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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

GPU Cards for MacPro ATI vs. NVIDIA

Jarek Zabczynski

Jarek Zabczynski

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I'm pretty sold on getting Resolve for OSX. I'll probably be getting the next MacPro that comes out...hopefully...

Traditionally I've always gotten the best ATI card available. I've been reading that Resolve requires an NVIDIA card to work. Is that still the case?

I've also read that the latest NVIDIA cards don't play nice with After Effects, which I rely pretty heavily on.

I will likely be getting a Rocket card at some point as well, maybe not right away though.

I'm a little lost as to what sort of card configuration I should be looking at for my future MacPro. I've also never ran more than one GPU card so that confuses me as well.

Appreciate the advice.
 
Hey Jarek,

As far as Resolve goes you'll be able to use it on OS X or Windows with the same license. Resolve is designed to run on a dedicated GPU. So, you should have a graphics card for the GUI and an additional Nvidia CUDA GPU. There is a comprehensive setup guide on the blackmagic website.

You can build an OS X based Resolve using a single ATI card as Resolve on OS X now supports Open CL processing. However, due to the limited processing power frame rates and some processing capabilities are reduced. For instance the noise reduction node is not available on a non-CUDA based system. Note, that if you build a CUDA based Resolve you can use up to 3 GPU's currently (via an expansion chassis).

For a basic system that can do HD grading in realtime you will need a dual processor Mac Pro Westmere or Nehalem (or Windows system) with 24GB of RAM, an Nvidia CUDa GPU (GTX 285, 470, Q 4000, etc...) and fast storage via softraid, SAS, or FC.

For sure go to the BMD website and also the fantastic creative cow Davinci forum. I could go on and on for hours about building the resolve, but it's late and a bit off topic for the Reduser forum.

You should also seriously consider building a Windows based Resolve as well. I know, I know... I am a hardcore mac guy, but I'm an even more hardcore post guy.... simply, there are many more hardware options available if you go Windows Resolve. I actually bought my first PC... and HP z400 to try it out (this is only a single processor system, but I got a fantastic deal on it 3.06 GHZ for just about 1k). Anyhow, you have options.

Resolve is fantastic and is the absolute best deal for the money -- even if you are just converting files with it. It is a top notch color grading system and now supports multi-layer time line.

Have fun!

Jonathon
 
Hi Jarek, please visit the BMD web site, Resolve support... I have a config guide there which explains it all.

You need a Nvidia CUDA card if you want any real processing performance but you can use the ATI card for the UI GPU which should play well with AE.

For years now Resolve has been using multiple GPUs for image processing and once you give the recommended config a try you will see why its worth it.
Peter
 
Will take a look. My initial thoughts were to have a good ATI card for my system and then get an external box and throw a couple NVIDIA cards in there. There are some Thunderbolt options that might work. Would NVIDIA cards be driving any displays? I am under the assumption they are just there as a sort of extra processing. Or would I be monitoring out of those, or some sort of BM card like Intensity?

I understand the PC route, but I just can't stomach doing that. I like the OSX environment too much and keeping my other NLE and VFX software on the same platform makes the most sense.

Appreciate the input!
 
Nice config guide, makes much more sense now.

The 3xNVIDIA cards plus Rocket in the Cubix chassis looks pretty slick.

I suppose if we get Thunderbolt options on the next MacPro we'll have more choices. Would be great if I didn't need a slot for expansion so I could keep the Rocket in the tower.

Was also looking into the Pegasus RAID for storage.
 
Hi, Thunderbolt in its current version is ideal for video I/O and we offer solutions for exactly that but its currently a x4 bandwidth so not idea for GPU and certainly not for the Display GPU.
Peter
 
Peter, do you have any plans to make a version of the Ultrastudio 3D with a built in GPU? That way the output of the GPU could be sent directly to the SDI output, without bus bandwidth being an issue.
 
Hi, while as policy we don't discuss futures, I can say this idea doesn't fit into Resolves architecture... after the GPU processing the images are sent to the UI, then to the SDI out. Besides, we don't make GPU's.
Peter
 
So why is Resolve so dependent on NVIDIA? Do they have a deal or something? You would think they would optimize the software for both major gpu vendors.
 
Jarek Zabczynski said:
So why is Resolve so dependent on NVIDIA? Do they have a deal or something? You would think they would optimize the software for both major gpu vendors.
Click to expand...

NVIDIA were early GPU Compute pioneers, the first CUDA SDK hit software devs in early 2007. OpenCL followed nearly two years later - massive generational gap in this industry. I don't understand anything about software programming but I have read and heard on many an occasion that OpenCL has always been playing catch-up to CUDA. Microsoft's DirectCompute has been embraced in some Windows apps, but being Windows exclusive it is not suitable for multi-platform software. In software that do extensively support OpenCL (e.g. Vegas Pro) both NVIDIA and AMD GPUs and are utilized across many OS platforms (though Windows performance is always best, due to better drivers). However, AMD outperforms NVIDIA by significant margins in some OpenCL apps, which could be another reason why NVIDIA has continued marketing CUDA aggressively till recently.

The good news is that NVIDIA has open sourced CUDA, so it may be supported on AMD and Intel GPUs soon. If not officially at least by third parties. However, the future is heterogeneous computing (CPU and GPU working together) and CUDA and OpenCL will soon be obsolete in their current state. That's why Microsoft announced C++ AMP and NVIDIA is moving to OpenACC, leaving CUDA behind (and open sourcing it).
 
NVidia developed a programing language called CUDA which allows developers to take advantage of the processing power of the GPU without all the headaches (and limitations) of OpenGL. Naturally it only works with NVidia cards. Resolve needs a lot of computational power, not just for graphics (think motion tracker) using CUDA allows for that lovely functionality.
 
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