ask others here, what are you all doing? Or are you not connecting any displays to your GPU card? Do you not need GPU acceleration for any other apps?

Have any of you been successful in getting full CUDA acceleration in Resolve while having a monitor attached to your GPU card?

I'm running dual 30" displays on this system via the GTX285. I need the 285 for acceleration in Adobe MCE, for my own GPU development tasks and some other apps. I have a 24" display attached to the GT160. I'm fine shutting off the 30" displays -- keep them on their own power strip so I can physically kill all power to them otherwise they report they are in sleep mode or standby mode to the graphics card when I switch them "off". Same goes for the 24" display. I can't run dual 30" displays off of the GT120, or at least not these with DVI|DL interfaces. There are no DisplayPort to DVI|DL adapters that fully support 2560x1600 resolution. So I can only run one of them on the single DVI port on the card.

If I want the GT160 to be the primary card, I have to kill the power to the two 30" displays. Or I could disconnect their interface cables. Then the OS will shuffle displays around. But with the GT160 as the primary display, it screws up running Apple Color, Adobe MCE and others. So I have to shuffle back.

I was hoping Resolve would use my GT160 automatically as the tools display and just blank out the displays on my GTX. But it doesn't. If that card is my primary video card, it loads up the tools displays there and I don't get GPU acceleration. I'm tempted to just dump the GT160 and put the Quadro4000 in there instead and solve all these problems. However, there's not enough aux power to run both the Quadro and the GTX. I would have to pull external power to do it since I already have a Blu-Ray writer and 5 internal HDDs in this Mac pro.

Tom.Wong

01-05-2011, 02:52 PM

sounds like the only choice would have to be pci expansion. quadro in the tower, cubix with more cards for acceleration. quadro stays in your tower as gui and cuda acceleration, and expansion chassis serves as acceleration for resolve...

buttload of money for such a simple need.

Manuel Wenger

01-07-2011, 12:06 AM

Jeff, there is a mini Display Port to Dual Link DVI Adapter from Apple

http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB571Z/A?fnode=MTY1NDA5OQ&mco=MTA4MzU1ODY

I use a 30" Dell with that adapter on my GT 120 and a 24" connected to the DVI Port of the GT 120 without any problems.

But you´re right, would be great to have an easier way to switch between the cards.

Manuel

Uli Plank

01-07-2011, 12:31 AM

Looks like it might be better to have two machines. A refurb isn't very expensive and you have more options, a backup, more computing power and clean configurations instead of switching and re-booting hazzle…

Jeff Kilgroe

01-07-2011, 07:16 AM

Jeff, there is a mini Display Port to Dual Link DVI Adapter from Apple

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're running a 50Hz display, right? ...Doesn't help here. The adapter doesn't support 2560x1600 @ 60Hz. Plain and simple. It creates stray pixels and intermittent screen pops and flickers. Apple has claimed for more than a year that they would have an update or fix for this. And yet, nothing... Now they have gone to their 27" display and it doesn't matter I guess. Those of us with 30" DELL, HP and ACDs are SOL.

What's weird is that no one else makes an adapter that supports it either. Gefen has been promising theirs for over a year and it hasn't materialized yet.

Either way, that's not the issue here. Yeah the whole switching cards around shouldn't be an issue. But it is an issue with Resolve and other software which is just brain-dead when it comes to looking at installed display adapters and determining which to use. Oh well...

A dedicated system for Resolve is definitely the way to go... I'm working it into the budget. I'm up to 4 Mac Pro towers as it is.

albert rudnicki

01-07-2011, 07:28 AM

Switching priority of the cards should be done by the utility software and not physical switch.
Ideally it should be a part of Mac OS, at least on Mac Pro...

hans de vries

01-07-2011, 08:52 AM

I bought a gtx 260 from a company that claimed the computer would recognize it as a gtx 285, and would therefore be recognized by premiere pro to use its mercury engine; all this is true. I lost interest in it however, because I'm sometimes a sucker for easy solutions and want to be able to use magic bullet; the gtx 260 somehow seems to be one of the things that crashes magic bullet (footage with magic bullet applied will not render in premiere pro); if anyone's nevertheless interested in this card, I'll sell it for 100 dollars (which is less than half of what I payed for it)

Jeff Kilgroe

01-10-2011, 09:15 AM

I got tired of all the monitor switching. My DaVinci system is now as follows:

Slot1: GTX285
Slot2: RED Rocket
Slot3: DeckLink HD Extreme 3D+
Slot4: Quadro 4000

Life is good, everything is happy with the GTX285 again. Resolve uses it for the UI and the Quadro for processing. Speed-wise, it seems the same as when using the GTX285 for processing. I think they're close enough that it would take specific benchmarks to see the difference.

I'm pulling aux power for the Quadro from my rarely used optical drive in the top optical bay. Seems to work just fine so far and it was a trick getting the cable from the power adapter from the optical bay down to the slots. Plus I have my boot HDD in the lower optical bay to work around and I already have two HDMI cables running through there and out the bay slot on the front (for the Decklink Card). I ran the SDI connectors for the rocket out two holes on the rear of the case. I snipped the BNC connectors off to run the cables out and put on new ones. I've found that to be the cleanest for Rocket installs if you don't want to use (or can't use) the accessory slot space. Apple has given us a few hundred tiny holes to choose from, may as well use them and it doesn't void any warranties.

I'm thinking I may buy a Cubix or Cyclone and another GPU. I could put two Quadro4000's and a Rocket in the expander and that would let me put the SAS card back in the tower so I can have my external RAID and LTO back. Having only the internal RAID-0 and backups via ethernet or FW800 makes me all twitchy.

Tom.Wong

01-10-2011, 09:19 AM

not to mention you lose the esata connections too, essential if you are offloading from any red station. or just off the shelf esata externals you need to drag from. fw 800 feels like usb 2.0 to me these days it's so slow.

i'm probably gonna end up with a gt 120, rocket, decklink, quadro 4000, firmtek 4 port esata. redo my internal hd's for internal raid 4 bay raid 0, with my boot drive in the bay. and use the raid only for grading, and keeping ample backups via esata and external drives. than when more work comes in i can upgrade with an expander, get some more performance and slots back, and hopefully get a panny plasma for client viewing :)

Dustin Cross

01-10-2011, 09:40 AM

Are there any known problems with the flashed PC GTX 285 cards?

There seem to still be lots of flashed cards on Ebay.

Dusty

Tom.Wong

01-10-2011, 09:45 AM

if i can find a gtx 285 flashed, i'm going that route, i just don't want refurbed. a lot i've been finding on ebay are refurbed and i don't know if i can trust them or not. with a big job lined up at the end of this month I can't risk it. and macvidcards the most know reseller for newly flashed cards have been sold out, don't know if they are in stock yet. I might just stick with the 4000 just cause it saves more space in the case, and are more readily available to buy when i get pci expansion for multi gpu rendering. don't know what the supply is going to be like 6 months from now with the 285's... i still have a few days before I buy, so i might change my tune by then.

Paul Nordin

01-10-2011, 01:36 PM

Speed-wise, it seems the same as when using the GTX285 for processing.

I'm thinking I may buy a Cubix or Cyclone and another GPU. I could put two Quadro4000's and a Rocket in the expander and that would let me put the SAS card back in the tower

Just curious why you wouldn't switch to using the 4000 for GPU and get a second 285 for your exansion chassis? Would save some bucks and if they are equivalent performance...

At least that's the direction I'm heading.

Cheers,
paul

Jeff Kilgroe

01-10-2011, 02:27 PM

Just curious why you wouldn't switch to using the 4000 for GPU and get a second 285 for your exansion chassis? Would save some bucks and if they are equivalent performance...

I'm considering that too, as buying one or two new 285's would be cheaper... But my hunch is also that the Quadro 4000 performance will improve a bit over the next couple CUDA revisions, technically it should be about 10% faster than the GTX285, it's just not at the moment. Moving forward it has a future, the GTX285 does not as nVidia, EVGA, etc.. have all discontinued production and further driver development.

Tim Hole

01-10-2011, 05:13 PM

.. have all discontinued production and further driver development.

Understandable but still pisses me off ;)

I really am loving my GTX285. I was waiting for one of newer Nvidia's this time last year and dived in with it instead. I think on you recommendation actually.

I really couldn't be happier. Its a great allrounder for film, 3D and FX (obviously the processors and ram are a big part of that too but you understand my point).

Having said that its working great now, until some software is released that really harnesses cuda properly or I am put in a position where real world benefits are going to be gained by upgrading I see no point in doing so.

I'm a happy camper now, No point throwing my coffee in the fire...

Jan Prochazka

01-14-2011, 06:53 AM

Just for info - I tried to reflash PC ver. EVGA GTX285 to mac, but failed. My PC version has only 64kb ROM and mac image is 128kb.
Solved in hackintosh :thumbup1:

Tom.Wong

01-14-2011, 07:53 AM

decided to go quadro 4000 all the way. I wanna eventually do multi gpu, I don't want to go crazy hunting down 285's when it gets to that point. Should have the system up and running in a few days. Just configured my 5 drive internal soft raid. 1 tb Samsung f3's. many are they zippy. Getting average 427 mb/sec write, and over 500 mb/sec read!

got another 1 tb as a boot drive, gonna swap that out with SSD when prices come down a bit and I can get capacity over 500 gb...

Jeff what's your performance with grading r3d in resolve with your setup? I"m gonna have almost similar, but gt 120 for GUI instead, but performance should be near equal to year setup. With rocket, quadro 4000 for gpu acceleration off your soft raid. I wanna get a general idea of how "real time" i can give to my client. rocket should accelerate the playback, and the gpu should take care of all the node attachments no?

Jeff Kilgroe

01-15-2011, 06:15 PM

Tom,

I'm finding performance to be real-time for RED 4K footage @ 1/4 debayer. Half seems just out of reach, but may be possible if I can tweak the system when I have more time. 6 nodes or so seems just fine most of the time, but with an occasional stutter. 8 nodes is do-able before it starts to crawl. Depends on what is being done though. I really haven't done any hard testing with it yet. I'm still trying to just get the system configured right.

I had to put the GT160 back into the system. Too much power draw to also support the Quadro with my system drive in the optical bay. I'm debating if I want to go the expander route now or just dedicate this system to Resolve and leave the GT160 where it's at.

I would love to get the expander with a second Quadro card, but just can't budget for it at the moment.

L Wachowski

01-17-2011, 07:10 PM

http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/4755/cudag.jpg
Been holding out on building my Resolve system, getting ready to in the next few weeks. Getting hard to track down a gtx 285 for mac right now... used to be able to find brand new ones flashed on ebay from "macvidcards" but they seem to be sold out, and every other site i'm looking online seems sold out.

All that's left are refurbed ones on ebay, and I'm wondering if anybody has bought these and can vouch they work properly. I'm wary of refurbed products from vendors I don't know.

quadros are out of my budget too.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Mac-Pro-2008-2010-nVidia-GeForce-GTX285-1GB-Video-Card-/280600368052?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item415515d3b4#ht_3222wt_1141

any review on these or alternatives that would be great. Or if anybody knows how to flash a gtx 480 or 580 for my Mac Pro?

Would this be enough CUDA Core power for DaVinci to run multiple streams of RED 4k in real time?

Tom.Wong

01-17-2011, 07:23 PM

L Wachowski

01-17-2011, 07:46 PM

Well Da Vinci only handles 1 layer of video at a time, so you really wouldn't be doing multiple streams. But I think that might be enough cuda power for half debayer, MAYBE. if a single quadro 4000, can only give you 1/4th, that's all debatable.

While on that, I actually find that performance rather disappointing. Where's the rocket acceleration? It can give you full debayer in RCX, I don't see why you can't get at least half debayer with a rocket installed... So I'm thinking the only way to get close to full debayer real time is have 2-3 quadros and a rocket... would be crazy if you needed 4+ quadros to get real time...

The lowly Quadro FX 5800 only has 240 CUDA Cores and cost 10x as much as the GTX 470. I have a feeling the GTX 470 will perform much better than that $3000 Quadro. Just a hunch anyways. :biggrin5: Obviously there's a reason BlackMagic updated DaVinci to allow multiple GPU's in OSX or is there?

Tom.Wong

01-17-2011, 07:52 PM

Jeff Kilgroe

01-17-2011, 07:59 PM

I'm going to test Resolve with a GTX 480 here shortly, just haven't got around to it. There's another report on here stating that it worked with the 480 as the primary, and only, video card in the system. I want to see if it will take some of the other nVidia cards as GPU processing cards, without needing Apple EFI or other intermediate identifiers and processes. If it works, then it may just justify an expansion chassis or hackintosh with 3X GTX580's. ;-)

Tom also raises a valid point -- hackintoshes are fine to experiment with. But when it comes to real support and paying clients, sometimes it's best to just take the certified hardware path.

L Wachowski

01-17-2011, 08:11 PM

talking about the quadro 4000, it has 256 cuda cores, still less than the gtx 470, but i got too many well paying clients to mess with flashed cards and hackintoshes. one update to the da vinci or mac os that breaks the flash compatibility and than what? gonna explain tot he client you can't have your session with them because your video cards aren't working? if even there's a small chance of that, I'm not risking it.

but hopefully the gtx 500 series will be mac compatible in the future. (they run cooler and more quiet than the 400 series cards)

Oh ok, so it has nothing to do with the actual CUDA specs then? It's just the fact that it's not running on a real Mac Pro and the whole stigma thing associated with Hackintoshs? Multiple copies of the exact same OSX drive rule out updates "breaking" any Hackintosh. If one goes down you just pop another one in it's place, but that's a whole other discussion.

I guess there's only one way to know what this little Hackintosh is capable of and that's to put some FPS tests up here. If DaVinci relies on CUDA count, memory bandwidth and GFlops to do it's work then the results could be "very interesting" indeed.

Joel Kaye

01-17-2011, 08:23 PM

talking about the quadro 4000, it has 256 cuda cores, still less than the gtx 470, but i got too many well paying clients to mess with flashed cards and hackintoshes. one update to the da vinci or mac os that breaks the flash compatibility and than what? gonna explain tot he client you can't have your session with them because your video cards aren't working? if even there's a small chance of that, I'm not risking it.

but hopefully the gtx 500 series will be mac compatible in the future. (they run cooler and more quiet than the 400 series cards)

I got a used 285GTX flashed for Mac and all is good so far. It's about 18FPS at 1/4 rez (which looks really good out of the decklink). After caching to my RAID it's 24 fps.

For the money, I'd be inclined to get 2 refurb GTX285's and keep the second on hand as insurance. As a flashed card it functionally is a Mac 285 and BlackMagic would be really shortsighted to break that as they know a lot of people are set up with it.

3 Up there as I type this:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Mac-Nvidia-GTX285-GTX-285-Mac-Pro-Video-Card-1-Gig-/230574182135?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item35af4acef7

Jeff Kilgroe

01-17-2011, 08:37 PM

Oh ok, so it has nothing to do with the actual CUDA specs then? It's just the fact that it's not running on a real Mac Pro and the whole stigma thing associated with Hackintoshs? Multiple copies of the exact same OSX drive rule out updates "breaking" any Hackintosh. If one goes down you just pop another one in it's place, but that's a whole other discussion.

You're missing the point. It's not about reliability of a hackintosh or CUDA specs. Yes, there is a stigma. When you have real clients who pay real money, they expect things a certain way. When they walk into your facility and sit down with you in a color or editing session, they don't want to see a hackintosh. Many bigger clients want the full hardware tour to see who and what they're getting into when choosing a provider.

You may want to watch the attitude. Your response here smacks of another hackintosh proponent that has been banned from these forums. Not because of the hackintosh discussion, but because he was a total douchebag. Hopefully you are not that guy.

I guess there's only one way to know what this little Hackintosh is capable of and that's to put some FPS tests up here. If DaVinci relies on CUDA count, memory bandwidth and GFlops to do it's work then the results could be "very interesting" indeed.

Uh, OK. So put Resolve on there and show us what it can do... You're going to want some more RAM and you're running 4-cores too light. Just sayin'

Tom.Wong

01-17-2011, 08:51 PM

I'm not here to have a pissing contest on who's got more cuda cores. I started this thread to hopefully have some info on the boards with the same concerns I have. gtx 285 for mac is EOL, is it worth getting that or going quadro route. I've concluded quadro because there is future support, including better drivers.

different sensibilities for different people. I know i'm taking performance hit by refusing the hackintosh/flashed cards route with cuda. I'd rather trust in the reliability of officially approved setups, and what I believe a client wants. An aspect of showmanship is part of making a client happy. It pays my bills, what more can I say? would I like more perfomance? hell yeah, and thus I'm hoping and wish for 500 series cards support in the future. Right now I think i'll be content with what I'm getting in this week. The saved slot from the single width quadro is gonna let me have my rocket with sdi, and esata card. can't afford the expander right now, thinking about getting the 4 or 6 slot later on. If there's future compatibility with cyclone, all the better. I can just buy the back plane and customize my own set up, with kick ass raid in a minimal chassis set up.

L Wachowski

01-17-2011, 08:58 PM

You're missing the point. It's not about reliability of a hackintosh or CUDA specs. Yes, there is a stigma. When you have real clients who pay real money, they expect things a certain way. When they walk into your facility and sit down with you in a color or editing session, they don't want to see a hackintosh. Many bigger clients want the full hardware tour to see who and what they're getting into when choosing a provider.

You may want to watch the attitude. Your response here smacks of another hackintosh proponent that has been banned from these forums. Not because of the hackintosh discussion, but because he was a total douchebag. Hopefully you are not that guy.

Uh, OK. So put Resolve on there and show us what it can do... You're going to want some more RAM and you're running 4-cores too light. Just sayin'

Can do on the RAM to 24 GB and up the CPU to a 4.2 GHz 6 Core but I'm a total noob on DaVinci. Attitude? I was simply asking if my CUDA count was good enough for Real Time DaVinci 4K playback? Maybe I need to take some more English classes? My English is not so good. I'll try better next time. LOL

Jeff Kilgroe

01-17-2011, 11:21 PM

Can do on the RAM to 24 GB and up the CPU to a 4.2 GHz 6 Core but I'm a total noob on DaVinci. Attitude? I was simply asking if my CUDA count was good enough for Real Time DaVinci 4K playback? Maybe I need to take some more English classes? My English is not so good. I'll try better next time. LOL

No worries. You did come across as a bit defensive, so I kinda rubbed you a bit to see what you would say. We had a troublemaker on here a couple weeks back and I was just making sure. Sorry to welcome you aboard like that.

Your CUDA core count is just fine. In fact, it's great. I think a lot of us would be curious as to how DaVinci does run on that system. You won't get realtime 4K playback, CUDA acceleration is only part of the pipeline and that all happens AFTER the the frames are decoded from their compressed format and put into an RGB image context. On your system, you would be hard-pressed to get decent playback speeds of 4K footage at more than 1/8 or 1/4 resolution without a RED Rocket card. And you would also need a decently fast disk system or RAID capable of 300MB/s sustained or more. Not sure what you have in there for drives.

I haven't tested DaVinci in terms of how many CPU cores it can utilize. Quad-core may be just fine. But you would want more RAM, try with 12 and see what happens. Maybe you don't need 24.

CUDA acceleration happens for color and FX nodes. You should be able to run several nodes before seeing degraded performance. If you have a drive system capable of the 300MB/s I mentioned above, you should be able to grade 2K DPX sequences in real-time without much issue. And probably layer a dozen nodes on there. With 12GB RAM, you may run out of RAM before you run out of CUDA cores and node processing ability.

A lot of this is hypothetical and in uncharted territory. Many of us have just started using DaVinci ourselves. I have so many configurations and different things I want to try, but there's just not enough time and spare systems around here to tinker with it.

Nikolai Vavilov

01-18-2011, 01:35 AM

Tom.Wong

01-18-2011, 04:30 AM

you don't need 4k monitoring set up to grade 4k files. r3d natively, is 4k no matter what you swing it. in da vinci, if all you have is a 1080p grading panel, you can set your timeline to play down as 1080p, even though you are working with 4k files. and you can output at whatever resolution you want. so it debayers, and puts it in a 1080p frame for you on the fly. however from what I've been gather. 1/4th debayer settings are where you'll get real time on the playback with a single quadro 4000 for acceleration and a rocket card.

Judging by what Jeff is saying, more graphics cards probably won't mean better r3d playback. It will just mean the ability to stack more nodes before seeing a loss of performance. I keep forgetting that CUDA doesn't accelerate playback of anything, it was designed to handle the payload of effects. Same in premiere. So now the topic at hand is, how to get real time playback from r3d in a Da Vinci at at least half debayer, to half high. 1/4 debayer just seems very low to me... the image would be so soft, will it really be enough to get an accurate account of how your scene looks?

I'll find out for myself, half the parts are coming in today, the other half tomorrow. Thanks to the holiday, all my overnight shipping got delayed a day. I wonder if having 2 rockets will help playback more... it's already compatible for stereo work, but I wonder if you can gear for 2d work.

Rohit Gupta

01-18-2011, 05:41 AM

Jeff Kilgroe

01-18-2011, 08:14 AM

If you have a Red Rocket, you should be easily able to get Half-res playback in RT.

The comment about the 1/4th resolution is to do with software decodes.

All fine and good in theory... 1/2 res playback *almost* works here with the Rocket on Resolve. Must be something to do with their pipeline. Actually it does work when cached, but tends to stutter otherwise.

System specs:

2009 Mac Pro
2 x 2.93GHz 8-core
16GB RAM
nVidia GT160
nVidia GTX285
RED Rocket
Decklink HD Extreme 3D+
1TB 7200rpm system/apps HDD
8TB RAID tested at 358MB/s sustained writes, 440MB/s reads

I had the Quadro 4000 in this system instead of the GT160 and it was on par with the GTX285 for speed in Resolve. But I had to pull it and put the GT160 back in. There's not enough aux power connectors in the Mac to support two such GPUs, so I was pulling the power from the optical bays and that was interfering with other devices there.

I'm not switching monitors and trying to flip-flop which card the system thinks is the primary anymore, I've dedicated this system to Resolve. For now.

I'm going to wipe the HDD and do a fresh OSX install and see if that cleans up some of the performance issues. When I get time....

Rohit Gupta

01-18-2011, 07:10 PM

All fine and good in theory... 1/2 res playback *almost* works here with the Rocket on Resolve. Must be something to do with their pipeline. Actually it does work when cached, but tends to stutter otherwise.

System specs:

2009 Mac Pro
2 x 2.93GHz 8-core
16GB RAM
nVidia GT160
nVidia GTX285
RED Rocket
Decklink HD Extreme 3D+
1TB 7200rpm system/apps HDD
8TB RAID tested at 358MB/s sustained writes, 440MB/s reads

That doesn't sound right. Do you have the cards in the slots as per the config guide?

Slot1: GTX285
Slot2: GT120
Slot3: Red Rocket
Slot4: Decklink

You should have no issues getting half-res playback at 24fps in this configuration.

Tom.Wong

01-18-2011, 07:38 PM

getting my video cards in tomorrow. holiday messed up the overnight delivery... software and rocket came in today, have my tower laying around ready for the final touches.

Slot:
1. quadro 4000
2. gt 120
3. rocket
4. decklink

I already miss my firmtek 4 port esata card though. having to drop back to fw800 hurts my heart. Running a 5 tb internal software raid, with 1tb samsung drives. getting about 427/mb sec write, 516 mb/sec read... Hopefully I can get to some r3d test tomorrow night.

Guess i'm gonna have to rip out the gt 120 to put in my esata card when i edit, and put back in the gt when i do grading... it's gonna be SUCH a pain. gonna save my pennies for a cubix. Thinking about getting the 6 slot one.

Slot 1: quadro 4000
2. cubix
3. sas card
4. rocket

inside the cubx
1. quadro
2. quadro
3. rocket
4. esata
5. decklink
6. TBD.

I wanna build a small shuttle PC to run a ultrascope in there too, dunno if I wanna do a high res touch screen display or a nice fat 24 inch dell. I also wanna upgrade my dreamcolor to an FSI ...

I"m gonna be staying broke for a very very very very long time....

Jeff Kilgroe

01-18-2011, 08:49 PM

That doesn't sound right. Do you have the cards in the slots as per the config guide?

Slot1: GTX285
Slot2: GT120
Slot3: Red Rocket
Slot4: Decklink

You should have no issues getting half-res playback at 24fps in this configuration.

I've tried that order, no different than the order I have now, which is:

Slot1: GTX
Slot2: Red Rocket
Slot3: GT160
Slot4: Decklink

The reason I'm running with the Rocket and GT160 flipped from the recommendation is because when doing other transcodes with the Rocket, I was seeing a performance hit with it in the X4 slot. I have one other system with a Rocket, and while this is now becoming my "DaVinci system", I'll still need to do other things with the Rocket on it.

Half res playback seems to be just fine, but with intermittent stuttering. I suspect that there may be something going on so I'm doing a clean system install right now.

@Tom, that is going to be an insane configuration. I can't wait to see your report on how it performs.

Aleksandar Colancevski

01-19-2011, 12:18 AM

getting my video cards in tomorrow. holiday messed up the overnight delivery... software and rocket came in today, have my tower laying around ready for the final touches.

Slot:
1. quadro 4000
2. gt 120
3. rocket
4. decklink

I already miss my firmtek 4 port esata card though. having to drop back to fw800 hurts my heart. Running a 5 tb internal software raid, with 1tb samsung drives. getting about 427/mb sec write, 516 mb/sec read... Hopefully I can get to some r3d test tomorrow night.

Guess i'm gonna have to rip out the gt 120 to put in my esata card when i edit, and put back in the gt when i do grading... it's gonna be SUCH a pain. gonna save my pennies for a cubix. Thinking about getting the 6 slot one.

Slot 1: quadro 4000
2. cubix
3. sas card
4. rocket

inside the cubx
1. quadro
2. quadro
3. rocket
4. esata
5. decklink
6. TBD.
H
I wanna build a small shuttle PC to run a ultrascope in there too, dunno if I wanna do a high res touch screen display or a nice fat 24 inch dell. I also wanna upgrade my dreamcolor to an FSI ...

I"m gonna be staying broke for a very very very very long time....

I am very curious how your typical DaVinci project looks like.
Bussines wise I would spend money on DaVinci control panel which makes more impact on clients (I don't want to start about functionality in work you'll get with it) than on multiple GPUs.
Clients doesn't know what you have under the hood and Resolve does very good job caching proxies in the background.

Tom.Wong

01-24-2011, 11:17 AM

Well after a whole weekend of grading a feature, all r3d, old sensor and updating to redgamma2 and redcolor2. All I have to say is, this system runs VERY well.

even with a single quadro 4000, the rocket card makes all the difference. I'm running at half good debayer, and I had scenes with 10+ nodes on, and i'm still getting 24 fps. It's not until i start putting on blur's I see a hit in performance. I'm running with software scopes too. With several blurs the framerate drops down to 15-18 fps.

Power windows, hsl qualifier, primary after primary. It's eating up the r3d's no problem. I'm very happy with this set up, but wills till consider getting an expander just to get some slots back for a sas card and esata card. make my current quadro my gui card, that way it will give me cuda in adobe apps too, and just run dual quadro for acceleration.

It's not that I feel that I need more horsepower, but I need the extra slots to get some cards back and with the extra room I might as well get some more juice out of it.

key factors to keep in mind. You HAVE to be working from a fast raid. I did some tests on a normal raid 0 drive, and wasn't getting anywhere close to this kind of performance. The system can get a little unstable using a lot of trackers, so I would save often.

Jeff Kilgroe

01-25-2011, 07:05 AM

I'm getting similar performance here, now that I have fixed a few things.

I really need 2 more slots though, it's killin' me.

Tom.Wong

01-25-2011, 08:15 AM

yeh me too. not having an esata card is #1 right now, I'm feeling your pain on relying on a massive internal soft raid. It's just scary. So i think i'm gonna save up, and scale down from the 6 slot cubix to the 4 slot. 6 slot is almost 3x the price, i can't justify it other than just wanting to be selfish and greedy.

gonna put 2 quadros in the cubix
rocket and decklink

inside the tower will be quadro for gui, cubix host card, sas and esata card.

I really wanted an extra slot for another rocket one day for stereo work, but since i'm not GETTING any stereo work it's kind of stupid for me to spend all that money right now, and with the performance I"m getting just from 1 gpu acceleration as is, I might not even need that extra quadro. Time will tell. The cubix is very fairly priced though, a little over 2 grand for the 4 slot. I'd totally go for that one Jeff.

Tom.Wong

01-25-2011, 08:18 AM

btw I just wanna throw in a plug for Jeff. He's already a mod and his reputation is already there. but I bought his tangent wave, and needed it quick, and he made it happen. Great business man, and probably about 10x smarter than me when it comes to the tech. So be sure to bug this guy for tech questions whenever you can. ;)

Jeff Kilgroe

01-25-2011, 06:42 PM

Mark L. Pederson

01-25-2011, 06:45 PM

Thanks, Tom. :)

Anyway, check this out (http://www.twitvid.com/EO0HW) (before it disappears). We finally get to see a shot of JMR's 3-slot expander w/ 10 drive bays. Hopefully they will have it at NAB so I can really look at it. They have a larger model out now, but this 3-slot one is really appealing. Quadro + Rocket + RAID controller and 10 drives in one box. Hmmmm....

I SWEAR by JMR's quality. Their stuff is not cheap - but it's SOLID. HIGHLY recommend all things JMR. And I test everybody's stuff.

joe hedge

01-25-2011, 06:49 PM

Thanks, Tom. :)

Anyway, check this out (http://www.twitvid.com/EO0HW) (before it disappears). We finally get to see a shot of JMR's 3-slot expander w/ 10 drive bays. Hopefully they will have it at NAB so I can really look at it. They have a larger model out now, but this 3-slot one is really appealing. Quadro + Rocket + RAID controller and 10 drives in one box. Hmmmm....

Does look good...

"I'm sorry, if you could not take pictures" hahaha

Dustin Cross

01-25-2011, 06:56 PM

JMR's stuff is too expensive for me. I have heard only good things about them. Don't like the Mac Pro design of that new system.

My Cyclone 600-2707 is still working great and I really abuse it! I am sure it was never ment to be on location five days a week for the last several months. 5 PCIe slots and room for 15+ drives or 13 drives and HH LTO drive or 10 drives and full height LTO and Bluray Burner. All in a nice standard 4u case.

Dusty

Tom.Wong

01-25-2011, 07:49 PM

Thanks, Tom. :)

Anyway, check this out (http://www.twitvid.com/EO0HW) (before it disappears). We finally get to see a shot of JMR's 3-slot expander w/ 10 drive bays. Hopefully they will have it at NAB so I can really look at it. They have a larger model out now, but this 3-slot one is really appealing. Quadro + Rocket + RAID controller and 10 drives in one box. Hmmmm....

JMR is military grade. no doubt it's gonna be awesome. this would be perfect for a DIT set up rather than a da vinci set up. ...

I want 2.

damn my poverty!!!

Dustin Cross

01-26-2011, 06:12 AM

JMR makes solid stuff, but I have to disagree that this is perfect for DIT. DITs need stuff to be rack mountable. The design of Mac Pro cases it Terrible for rack mounting.

This would be better for Resolve because Resolve will most likely be in a post suite and not on set.

Dusty

Tom.Wong

01-26-2011, 06:19 AM

than honestly I think it's kind of crappy for both , ha! i feel like it's a few pci slots too short to really be resolve worthy. you'd want at least 2 gpu's and a rocket in there. in your chasis, you'd have gui video card, host card, decklink, and than a sas or esata card. but you can't have the last 2, and if you want to put in a second rocket in there for stereo work, you're just plain out of room. if they just built this with one slot more it would be good. I think 4 slots for expansion is a good number for resolve.

and JMR already makes rack mountable expansion chasis with 16 bay raid. but as you said they probably cost several times more if you went the cyclone route.