Vegas 11 and CUDA acceleration

[Ivan Kovax]

Hey Guys,

I am currently editing a 3D project in Vegas and my computer is really struggling to play back in anaglyph. It is a 1080p project.

I have a fast i7, with nVidia gtx285 video card and 18gb ram.

Interestingly it seems that in the menu options gpu acceleration is not available, but however during export qhen i click the test gpu button, it mentions cuda is available.

How can I improve my settings so as to avoid this issue, or is it simply a video card/ hardware issue?

Many thanks.

Ciao from Tokyo,
Ivan

[Paul Russell]

Have you tried setting the monitor to preview/ quarter size?
I'm using V11 and HD in the Cineform codec is ok, but I also have a fast Raid on the machine.

I've noticed that render times using cuda are now a lot faster than Vegas 10

[Ivan Kovax]

Paul,

Thanks for the response. Yes I have tried setting to preview 1/4... also draft 1/4... it still seems to be skipping.

I also have a fast raid array... I am mostly confused as to why my gtx285 doesn't show up as an option in preferences for graphical acceleration ...

Cheers,

Ivan

[Paul Russell]

what codec are you using?

A GTX285 isn't that fast. Maybe you need a Quadra

[Jeff Kilgroe]

GPU acceleration in Vegas 11 UI and NLE area is actually OpenCL, not CUDA. Unless I'm missing something.

GTX285 should provide a noticeable boost. It's not the latest and greatest, but still respectable. About on par with a Quadro 4000 or some of the lower-end GTX4xx models. The GTX480 and GTX580 are the ideal cards to have at the moment. Due to the OpenCL support, the latest ATI cards will also provide acceleration.

I haven't got my mitts on Vegas 11 yet. I plan to give it a test run real soon...

[Ivan Kovax]

Thanks Jeff,

I believe you are correct. I have read on documentation it is open CL, then I met the sony rep yesterday and he told me Open GL... it is weird though because before rendering it still recognises CUDA... i think i will be upgrading to either 480 or 580 soon.

Have you come across any heat issues with those? And how do they perform under an S3D work environment?

Cheer,

Ivan

[Ivan Kovax]

what codec are you using?

A GTX285 isn't that fast. Maybe you need a Quadra

It is an MTS file with 2 channels of L and R eye contained within.

I know they are not the most easily decoded files for editing but one would assume that propriety sony products would work with each other...

[Subhadip Sen]

That is because GTX 285 is Compute Capability 1.3. The vanilla Vegas Pro 11 requires Compute Capability 2.0 for GPU accelerated video processing, which premiered with the Fermi achitecture, i.e. GeForce 400. However, you can upgrade to 285.62 drivers and build 425 and that allows partial GPU acceleration on older GPUs.

The catch is that these older cards might be slower in some situations than software only - Sony Creative only enabled support based on demand, the plan was to support CC1.3 and above only. You can turn off GPU accelerated video processing easily in the Preferences > Video tab and see what works best. Do consider upgrading to a modern GPU - AMD Radeon HD 6870 seems to be hands down the price/performance benchmark. You can get one for well under $200.

GPU accelerated video processing is very extensive in Vegas Pro 11 - much more so than Premiere Pro CS5.5. I have seen my GPU usage hit 85%. Just about everything is GPU accelerated too. When you apply filters, some of the performance gains during playback are startling. We are talking 3 fps slideshows to real-time.

Do note that the encoding process can also be done using CUDA (of course, OpenCL remains an option). That is where you are seeing "CUDA is available". So far, only MainConcept AVC, Sony AVC and XDCAM-EX support GPU Accelerated encoding, I think.