graphics cards for better perfomance in Cine-x and FCP 7

[Michael Notar]

running a mac pro v5.1, 8 core, just started playing with scarlet footage. i transcode to quicktime/pro res in cine-x and edit in final cut pro 7 and grade in color.

are there any third party graphics cards that will boost my performance and whats a ball park price on each. i just have the stock card in it now, ati 5770. i am running 2 20in apple cinema displays.

my goal is to increase transcoding time (not sure if red rocket is the only option for increased speed) and also performance in final cut. cant afford the RR. i want faster, but not fastest. dont do enough work, not as big of a deal. i can wait a few extra seconds or a minute to save a few thousand.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

RED Rocket is really the only answer here. GPU speed has little impact on Redcine-X as all the heavy lifting is done on the CPUs (decoding the wavelet compression) and that's what the Rocket assists with. FCP 7 doesn't take advantage of graphics cards / GPUs for any acceleration. FCPX, Adobe Premiere Pro and other more current software uses GPU acceleration. The 5770 card you have is fine for the apps you're running, but if you make a shift to Adobe, you would want a newer model nVidia card since Adobe makes use of nVidia's CUDA system for the acceleration.

Color does use some GPU acceleration for color LUT application and a few minor things. But it hasn't been updated in quite some time. Your video card is not a bottleneck there and moving to a better one isn't going to speed up Color.


Save your money, see what comes out at NAB. I would recommend downloading Premiere CS6 and giving it a try once it releases and you can do that. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at how well it works with R3D files without a Rocket. Transcodes from full quality R3D are still hampered without a Rocket, but it makes decent use of all your CPU cores for playback and transcoding. And you don't have to do those transcodes until further along in the edit process or even at the very end, meaning you spend less time by transcoding less, since you can directly edit at 1/8 or 1/4 resolution or so (just a guesstimate, not knowing if you're talking about EPIC/SCARLET or RED One footage and other system specs). A good nVidia/CUDA graphics card won't accelerate R3D processing, but it will accelerate other performance aspects of what happens in Premiere -- layers effects, transitions, any FX that are labeled as being GPU accelerated, scaling and rotations...

You may want to look into upgrading your RAM and/or your storage to be larger/faster. Those are most often the largest bottlenecks people have in their systems.

[John Bannister]

Hey Michael, for what it's worth, I am using the new ATI 7970 and love it. I had the 5850, but the 7970 kills it and was designed with 4 k footage in mind. Cost about 580.00.

[stu aull]

With apologies if this jacks the thread - (?)
Jeff I have 14GB of RAM in my MacPro 12core (FCP7) - what additional amount of RAM would benefit RCX processing, if any?

Stu Aull
Alaska

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Stu, already replied to your post in the other thread, but this helps knowing that you have the 14GB. It's an odd amount and is probably keeping your system from running its memory at full speed.

The '09/'10 Mac Pro system uses a triple-channel memory arrangement, so it's a little confusing for them to have 8 memory slots in there (4 if it's only a single processor). But it's a design carry-over from the previous models... Anyway, You get the highest capacity by filling all the slots and you get the best performance by filling the first three slots on each of your memory boards with identically spec'd modules.

Your Mac Pro uses DDR3 ECC RDIMM modules at 1333MHz. Also known as PC3-10600 Registered (Buffered) ECC. Your best configuration is probably 24 or 48 GB capacity, via 6 modules. 6 x 8GB for 48GB should run about $550 give or take right now, depending on where you buy and which ones. Look at timings or latency numbers for the RAM. This is refereed to as the CAS Latency number. Ideally, 9 is a good value here. Higher numbers make for slower RAM. You can shop around with different vendors, but there's always RAM from OWC (macsales.com), which is good stuff and they have great support. Their prices are typically a bit higher than the more mainstream PC vendors like NewEgg, but still competitive.

How much RAM depends on what all you do with your system. IMO, for REDCINE-X, I think 24GB is a good amount. More is good if you want to cache more footage for longer uninterrupted playback intervals or more area you can scrub back and forth within. So on that note, 48GB is better for a lot of people. Beyond that, you have to make performance sacrifices unless you make the jump all the way to 96GB using 16GB (and super expensive) modules.

For FCP7, it's still a 32bit app and throwing more RAM it it won't help. It can only use a maximum of one 4GB allocation and technically only 2GB out of that since it exists within a single CPU process.



As for the graphics card, there's not much that can be done there. John Bannister mentions above that he's using an ATI 7970. That's not an officially supported card for the Mac. But moving to a faster video card can have benefits at times. The display itself will respond faster, video can playback with less tearing, windows move smoother... But unless the software itself attempts to use GPU functionality in the form of OpenCL, CUDA or OpenGL to accelerate functions within your application, you don't gain any significant performance boost. We also get back to the question of which card is the right one. Many applications are still locking themselves into nVidia's proprietary CUDA acceleration, so that cuts out a lot of potential choices right there if you need to accelerate the Adobe apps, for example.

[Michael Notar]

thanks lots of info there! i am currently transcoding 22 4k clips, 60 gb worth in Cine-x, how ever with all this activity i am suprised at how little of the processor and memory is being used... why is this..

i am right to say the red rocket is not just a graphics card, it seems like additional computing power, another smaller computer core being added to a machine... or perhaps its a really beefy GPU that software is using like a CPU.

in stead of a RR, how about upgrading to a machine with more cores... i am already runing a 2010 mac pro 8x 2.4ghtz with 16gb ram, perhaps the 12 core machines are a super nessessity for 4k footage...?

is it possible to hook up several mac pro's together for more power on demand, since the old one's are worth that much...

[stu aull]

Stu, already replied to your post in the other thread, but this helps knowing that you have the 14GB. It's an odd amount and is probably keeping your system from running its memory at full speed.



Jeff - DOUBLE thanks then! (and apologies for making you double up)
:)
Always a pleasure to read your takes on this black-art. I will pursue the extra Gigs as suggested. My thanks!!!!!!

Stu Aull
Alaska

[Nick Pasquariello]

If you are talking about JUST transcoding your footage from R3D to ProRes or another flavor, then Red Rocket, really, is the only way to increase your speed. As in, renders will take about 1/8 or even 1/12 of what they took without the rocket. I say this from personally testing the same clips on equivalent machines; one with a Rocket, one without.

There is no other solution.

However, a lot of software packages are starting to take advantage of CUDA (NVidia) and even the ATI version (forget what it's called). My 2010 Mac Laptop can playback Red Raw footage in Premiere CS5.5 at 1/8 resolution.

Basically, I'm restating a few of the things that Kilgroe said, because, really, there is no shortcut. You either get a Red Rocket, or you change workflows (as in, use Premiere instead of FCP7). Or you just deal with the render times. Those are the options, currently.