Cs5 and hardware

[Elsie N]

For those who are familiar with or have been testing the Adobe Mercury Engine in CS5: what is the minimum setup vis a vis CPU, GPU, HDDs and display monitor will be required to get, if not the full benefit, at least a good performance from the App in a RED workflow? We're talking affordability here as well.

 

[Oinkfu]

I'd be interested in a good answer to this...

 

[Uli Plank]

I don't think they can answer, there are NDAs. Wait for April 12th…

 

[Amir Stone]

Correct, we can't give details yet but I can give you generic advice (mostly about AE).

AE and Pr are now 64bit only. Thus, you MUST have a 64 bit OS. Given the nature of the upgrade, now AE can use all the ram on your system, so the most valuable asset to AE is RAM. The second thing you might want to consider as well is multiprocessing, as it is much improved. But each core must have enough RAM to support it (so don't get more cores before you get more RAM).

In general, 64 bit OS required. Get more ram first, then get more cores. Both will pay off more so and be utilized more effectively in CS5. Also, Pr will benefit from a fast video card. But I wouldn't buy one until the specs come out. http://CS5.org?p=594

I'll see if the Pr guys want to chime in.

Hope this helps.

Amir Stone,
Adobe After Effects Development

 

[Elsie N]

Correct, we can't give details yet but I can give you generic advice (mostly about AE).

AE and Pr are now 64bit only. Thus, you MUST have a 64 bit OS. Given the nature of the upgrade, now AE can use all the ram on your system, so the most valuable asset to AE is RAM. The second thing you might want to consider as well is multiprocessing, as it is much improved. But each core must have enough RAM to support it (so don't get more cores before you get more RAM).

In general, 64 bit OS required. Get more ram first, then get more cores. Both will pay off more so and be utilized more effectively in CS5. Also, Pr will benefit from a fast video card. But I wouldn't buy one until the specs come out. http://CS5.org?p=594

I'll see if the Pr guys want to chime in.

Hope this helps.

Amir Stone,
Adobe After Effects Development

Thanks Amir, this does add to the knowledge base and if I read this correctly, AE will be more CPU dependent and PP will be helped more by GPU? If so, then it looks like we can't get by with a computer that is either more loaded to the GPU side or the CPU side if we want to use both programs? I guess it's a little early to figure where the "sweet spot" is but this helps.

Additional: thanks for the link. Very useful in a general sort of way.

 

[Tom.Wong]

keep in mind of this, CPU, and GPU can always be upgraded independent of each other. you'll hit more limitations in motherboard issues with CPU more than u would a GPU, and both drop in price very often.

but simply put ur pretty much in the ballpark of, which do u use more? PP, or AE?

as said, AE, go Ram, processor, GPU

PP, GPU, processor/ram.

 

[Eren Ozkural]

Finally...the days of me yelling render faster damnit! And seeing that only 48% of my RAM is being used up should be over soon.

Thanks for the update Amir. I know this isn't specifically the thread for this but since we have your ear...could you get someone to confirm/deny that Media Encoder is substantially more stable in CS5? I know you can't comment but just a word or two to confirm/deny that any substantial work has been done on media encoder would be more than welcome.

Thanks.

 

[Elsie N]

but simply put ur pretty much in the ballpark of, which do u use more? PP, or AE?

as said, AE, go Ram, processor, GPU

PP, GPU, processor/ram.

Thanks Tom, this helps in forming an idea of what will be needed. Almost sounds like one could get by pretty well with and AMD unit for PP, as long as you had a compatible GPU. I think I read where the PCI-E bus use by AMD allows more lane bandwidth which would be more important for GPU use, but of course, Intel is the way to go for CPU intensive apps. Hope Adobe has plans for compatibility with the Toshiba Spurs engine. That thing sounds like a very inexpensive Super computer.

 

[Tom.Wong]

i remember seeing some tests with mercury pro playback engine on only a mid grade nvidia card, and the results were amazing. i think you'd be surprised how LITTLE editing really takes advantage of your video card. just having the playback engine alone with even a DECENT recommended video card will probably push your system to do things you never thought possible.

no my question is, will mercury playback take advantage of SLI, and tri SLI?

...

 

[Elsie N]

Yikes! tri SLI? That would be almost instantaneous! A world with nothing to gripe about... I don't want to live in such a world.

 

[Tom.Wong]

http://www.nvidia.com/object/tesla_computing_solutions.html

GPU farm much?

 

[Elsie N]

http://www.nvidia.com/object/tesla_computing_solutions.html

GPU farm much?

It's like tomorrow is here already!