New MacPro predictions? Hopes? Fears?

[Misha Engel]

I don't know how you can say that on RedUser when the new Red SDK only supports additional GPU functionality on Nvidia GPUs due to it's Cuda exclusivity...

You still have to process the de-bayer, OpenFX effects and TNR, no matter if you use CPU or GPU .R3D decoding.
As long as your not decode limited, the other limits start to kick in: De-bayer, OpenFX, TNR, etc..

In Resolve (full-res premium) with 8k .R3D 9:1 25 fps, with Basic + 4 Power Window + 3 OpenFX + TNR (CPU is fast enough to decode the R3D in realtime i9-7960 and up or TR1950 and up)

Radeon VII: $700/15fps ~ $ 47/fps
RTX Titan X: $2500/10fps ~ $ 250/fps
Quadro RTX 5000: $2300/8fps ~ $ 287/fps

For 8k 7:1 25fps you'll need at least a 16core 4.1 GHz cpu to decode in realtime at the moment (overclocked tr2950x or i9-7960x and up).
For 8k 5:1 25fps you'll need at least a 16core 4.5 GHz cpu to decode in realtime at the moment (i9-7960x and up).

Looking forward to the R9-Ryzen series of cpu's

[Misha Engel]

Yes... BUT it flips the other way in Resolve when using the builds supporting the Nvidia R3D enhancements. The thing is, AMD could also work with RED to accomplish much the same thing. But as was mentioned above, AMD just isn’t at that stage yet in terms of integrating so closely with developers. GPU hardware has never been where AMD falls short, it’s always been their software and developer support. Their drivers/ software have improved dramatically as of late.

Back on the Apple thing above... Apple could decide to offer Nvidia GPUs with the Mac Pro, or even an open GPU setup where we could use off the shelf GPUs. At that point we would see Nvidia bring CUDA back current on the Mac platform.

What are those Nvidia R3D enhancements?

Apple can do whatever they want and at the moment they don't support NVidia in their latest OS (Radeon VII is supported in 10.15 beta).

[M Most]

What are those Nvidia R3D enhancements?

Decompression and debayer on the GPU. Using even a 1080Ti, each GPU gets you about 15fps of performance at full debayer, and they scale almost linearly. So by putting 2 of them into a "cheap" PC (the CPU almost doesn't matter) you can get better than real time performance from Red 8K files at full debayer, if that's important to you.

Apple can do whatever they want and at the moment they don't support NVidia in their latest OS (Radeon VII is supported in 10.15 beta).

Which is why the Mac, at this point in time, is a really shitty platform for Red if you want full debayer or close to it. It's fine for a lot of things, but processing Red files at high quality isn't one of them. The sad part is that this could be instantly addressed if Apple wanted to.

[Misha Engel]

Decompression and debayer on the GPU. Using even a 1080Ti, each GPU gets you about 15fps of performance at full debayer, and they scale almost linearly. So by putting 2 of them into a "cheap" PC (the CPU almost doesn't matter) you can get better than real time performance from Red 8K files at full debayer, if that's important to you.

AMD took another route:
(for decoding)1x R9-38xx ~ $ 500..600 ~125..135Watt(real) + (for de-bayer and effects) 1 Radeon VII $700 ~300 Watt(real) ~ $ 1,300 and ~ 435 Watt for Full-Res Premium 8k 5:1 25 fps playback in realtime.

NVidia + Intel route:
CPU i9-9900k ~$ 500 ~ 135 Watt(real) + (for decoding, de-bayering and effects) 1 GTX2080ti $1,200 280 Watt(real) ~ $ 1,700 and ~ 415 Watt for Full-Res Premium 8k 5:1 25 fps playback in realtime.

I don't know when the NLE's will support the NVidia decoding, the estimates for the R9-38xx are 7/7/2019.

Which is why the Mac, at this point in time, is a really shitty platform for Red if you want full debayer or close to it. It's fine for a lot of things, but processing Red files at high quality isn't one of them. The sad part is that this could be instantly addressed if Apple wanted to.

Apple's current hardware is kind of weak for realtime editing with 8K at the moment, we will have to wait an see what they come up with. In the meantime Linux and Windows 10 works fine with almost every kind of computer hardware.

[M Most]

AMD took another route:
(for decoding)1x R9-38xx ~ $ 500..600 ~125..135Watt(real) + (for de-bayer and effects) 1 Radeon VII $700 ~300 Watt(real) ~ $ 1,300 and ~ 435 Watt for Full-Res Premium 8k 5:1 25 fps playback in realtime.

NVidia + Intel route:
CPU i9-9900k ~$ 500 ~ 135 Watt(real) + (for decoding, de-bayering and effects) 1 GTX2080ti $1,200 280 Watt(real) ~ $ 1,700 and ~ 415 Watt for Full-Res Premium 8k 5:1 25 fps playback in realtime.

You're missing my point. Red has embraced Cuda and has not to this point given any solid indication if and when they will support other graphics frameworks. So AMD doing things based on a brute force approach to current file formats and the current Red SDK is a bit counter to what Red themselves are doing, and will by definition not be as effective or scalable going forward. One can come up with whatever financial justification one wants, but that is the fact. Nvidia is supported directly by Red and other approaches are not, at least to this point in time.

Apple's current hardware is kind of weak for realtime editing with 8K at the moment, we will have to wait an see what they come up with. In the meantime Linux and Windows 10 works fine with almost every kind of computer hardware.

That is true, but the title of this thread is "New MacPro predictions? Hopes? Fears?.", not "Mac vs. PC." So, while self evident, use of other OS's is rather irrelevant to this discussion...

[PatrickFaith]

I really like my AMD CPU, but if it doesn't come with nvidia rtx it's a non-starter for me. Waited way to long for it to have anything questionable as a pro system. Also if there is any cpu/GPU heat throttling because of design look over functionality, then it's just joke time.

[Blair S. Paulsen]

(snip) The sad part is that this could be instantly addressed if Apple wanted to.

Ding, ding, ding. Full engagement between Apple and nVidia could yield "right sized" solutions for many in our industry. Machine rooms full of servers (or cloud compute resources) are the obvious path for shops needing to cycle through many TBs of assets, render out long form with TNR/composites/etc. There are also plenty of folks for whom a hot laptop or iMacPro with fast storage over TB3 is all they need.

What a lot of RedUsers would like is an under $10K solution that eats R3Ds for lunch, doesn't throttle unless you pound on it and can run most crucial applications well. For some of us, a Macintosh with nVidia GPU(s) that doesn't make a lot of noise or heat would be an excellent solution. Will Apple deliver? Are there enough of us for them to care?

Cheers - #19

[Dermot Shane]

The ACES DCTL set has a complex and multi nested structure, therefore exceeding the boundaries of what OpenCL and Metal can process. This also applies to GPU kernels in the OFX plugins. Only CUDA and C (for CPU processing) can handle such a structure.

simply too limiting to have only a choice of Metal or CL in 2019

[PatrickFaith]

Ding, ding, ding. Full engagement between Apple and nVidia could yield "right sized" solutions for many in our industry. Machine rooms full of servers (or cloud compute resources) are the obvious path for shops needing to cycle through many TBs of assets, render out long form with TNR/composites/etc. There are also plenty of folks for whom a hot laptop or iMacPro with fast storage over TB3 is all they need.

What a lot of RedUsers would like is an under $10K solution that eats R3Ds for lunch, doesn't throttle unless you pound on it and can run most crucial applications well. For some of us, a Macintosh with nVidia GPU(s) that doesn't make a lot of noise or heat would be an excellent solution. Will Apple deliver? Are there enough of us for them to care?

Cheers - #19

Ding^4. Also for a long time it was just the colorist needing the serious gpu, then the raw ingest people as people are dropping the rocket cards ... now editors on raw ... now autodesk is moving their serious rendering to the gpu (is still in beta).

Along with the compositing software starting to use the gpu more, the entire post side needs nvidia gpu's. So I "hope" Apple is doing their research on the number of professionals that need the nvidia gpu. Also as more people use tensorflow, which right now is a huge amount of people outside of post, tensorflow really needs nvidia gpu for those doing image convolution - which I think will start to impact the industry late 2020. Here's a little video on autodesk moving it's rendering over to gpu as an example of most of production is starting to require serious gpu power: https://lesterbanks.com/2019/03/hands-on-arnold-gpu/

I have been moving to Linux, but man it's a pain in the butt running a small Linux post shop without a dedicated Linux guru - which isn't needed for a Mac shop.

[Michael Tiemann]

I have been moving to Linux, but man it's a pain in the butt running a small Linux post shop without a dedicated Linux guru - which isn't needed for a Mac shop.

You don't need a special guru for a Mac shop becuase Misha Engle will tell you FOR FREE how much Apple sucks.