SneakPeek Adobe Mercury Playback Engine Part 1 of 2

[flyguyga321]

Hi, You have such great videos! I'm kinda on a budget, what is the best cheap video card for Premiere Pro CS5?

[dhelmly]

If you can still find a GTX285 card for a cheap price . It should be under 300.00. The new Geforce 470 is the replacement for that card and runs a little more (better card)

[shodan5000]

Actually you can use several Nvidia cards and long as they're CUDA enabled and use at least 796 meg of at least DDR3 RAM. Adobe and Nvidia just want you to buy the most expensive ones. Just do a little search on CS5 video card hack. Shame on you Adobe and Nvidia.

[dhelmly]

Yes - we made it easy - BUT,when you alter that file, your future Adobe updates could fail to take, so just remember to save your old txt file. In the case of newer cards like FERMI, we needed to add additional code to support features on these cards - all of these families of cards use different processors and we need to change the Mercury code to support them. People using the newer 470 will not see much benefit until we release the next update. Just be careful when you change things ;)

[rdavid7950]

How much of a difference will there be between the various nvidia cards? i assume the more expensive will perform much better?

[tomyloveu]

i am confused on one thing... u showed u had quad core processor it 4core if u had 2 processor 8 core... but why it showing 16 TH... i know i7 got 4 core and and HT thats show 8TH but how u got 16TH? i am confused any anyone help me? on this

[dhelmly]

Tomy - some of the newer Intel Dual Quad Core Extremes support Hyperthreading (in the Bios) which will double the logical cores. Also - Mercury works in 2 modes: Software (CPU) and Hardware Assist (CPU+GPU). In many cases Mercury software (CPU) mode will be all you need to do your editing in real time. Intel Core i7 are excellent and do a great job. You can switch Mercury from software mode to Hardware mode fairly easily.

[tomyloveu]

thank you for that info now i get it.. i was confused and yes mercury playback engine is cool... just waiting for... march 26th for gtx 480 to come out... coz that will boost this software more 2x as far i read... anyways thx for ur reply and to clear me :)

[Croatch]

I'm getting a Nvidia GTS 240 (OEM) card. It is CUDA enabled. Will this run the Mercury playback engine, or only the Quadro series?

Thanks

[dhelmly]

Only the Geforce GTX 285 or the Quadro FX3800,4800,5800,CX.

[gabrielrosen]

Only those cards supporting CS5 Cuda ?

there are so many CUDA cards from nvidia, that's unfair.

[tomaslindberg]

That clip is said to show how smooth it plays but the clip isn´t playing in realtime, rather bad encoded, has someone else noticed this ?

[dhelmly]

It plays in realtime. The issue you are seeing is the 15FPS screen capture program.

[tomaslindberg]

I am doing this myself, the tech is to convert it from the capture speed to publishing speed

[dhelmly]

great tip. I normally capture on OSX @ 30FPS but had a lot people who wanted to see it on WIn7 64.

[tomaslindberg]

actually I just called you and spoke to someone named Sal who was said to be in charge for your websites, when I said that i was able to help, he hang up on me ...

[SkatePTG]

Hi Dave, can You tell me what type of workstation will be better to build for CS5 ? Option 1 will be the 2 x Xeon with one GTX 285 card , and the option 2 will be one Xeon but two GTX 285 in SLI. In first I have more processing power, in the secound more g card support. . What will You recommend? What wil be the best config for the new engine? Thanks in advice, and thumbs up for the video work in adobe.

[pdelvecchio814]

Hey Dave, how's everything. Which card will give the best performance? I'm not sure if the FX5800 or the CX will work best.

Thanks!

[dawittevaaknie]

@dhelmly: As a mac user I would like to know the difference in performance between the GTX285 and FX4800 with CS5. Do you feel the difference in speed justifies spending $1000 more on the FX4800? What is the performance difference between these cards when editing red footage, and in the demo are you doing a full debayer on the RED footage? Thank you for responding!

[dhelmly]

We are still doing heavy testing and tweaking (everyday) The GTX285 works great on OSX and is a great value. The FX4800 can do more layers but for most people the 285 will be fine. You will still need to adjust the Fractional resolution(Debayer) to your system specs.

[dawittevaaknie]

Thank you for your response, it think it is really great of you to take the time to answer our questions. One last question though, will I need a FX4800 with a 2009 8 core mac and 8gb of ram to do a full debayer on the fly or will the GTX285 suffice. (I am not too technical so bare with me if you already answer the question in the previous post) Thanks again!!

[dhelmly]

Why do you need a full debayer?As of today, you can only use a RED Rocket to get a 1:1 preview. We are still tweaking performance and will continue to do so until it's released. We have lots of things planned for RED. #1 on most peoples list is getting some sort SDI output for dumping to digital tape. - I would recommend 16GB RAM when Mercury ships. It gives you a bit more headroom.

[wilqfilmy]

2:55 - it's not smooth!

[dhelmly]

Sorry - the PC capture program I use only captures at 15 frames per second. Keep in mind that the computer is playback and doing a screen capture at the same time. I usually use the Mac to demo because it captures at 30 FPS. I had a lot of Windows users asking me to demo on Win 7 64.

[timbrobot]

Hi Dave, I just updated to Quadro FX 1800 cards - will those be useful with the Mercury engine? Not as many cores as the 4800, but still, it's Quadro...

[dhelmly]

Not much performance gain on those cards. Mercury will currently only support the cards mentioned.( GTX285, CX, FX4800, FX5800) We did test other cards like the 1800 and the difference in CUDA performance was night and day.

[timbrobot]

Ah I see. Well hopefully by the time Mercury launches we will upgrade again. Have you tested with Tesla cards like the c870? Will it make use of those? Thanks again, great videos!

[dhelmly]

Tim, we did add support for the FX3800 today

[formattester6]

ive been using FCP since v3.0. im really dissapointed with the current performce on with Studio 3 and SL. no apparent bump in performance whatsoever. sad! my computer is decked out, 2.93ghz 8core, 16gig, 4870 but yet no performance boost from prior 8 core 3.0ghz fully loaded. i will go to PP with Mercury if it delivers in the real world for sure. looks like science fiction compared to what FCP is doing right now. thanks for this video. will Mercury tech work on a Mac as well?

[dhelmly]

Yes - we will support OSX 10.6 as well. I'm currently testing it with a FX4800 card. The GeForce GTX285 will also work.

[formattester6]

great, thanks for the reply!

[szigetip77]

Am I right to think that the config of the PC you're running this is far from the average? What do you have like 24GB of RAM? :) What about CPU i7? I'd be glad if I could handle 2 AVCHD sources :)

[dhelmly]

It really has nothing to do with the RAM - It's all GPU running in the 64 bit OS. I do recommend 8 GB or more so you can jump around to other apps without taking a hit to virtual ram. Corei7 Rocks - so you'll do fine, Remember, the key is getting the right nVIdia card. GeForce GTX285, CX, FX4800, or FX5800 for now,More support as newer nvidia cards are released.